- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Harper Voyager; Library edition edition (1 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0002247615
- ISBN-13: 978-0002247610
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,107,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
Praise for Neverness:
‘Zindell makes you think’
New Scientist
‘Philip K. Dick would have been proud to conjure up such philiosophies’
Manchester Evening News
‘A thick, lush, vivid, panoramic view of evolved humans in an evolving universe far in the future’
Twilight Zone
‘Excellent hard science fiction… a brilliant novel’
Orson Scott Card, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Product Description
From the author of Neverness comes a powerful epic fantasy series, the Ea Cycle, as rich as Tolkien and as magical as the Arthurian myths. This is the climactic final volume.
The world of Ea is an ancient world settled in eons past by the Star People. However, their ancestors floundered in their purpose to create a great stellar civilisation on the new planet: they fell into moral decay.
Now a champion has been born who will lead them back to greatness, by means of a spiritual – and adventurous – quest for Ea’s Grail: the Lightstone.
His name is Valashu Elahad, and he is destined to become King. Blessed (or cursed?) with an empathy for all living things, he will lead his people into the lands of Morjin, into the heart of darkness, wielding a magical sword called Alkadadur, there to recover the mythical Lightstone and return in triumph with his prize.
But Morjin is not to be vanquished so easily…
This is the fourth and final volume of the epic Ea Cycle. The battle will be fought, mysteries unravelled, the courage of Valashu tested to its limit. The reason the Valari came to Ea from the stars will be made known.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This isn't the review I wanted to write as I am a definite David Zindell fan. Neverness was a magnificent achievement and the Requiem for Homo Sapiens an even greater one. Those four books married space opera, mathematics and philosophy with genuine literary prowess. They were amongst science fictions best works in recent decades.
His Lightstone novels? They have been a sad case of diminishing returns. The opening book (Lightstone) was at least a nicely written entertainment. Yes its characters felt like knock offs from Zindell's earlier works and the plot felt too mechanical (a quest to get magic stones to confront the greatest of evils (hmmm I'm sure I've seen that in final fantasy 1-6)) but the writing was so good that for most of the long sweep of that epic I could forget these short comings and simply enjoy what I was reading. However with each successive volume it became clear that Zindell was bereft of any good or new ideas of how to continue the story. By this final one I have to admit much of what I'm reading feels like outright plagiarism. I've little doubt that his apologists will tell me that the plot elements and conceits lifted directly from Lord of the Rings are meant to be an homage to that work. I don't buy it. I'd have taken that as a reasonable view when discussing the similarity of the character of Bardo in the Neverness to Shakespeare's Falstaff, but this is going way too far for me to be so easily accepting.
As I say this is all a real pity because Zindell can write and write beautifully. He has a rare gift for truly gorgeous prose. I hope he writes again, and will read whatever he publishes, but I'm fearful that what was once the brightest talent in the speculative firmament has now burnt out.
His Lightstone novels? They have been a sad case of diminishing returns. The opening book (Lightstone) was at least a nicely written entertainment. Yes its characters felt like knock offs from Zindell's earlier works and the plot felt too mechanical (a quest to get magic stones to confront the greatest of evils (hmmm I'm sure I've seen that in final fantasy 1-6)) but the writing was so good that for most of the long sweep of that epic I could forget these short comings and simply enjoy what I was reading. However with each successive volume it became clear that Zindell was bereft of any good or new ideas of how to continue the story. By this final one I have to admit much of what I'm reading feels like outright plagiarism. I've little doubt that his apologists will tell me that the plot elements and conceits lifted directly from Lord of the Rings are meant to be an homage to that work. I don't buy it. I'd have taken that as a reasonable view when discussing the similarity of the character of Bardo in the Neverness to Shakespeare's Falstaff, but this is going way too far for me to be so easily accepting.
As I say this is all a real pity because Zindell can write and write beautifully. He has a rare gift for truly gorgeous prose. I hope he writes again, and will read whatever he publishes, but I'm fearful that what was once the brightest talent in the speculative firmament has now burnt out.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having fought my way through and enjoyed the previous three books in the Ea Cycle, I felt a little let down by this final book. From the writer's point of view I guess it was probably hard to avoid a fairly predictable conclusion to the series - find the Maitraya after innumerable close shaves and deprivations, have final battle with Morjin, win against all odds and live happily ever after. Zindell's style of describing the events through the experiences of Valashu is also a bit limiting, restricting his ability to add depth to the other characters and reducing the plot to a single storyline.
The Neverness series rates amongst the best SciFi I have ever read and whilst I would happily reccommend the Ea Cycle series as a good read, its not really in the same league as his earlier work.
The Neverness series rates amongst the best SciFi I have ever read and whilst I would happily reccommend the Ea Cycle series as a good read, its not really in the same league as his earlier work.
Format:Paperback
The title of this review sums up my feelings on Zindell's Ea Cycle as a whole: flawed but beautiful. I agree with previous reviewer "The Ringess" in that Zindell's usage of a first-person narrative severely, even fatally, limits this work. Oftentimes the protagonist, Valashu Elahad, "tells" us what happened off stage, and thus Zindell is cornered into committing that most egregious error of fiction writing: "telling" more of the story than he "shows."
That aside, The Diamond Warriors completes Zindell's Ea Cycle, one of the very few fantasy series to deal explicitly and implicitly with themes of a spiritual nature in any depth or profundity. The cosmic-spiritual context of the Ea Cycle is exquisitely wrought and literally dwarfs most fantasy milieus, avoiding the usual extremes of the Scylla and Charybdis of modern fantasy: conventional cliche or unconventional novelty. The former ends up being a juiceless formula, the "same old, same old" of tired post-Tolkien elves-and-dragons fantasy; the latter tries so hard to be "avante garde" that it ends up being a superficial cliche in its own right, an instance of its own complaint.
While Zindell as an author may be unparalleled in the field in terms of depth of consciousness, the Ea Cycle as a story falls short of the upper echelon of modern epic fantasy classics such as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen or George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice. Put the Ea Cycle in the next tier down with R. Scott Bakker and Robert Jordan.
That aside, The Diamond Warriors completes Zindell's Ea Cycle, one of the very few fantasy series to deal explicitly and implicitly with themes of a spiritual nature in any depth or profundity. The cosmic-spiritual context of the Ea Cycle is exquisitely wrought and literally dwarfs most fantasy milieus, avoiding the usual extremes of the Scylla and Charybdis of modern fantasy: conventional cliche or unconventional novelty. The former ends up being a juiceless formula, the "same old, same old" of tired post-Tolkien elves-and-dragons fantasy; the latter tries so hard to be "avante garde" that it ends up being a superficial cliche in its own right, an instance of its own complaint.
While Zindell as an author may be unparalleled in the field in terms of depth of consciousness, the Ea Cycle as a story falls short of the upper echelon of modern epic fantasy classics such as Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen or George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice. Put the Ea Cycle in the next tier down with R. Scott Bakker and Robert Jordan.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
No pleasing everyone
As another conclusion to a trilogy it really does seem to be a case of to many authors currently seem to be doing fantasy by templates, the characters were stereotypical and as... Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2007 by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog
David, it is time to move beyond first person perspective...
I am a one-eyed fan of David Zindell. He is a superb writer in a genre not noted for its literary contribution. He is a convincing world-creator. Read more
Published on 4 Jun 2007 by The Ringess
Decent Finish
First of all i must say that the lightstone series is by far by favourite series of books that i have ever read. Read more
Published on 26 May 2007 by Mr. J. J. Allen
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