- Mass Market Paperback
- Publisher: Del Rey; First Edition edition (Oct 1989)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0345358368
- ISBN-13: 978-0345358363
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 9.9 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,924,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
West of January
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the things I love about Dave Duncan's books is that they always avoid the pitfalls of predictability. Of the seven or eight I have read so far, I have only abandoned one. The others have delighted me from start to finish. For such a prolific writer, he is stunningly original.
West of January is complex, fascinating, and breath taking in its scope.
There were several occasions when I thought I had predicted the ending, but each time he surprised me with something better than my expectations. And he doesn't shirk from tragedy, or lapse into pathos or sentimentalism.
It astonishes me that he isn't one of the best known authors, but he doesn't seem to be, on this side of the Atlantic, at least.
West of January is complex, fascinating, and breath taking in its scope.
There were several occasions when I thought I had predicted the ending, but each time he surprised me with something better than my expectations. And he doesn't shirk from tragedy, or lapse into pathos or sentimentalism.
It astonishes me that he isn't one of the best known authors, but he doesn't seem to be, on this side of the Atlantic, at least.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
One of Duncan's two best
25 Sep 2004
Format:Paperback
In my opinion 'West of January' and 'Shadow' are Dave Duncan's two best books. Not only are these undoubtedly the best of his single book novels, in many ways they are better than his series. My other favourite works by Duncan are his earlier series -- in particular 'A Man of His Word', 'The Great Game' and 'The Seventh Swordman'. West of January and Shadow are a distillation of what is best about Duncan; a coherent and intriguing alternative universe, excellent characterization and plotting -- plus a keen moral edge that is sometimes submerged in the storyline of his series. It's as if you took one of best series and squeezed the essence into a single book. Shadow has been re-released, and I hope the same happens to West of Janurary.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Good old-fashioned lost-colony SF. 3.7 stars
27 Nov 2005
Format:Paperback
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I've always liked Duncan's SF, and finally got around to this one, which was recently reissued. This is a classic hardscrabble-colony story, set on a resonance-tidelocked planet, where the habitable zone migrates around the world. In their struggle to survive, the colonists have lost most of their technology. The protag is a neolithic-level herdsman, just coming-of-age. He has an untypically upwardly-mobile career.
There are no real surprises here, but good, clean, workmanlike writing that moves right along to an implausible (but fun) power-fantasy wrapup. Recommended for frivolous relaxation.
Here's an enthusiastic review by John Toon, at Infinity Plus {google}
"This is an astonishing exercise in world-building, rich and bold in design, and a complex and emotional biography of its protagonist..."
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
I've always liked Duncan's SF, and finally got around to this one, which was recently reissued. This is a classic hardscrabble-colony story, set on a resonance-tidelocked planet, where the habitable zone migrates around the world. In their struggle to survive, the colonists have lost most of their technology. The protag is a neolithic-level herdsman, just coming-of-age. He has an untypically upwardly-mobile career.
There are no real surprises here, but good, clean, workmanlike writing that moves right along to an implausible (but fun) power-fantasy wrapup. Recommended for frivolous relaxation.
Here's an enthusiastic review by John Toon, at Infinity Plus {google}
"This is an astonishing exercise in world-building, rich and bold in design, and a complex and emotional biography of its protagonist..."
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Early Dave Duncan book -- quite good
3 May 1999
Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Like "Shadow," another of Dave Duncan's early books, this is the story of an iconoclastic hero set in the far future, in a world that doesn't work exactly the way ours does. In this world, because of the way the earth revolves and rotates, the sun moves across the sky with agonizing slowness. It takes lifetimes for a region to experience dawn, midday and dusk. From generation to generation, the people of this world forget the catastrophes that occur when the sun moves -- except for the "angels," people who have preserved the ancient knowledge and work to try and save the other people from the destruction that threatens them when the sun moves. The hero of this book, Knobil, was born among the herdsmen, a savage race where the men kill each other and exile their sons so that every man can have as many women and children as possible. Knobil, however, is the son of an angel, and his destiny soon takes him among all the other people of his world -- the beautiful but mindless seafolk, the cruel slavers, the wily traders, the terrible spinsters whose secret he discovers nearly too late.
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