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Divergence (Paperback)

by Tony Ballantyne (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Tor; paperback / softback edition (4 May 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0330446509
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330446501
  • Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 428,278 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

The Times
'full of invention and ideas, guaranteed to revive a sense of
wonder.'

Product Description
The robot Constantine notices an Artificial Intelligence spontaneously coming into being on a distant planet...and watches helplessly as it is destroyed. In deep space, far from Earth, Judy senses a change of mood aboard the passenger ship she travels on...and a quick investigation reveals that the craft is succumbing to a mysterious alien infestation. Just as hope seems lost, a group of combat drones appears to rescue all the passengers, except Judy - who is told she is the property of a forgotten mega-corporation based on Earth. Returned against her wishes to an Earth under constant assault from the same alien infestation, Judy begins to learn her place in a conspiracy billions of years old. But is she ready to take on the benign, omnipotent, all-seeing Watcher who guides human destiny? And destroy it?

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great high-concept SF, 13 Jun 2007
This review is from: Divergence (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a sequel to 'Capacity' and has many characters in common. While not (on the face of it) as complex or as fast-paced as its predecesor, it does move steadily towards its tremendously thought-provoking climax. It's almost impossible to describe without giving the game away, but suffice to say that Ballantyne is tackling huge themes here, and doing it with great confidence. And if this book smacks at times of the mystical, well that's one of the things that great sci-fi can handle really well. Read this if you like the work of Cordwainer Smith (it has some themes in common, even though Ballantyne has a distictive voice of his own), or if you are an afficionado of literate, concept-driven science fiction. By the time I'd finished it I was proud to be a flawed human, and I think you will be too. It's only his third novel, as far as I know, but he just gets better and more ambitious. What is amazing is that he can carry it off so well.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Weird. Recursion and Capacity are better., 23 May 2009
By R. M. Lindley - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Divergence (Paperback)
Divergence in the final installment in Ballantyne's Watcher trilogy, which initially tells how an alien artifical intelligence (the Watcher) takes over the internet and becomes the benign dictator of a starfaring humanity.

In Capacity, the enigmatic but deadly Schrodinger Boxes are introduced, and the Watcher is seemingly helpless against this threat. Divergence resolves this story and has a couple of nice gags (although I kicked myself over the kittens).

One of the strengths of the series are the way it examines issues such as personality and reality, in a manner reminiscent of a tech-savvy Philip K Dick. The ending however is very bizarre, and the idea of a alien capitalist technological tyranny inspiring Christ is the icing on a very odd cake.

Worth reading, if only for the feeling as your jaw hits the floor at the end, but only 3 stars as a result.
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4.0 out of 5 stars A good book by a very promising author, 15 Aug 2008
By A. Cook - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Divergence (Paperback)
Divergence is a good hard sci-fi book that is easy to read and contains many concepts that will be familiar to fans of the genre, which is not to suggest that it is entirely derivative. The author does a good job with the characters and in keeping the plot moving. I also found the science/tech interesting and a central aspect of the story. Too much sci-fi is little more than soap-opera in space with high-tech gizmos and language thrown in.
I haven't read the author's previous works ('Recursion' and 'Capacity') but I don't think this accounts for my possible failure to understand Divergence's conclusion, which seemed to me a celebration of the replacement of an ideological tyranny with a technological one. A more satisfactory ending would have seen my giving the book a 5 star rating.

There is definitely a need for more mid-length books of this type. Ballantyne could be the man!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Who is this meant for?
This is a unfair review as I didn't have the patience to read this book through to the end. It's written in a stilted style that reminds me of Enid Blyton's Famous Five Books -... Read more
Published 12 months ago by A. Wheeler

2.0 out of 5 stars Not that interesting
I remeber thinking Capacity was OK, so I bought Divergence on the strength of that experience. I really could not be interested enough to finish it. Read more
Published 18 months ago by bob

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