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Divergence (Mass Market Paperback)

by Tony Ballantyne (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Spectra Books (1 May 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 055358930X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553589306
  • Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.7 x 3.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 340,682 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.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (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 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 17 months ago by bob

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