- Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Pocket Books (Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0671024728
- ISBN-13: 978-0671024727
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,002,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In The Second Angel, Philip Kerr's "hero", Dallas, is running for his life in a world where blood is the single most valuable commodity. Determined to avenge the deaths of his wife and child, he devises a plot to burgle the moon's top-security blood bank, gathering together a crew of lost souls, renegades and reprobates to assist him.
Kerr's blinding attention to detail (he includes a complicated series of footnotes explaining how mankind reached this soulless point), and his own lack of feeling for the characters he has created, is initially disconcerting. But as the story develops, the reader is compelled to live through this all-consuming thriller, coming to terms with the idea that Kerr's vision of the future may be more than just science fiction.
As the crew head to the moon to commit the crime of the century, the reader enters a miserable, bitter world (set just far enough in the future to be believable), where it is ever more difficult to discern what is good and what is evil, and where mankind is paying for mistakes that are all too familiar. --Susan Harrison --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
It is 2069 and mankind is on the brink of extinction thanks to a virus that will wipe out four fifths of the population within ten years. In a world where blood is more valuable than gold, a man, whose daughter needs regular blood transfusions, must do all he can to get at the supplies. From the author of MARCH VIOLETS and DEAD MEAT.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
From the window of Dallas's gyrocopter, the Terotech Building looked like the profile of a giant lizard, perhaps a chameleon, since everything-from the external climate surfaces to the height of the three glass stories-was subject to change, according to whatever environmental factors were predominant at the time. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
From the window of Dallas's gyrocopter, the Terotech Building looked like the profile of a giant lizard, perhaps a chameleon, since everything-from the external climate surfaces to the height of the three glass stories-was subject to change, according to whatever environmental factors were predominant at the time. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was vastly irritated by this book, only carrying on with it to find out if any clever twists were waiting (they weren't.) Anyone who thinks they are learning a lot from the narration should try reading something more elegant by a non-fiction author.
Sci Fi with too much (pseudo)'Sci' and not enough Fi.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kerr has found an excellent premise for this novel in the spread of a virus that makes blood the most valuable substance on earth but, as normal, he lets himself down by not being as clever as he thinks he is. The rest of the ideas aren't that clever and his 'exploration' of AI is pitiful.
He also ignores some significant points in his own situation that leave some rather odd plot holes. For instance, why does no-one invent a synthetic blood? Or even more obvious, why doesn't a person who has 'clean' blood donate enough to cure one other person on the understanding that they will also donate blood to 'clean' other people' thus forming the worlds best pyramid scam!
The last few chapters of the book are just crazy and the ending is deeply bizarre and unsatisfying. I didn't appreciate it at the time but the whole thing is a vast nod, to the point of plagarism, to 'The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress' by Robert Heinlein. even down to the one-armed man.
My advice: read the first half then write your own ending, Kerr's just won't do.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Mainstream authors shouldn't try their hand at writing science fiction; either they succeed and manage a rather average work of science fiction (e.g. E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops') or they do as Philip Kerr has done and create a laughable novel on a par, scientifically speaking, with the worst of Star Trek. If this had been submitted by a new author to a publisher specialising in science fiction it would have been rejected out of hand.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tolerable science fiction novel with irritating narrative conceits
Starts out as cyberpunk noir in a world with widespread blood diseases, descends into slightly dull heist book. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Jezza
Mind Blowing
This being my first book of Kerrs I was pleasantly surprised as soon as I had finished the first few pages. Read more
Published on 13 May 2007 by Mr. C. L. Coath
The Second Reading
An inventive and interesting story, which reading some of the previous reviews I suspect was not fully understood. Read more
Published on 7 Dec 2002 by Steve B
Our future is already written!
Philip Kerr has foreseen mankind's future! It's an uncomparable book. I see it as the best science fiction/action book since Isaac Asimov's genious works. Read more
Published on 30 July 2001 by Silva, Paulo
Unusual and thought provoking
I thought this was a fascinating and, in truth, largely believable story. Alright so the ending was a little weak, but this should not overshadow the main body of the work. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2001 by scottlevy20@hotmail.com
Was this his first draft ?
Hmm. Usually, I am willing to give Kerr some benefit of the doubt when it comes to his output, but since he decided to reinvent himself as some kind of British 'Michael Crichton'... Read more
Published on 25 May 2001
Characterisation? What characterisation?
Generally concur with the views below, although I'm not quite so critical. I think if Phillip Kerr had teamed up with someone who could do characterisation, i.e. Read more
Published on 13 Mar 2001
Simply brilliant!
I bought this as something to read at the airport and what an excellent accidental choice! Sci-fi at its best. Read more
Published on 1 Oct 2000
Quite a surprising book !!
The 'Second Angel' is a book that will teach you a lottt of things, but may also annoy you with footnotes you either don't care about or already know ... Read more
Published on 17 Nov 1999
Possibly the best book I have ever purchased
I'm not one for writing reviews but;
If you like your books with plenty of substance and a large splattering of fact, this is the book for you. Read more
Published on 12 Sep 1999
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