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Shrine Of Stars (Confluence)
 
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Shrine Of Stars (Confluence) (Hardcover)

by Paul McAuley (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £16.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Gollancz; New edition edition (23 Sep 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0575064293
  • ISBN-13: 978-0575064294
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,308,470 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
Paul McAuley's Confluence trilogy seemed in its first volume, Child of the River, to be taking the reader through radically new spins on some fairly standard fantasy tropes: the hero Yama was found as an infant, floating in a container on a vast and mysterious river, acquired a magic sword and set out, reluctantly on his travels. He acquires a shrewd rat-boy squire and a wolfish barbarian warrior mistress, Tamora; gradually we realise that his exotic world is more rational than it seems. In the sequel, Ancients of Days, he discovers strange powers, and is pursued through a vast city, and down the river, by an inexorable enemy. Now, in Shrine of Stars, Tamora is dead, his squire is left behind, and Yama is a prisoner, not just of the sinister Doctor Dimas, but inside his own body:

"It was as if Yama's self was an island or castle of light surrounded by a restless flood of darkness both malevolent and sentient. Not only was it rising, but it was constantly sending out stealthy filaments and tentacles, constantly probing for weaknesses. Yama felt that if he gave way to it for a moment...then he would dissolve at once, like a flake of salt dropped in the Great River."

The Confluence trilogy is not fantasy at all, but sense-of-wonder science fiction revisited; McAuley gives us standard SF obsessions of the90s like nanotechnology, cosmology and the uplift of new intelligent species, but presents them not as ideas, but as lived sensuous realities. Shrine of Stars is the perfect end to a trilogy, a third volume that forces us to rethink, and reread, earlier volumes. --Roz Kaveney

Product Description
The final volume of this lusciously scenic quest for the past, which blends exoticism with dogmatic bureaucracy in a world crowded with wonders. Ten million years in the future, humans have evolved into the God-like Preservers and have fled the Universe, but are still worshipped by those servant races they raised to intelligence and gifted the vast artificial world of Confluence. Yama, the Child of the River, has stumbled into the middle of a civil war. While the dispossessed peoples of Confluence hope that Yama may renew their world, he must discover the strength to fight not only his enemies without, but the enemy within.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A complex but satisfying finale, 15 Feb 2004
By dogbarkssome (England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)      
The third and final book in the Confluence series expands the scope of the previous novels, as the story shifts from a series of adventure filled chases and confrontations on the fantasy world of Confluence, to a time-travel / interstellar hard-sf finale.

It’s a particularly knotty ending, with McAuley having to use multiple uroboric time loops in order to tie up the plot, (and even then he draws the readers attention to one unexplained loose thread), though the final revelations of what Confluence is, and who Yama’s parents are make it worthwhile. Due to this complexity this is one trilogy I’d recommend on reading in one go if you wish to avoid confusion.

A cerebral pleasure rather than an engaging emotional experience, the Confluence series nevertheless contains enough diverse ideas and settings to be recommended for science fiction fans, and Shrine of Stars makes for an assured closing chapter.

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5.0 out of 5 stars McAuley at his best, 14 Mar 2000
By A Customer
Intelligent, literate and equal to the best of Gene Wolfe, but wider ranging. Not quite pure SF and definitely not fantasy, this is the third novel in Paul J. McAuley's Confluence series and should have walked off with all of this year's prizes...
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