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Down the Bright Way (Paperback)

by Robert Reed (Author)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
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Price For All Three: £15.44

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Product details

  • Paperback: 358 pages
  • Publisher: Orbit; paperback / softback edition (2 Oct 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1841492558
  • ISBN-13: 978-1841492551
  • Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.8 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 410,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #3 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > R > Reed, Robert

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Product Description

Product Description

In the deepness of space there are millions of worlds like our own - and each with its own humanity. They are linked by the Bright, an ancient pathway between the stars created by an ancient, godlike race known only as the Makers. Now humanity travels the Bright, uniting its worlds to a common desiny. But the Bright can also be travelled by those bent on destruction - those who have chosen a different path, whose sole purpose is conquest. Find out more about this title and others at www.orbitbooks.co.uk


About the Author

Robert Reed is the acclaimed author of numerous SF novels. He has been nominated for the prestigious Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Down the Bright Way
42% buy the item featured on this page:
Down the Bright Way 2.5 out of 5 stars (2)
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House of Suns (Gollancz S.F.)
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 8 Nov 2004
I really hate to be a killjoy on someone else's work, but in the case of this book, I have to make an exception.

Maybe it's just me, but this book was dull. I found it hard to find any of the characters sympathetic and the plot really dragged. It's not until the final 50 pages that the book actually gets going and it was then I actually stared to enjoy it.

A friend lent me Marrow which I did enjoy. It's almost as if this (Bright Way) book was written by someone else.

I wouldn't recommend this.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars More of Reed's Big Ideas, 22 Jun 2005
By Rod Williams "hairybloke@aol.com" (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Reed takes the premise that, some time in the Earth's distant past, an elder race seeded the Earth's crust with a lattice of degenerate matter, the consequence of which was that somehow this lattice is able to admit passage - via a portal - to an infinite string of alternate Earths.
It's a large-scale production contrasted - as in 'An Exaltation of Larks' with a neatly detailed portrait of small town America.
For a million years, an alternate species of human with large crania and furry faces, have been travelling the Bright - as the chain of portals is called - in both directions from their homeworld, uniting and civilising each Earth.
Jy, the million year old leader of one of the two Founder missions, has now reached our earth.
It's not one of Reed's best, but even here the characterisation is excellent. The people are real; they have flaws. Kyle (an Earth teenager) is a fantasist and is pretending he is one of the aliens' envoys, a Wanderer, in order to impress and seduce women. Confused adolescent males turn up a lot in Reed's work and are generally portrayed with a blunt honesty. With some writers this may have made them seem heartless and cold. However, as with characters in other Reed books, Kyle emerges as a sad victim of himself. Reed makes us see his flaws - perhaps Reed's own early flaws - through more understanding eyes.
Reed is also fascinated by the concept of near-immortal beings who bear comparison with similar characters in the work of Van Vogt who also painted his highly colourful tales against absurdly vast backdrops.
The immortality issue is addressed, but does not satisfactorily convince that the central characters are over a million years old. All wanderers carry a hard memory unit which, if the body is destroyed or wears out, means that the mind of the individual can live on. Rather than explore the ramifications of this technology Reed uses it only as a plot device. However he deals much more effectively with the subject of immortality in later works such as 'Marrow' and 'Sister Alice'
The structure does not help this novel since it is a multi third-person narrative in which we change characters with each section. With three or four characters this device may have worked but six or more gives the narrative a disjointed feel and it lacks coherence.
It is far more complex than it first appears since most of the main characters have secrets, some of which are not revealed until the end, but then again, this is another Reed device which he employs widely elsewhere.
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