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Carnival
 
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Carnival (Mass Market Paperback)

by Elizabeth Bear (Author)
3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
US List Price: $6.99
UK Equivalent: £4.70
Price: £4.26 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £0.44 (9%)
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Carnival + Undertow (Bantam Science Fiction) + Blood and Iron (Roc Fantasy)
Price For All Three: £13.37

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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Spectra Books (28 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0553589040
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553589047
  • Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.7 x 3.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 432,453 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Carnival
77% buy the item featured on this page:
Carnival 3.3 out of 5 stars (3)
£4.26
Whiskey and Water: A Novel of the Promethean Age
23% buy
Whiskey and Water: A Novel of the Promethean Age 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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4 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
3.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, 25 April 2007
By Nicholas Whyte (Oud Heverlee, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a superb tale of two galactic diplomatic agents sent to liaise with the matriarchal society of a formerly isolated planet; they are both men, former lovers reconstructing their relationship. Each of the two has his own secret agenda, and so do the women (and occasional men) they must deal with on the planet; the revelation and casting aside of their various masks both meshes with the carnival theme and keeps up the tension of the narrative.

I found this a brilliantly realised future environment at every level--the physical description of the planet (urban, alien ruins, and wilderness), the societal background of the human characters (with both the war-weary galactic milieu and the matriarchy of New Amazonia having clear plus and minus points), and the future technology imagined (your basic galactic empire stuff, but with a few interesting wrinkles thrown in). Add to that an intriguing and cryptic alien intelligence (or is it an artificial intelligence? or both?), and you are set for a great ride.

Carnival tackles gender issues front and centre. There are discernable homages to Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin, and yet Bear develops their arguments somewhat--not prescribing how society ought to be but looking at the damage that people can do to each other under any circumstances. Carnival takes us to another world, from which we can look back more critically at our own.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Great ideas, terrible story, 11 Jan 2009
The world's in this book are fascinating but the story is ruined by the constant use of cutaways as soon as any tension develops (reminds me of Anne Rice) so that someone can camly explain how the apocalypse was averted, you know, lest we should get a little bit entertained or anything terrible like that.

Also, at times I felt like I was reading a series of essays refuting each other's ideas back and forth, like reading someone's plans for the world they were building for their novel rather than the actual novel. The world would be brilliant if it was allowed to just happen around the story, rather than constantly being explained and re-explained. This style is infuriating because the plot isn't bad and the ideas for the world were brilliant, and I loved the house/consensus creature/s.

And though the main protagonists were likeable enough I found most of the alien characters a bit hollow. They're obviously supposed to seem weird, but somehow they just seemed like they weren't fully there, they were a bit 2D.
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3.0 out of 5 stars easy fun, 20 April 2009
By Furio (Genova - Italy) - See all my reviews
As can be expected with the output of a professional complying with many literary clichés in a smooth way this book is a fairly entertaining read.

Smooth is the writing as well as (if only predictable) the plot twists; characterization is consistent even if some attempts at introspection had been better avoided as they just lead to confusion about feelings and motives.
This mistake is easily understood: Vincent and Angelo, the main characters, are in their sixties (even if it does not show on the outside) and have an extremely long relationship behind them: it is only too logical for Ms Bear to attempt to portray the complexity of feelings of such a long standing couple.

On the other hand these flaws do not get in the way and allow the readers to enjoy the trip if they do not set their expectations too high: Ms Bear avoids the excesses in world building and interaction so undigestible in much hard SF to prefer a simpler adventure driven approach.

Homosexuality is essential to the plot and sex is mentioned -clumsily- but the book can be safely read by older teens who will possibly appreciate the fine description of Amazonian society where women rule but are unable to avoid the same mistakes of their male counterparts in other planets.
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