Terminal World [Hardcover]

I have to say that I strongly disagree with the rather indifferent reviews of this book posted so far. I have read all of Reynolds' books to date and this makes a strong claim to be his best.

For starters, and almost incidentally, it is the best steampunk novel I have read. Reynolds produces a plausible plot device for examining a society trapped at a particular technological point, and his steam or dieselpunk technology is grittily plausible and realistic, not a series of fashion accessories or nostalgic anachronisms, as is all too common in this genre.

Secondly, this book requires a bit of intellectual effort on the part of the reader. The reader is required to use some imagination and to draw inferences and make conclusions from tiny nuggets of fact dropped into the characters' conversations. The book contains no "infodumps". The true nature of Spearpoint is not spelled out directly, even at the end of the novel. An observant reader will fairly quickly come to a huge revelation about the nature of Spearpoint's world which never becomes remotely obvious to any of the characters involved. One particularly ironic point is the existence of a quasi-religious "Testament", which most of the characters dismiss as mythological, but the more objective viewpoint of the reader can see is largely historical fact about the planet's history.

There are also some excellent action scenes, particularly a desperate airship assault on the city in the face of progressive technological failures, reducing the crew from machine guns and diesel engines to cutlasses and crossbows in the space of ten minutes. The characters are excellent, particularly a foul mouthed bodyguard heroine.

If you like your SF one-dimensional and spoon fed to you as easily digestible gloop, this book probably isn't for you. If you are willing to use your intellect and your imagination to fill in the tantalising gaps left by the author you will be amply rewarded.

Short version:
Sub-par and seemingly hurried Alastair Reynolds effort. Avoid this one, and go for one of his earlier books instead.

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Long version:
Over the years I have picked up five or six books by Alastair Reynolds. While I can't say that they inspired in me an irresistible urge to reread them, I still recall them as tight and reasonably well crafted. I basically found it easy enough to give the Visa card a whirl in his direction when I had a hankering for science fiction. This easygoing relationship has been given a nasty knock by the book currently under review. It has many hallmarks of a stopgap novel, and Reynold's heart does not seem to be in it.

I am always suspicious of the picaresque format where the protagonist is constantly on the road, with no clear aim in sight. The plot is reduced to a string of events where idea shards sitting in a scrapbook somewhere can be tied together with minimal ado. I am not really in the market for scrapbook clearances, and I want plots that engage. Reynolds additionally commits a grave sin by trying to link these events by means of forward-looking signals. Chapter X: "Well I sure hope we don't run into them Skullboys" [and as frightening names go, "skullboys" doesn't really cut it, does it?]. Chapter Y: run into Skullboys, "but at least we haven't seen them Vorgs, phew!" Chapter Z: are attacked by vorgs. You get the idea. Intriguing to me is also that the main protagonist (an educated man apparently) is utterly clueless about the world he inhabits. This impregnable ignorance is what prompts other characters to woodenly tell him, and me, how the world works. Believable? I think not.

There is a lot of plain sloppy writing in Terminal World. An example. On page 204 someone named Curtana falls asleep, utterly exhausted by her extreme effort over the last few days. We then get an exchange between two other characters that cannot last more than 5 minutes, if that. Then (p. 205): "Curtana, who had woken from her drowse, said, `Here we go.' This is not the work of a meticulous author who feels for his story. This is someone who works with mercenary haste.

The Reynolds books I have read before verged on space opera. I am not sure if this huge canvas somehow made me overlook or forgive character diction. At least I have no memory of it being other than reasonable. Here it is often almost farcically awkward. The stilted sentences that keep popping out of most characters' mouths almost becomes a generic diversion. I found myself wondering whether it was authorial inability or part of a master plan telling us something about the barrenness of this future world. But on occasion Reynolds does endow a character with an idiosyncratic way of speaking. "Meroka", for instance, speaks like a stereotypical cowboy eyeing the spittoon in the corner. A doctor speaks like a surgeon pulled out of a Sherlock Holmes novel. Regardless, dialogue is consistently robotic and a chore to get through.

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Should you buy it?
I doubt that it will come as a surprise that I cannot recommend this book to anyone. It is poorly written, and the story is astoundingly weak. I will browse Amazon reviews carefully before buying his next one. On the bright side, you have found your way to Alastair Reynolds, and some of his earlier works are indeed worth purchasing. How he has managed to produce this dud, I don't understand.

Not one of his best. It took me a while to realise what was not working for me - then it came to me. I simply didn't care about what happened. I didn't really find any of the characters engaging and the story took far too long to really get going.

I don't even think it really came to a particularly satisfying ending.

I'm sure it isn't the case, but to me it had the feel of 'contract fulfiller' - one written to meet a contractual obligation, more than anything else.

I generally like Alastair's work - a great deal - but I couldn't warm to this one at all.

You can't win them all, I guess.