| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for MARROW: 'It's an exhilarating ride, in the hands of an author whose aspiration literally knows no bounds' THE NEW YORK TIMES 'MARROW is relentless, taking on vast reaches of space and time with a giant ship like none you've ever seen. A bold work by a visionary writer' DAVID BRIN
Product Description
The Great Ship is home to a multitude of alien races and a near-immortal crew. They have toured the Milky Way for millennia, the best and the brightest from a thousand worlds, but the true purpose of the Ship has remained hidden. Now, time is running out. The huge spacecraft is heading for the dark, immense, region of space known as the Ink Well, and the only entity in the universe more vast and mysterious than the Great Ship is lying in wait ...'THE WELL OF STARS is wonderful far-future SF of the best kind: imaginative, epic, mind-blowing, but anchored by a strong sense of character and a glorious cast of heroes and rogues. The Great Ship is surely one of the most audacious creations in recent SF.' ALASTAIR REYNOLDS
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre sequel to excellent original,
This review is from: The Well of Stars (Paperback)
This novel continues the story of the `ship' begun in the excellent "Marrow". Unfortunately one gets the impression that the author has rather run out of new ideas. It feels much like part of an episodic serial in which the cast battle villain-of-the-week, complete with tidy resolution (reminiscient of an up-market novelisation of the Space1999 TV-series). The cast is familiar (plus a few `guest stars') and the BIG SECRETS of the ship lurk in the background as constant plot elements without being developed at all - the state at the end of the novel is pretty much as it was at the beginning.Hopefully the author will tie it all up spectacularly in the (inevitable) third novel rather than have it morph limply into an interminable saga.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
One expected better,
By Rod Williams (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Well of Stars (Paperback)
Reed is a stylist. Claiming to have no influences in the SF canon, the Nebraska-based author is very much and individual voice, although there are echoes of Simak in some of his early work.
Since `Marrow', sales of which elevated Reed's profile to the level of best-selling SF author (rather than modestly selling quality SF writer) his books have moved away from mid-America based (yet complex) slow moving tales to a form of post-cyberpunk space opera. Here, in this sequel to `Marrow', Reed once more employs one of his favourite devices, the near-immortal superhuman, or rather, an entire population of them, travelling through space on a ship the size of Jupiter which has an entire world entombed in its core. The Great Ship, as it is known, attracts the attention of the polyponds, separate parts of a gestalt Gaian entity which inhabits an entire nebula. Reed's style here is deeply poetic, stylistically romantic and oddly appropriate for the society he has created. Near-immortal humans on the Great Ship see little change and neither does their society. The almost baroque style seems therefore entirely apt. Reed is not an author prone to writing sequels, having only done it once before in his career to my knowledge, and one does have to ask how much the conception of `Well of Stars' was influenced by the success of `Marrow'. Reed occasionally has a problem with ending his novels, and he seems to have left this open for a third voyage on the Great Ship. The ending provided here is somewhat unsatisfying and relies rather too much on a convenient plot twist. Having said that, his work is generally superior to most other contemporary SF and this is a genuinely decent novel, but one feels that he could have done better, since this is not up to the quality of 'Marrow'.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Epic!,
This review is from: The Well of Stars (Paperback)
Having first read 'Marrow' and then the reviews to 'The Well of Stars', I was a bit reluctant to delve into the latter, for fear that the magic of the first book would be somehow compromised. Having just finished it, though, I am glad I took that second step. I found the build-up of the tension excellent to the last minute (indeed better than 'Marrow'), and I must say that the 'villain' this time kept me thrilled (and guessing) with its various manouvres. I did feel some story 'threads' could have been developed more, but knowing the end now, I expect this to happen in the third book (indeed intevitable!). I'm not going to reveal the plot or what happens in the end (or whether the big secret constantly hinted at is explained and to what degree); all I am going to say is that the Great Ship takes a real beating this time, emerging from it with a key change that connects the story with the first book and may help bring Marrow (the planet) back to the centre of events. On the criticism side, I did feel that the interesting ending was a bit rushed and underdeveloped - hence the missing star in the rating. Overall, though, a great read for S/F fans.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
