Eyes of the Void View as Markdown Review ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Eyes of the Void , by Adrian Tchaikovsky , is the second book in The Final Architecture series. It takes place during the new war with the Architects, as Idris and the crew of the Vulture God discover where the Architects come from.
The plot focuses on the Parthenon Int program, the study of Originator ruins on a desert planet, and the rescue of Idris from a deathworld where he’s able to explore Unspace with an Originator machine. The tighter focus and smaller number of locations help Eyes of the Void feel more coherent than Shards of Earth Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ The Final Architecture #1Shards of Earth , by Adrian Tchaikovsky , is the first book in The Final Architecture series. It follows Idris, Solace, and the crew of the Vulture God as the Architects return and restart their genocidal campaign against humanity.deus ex machina like they did in the previous book.
But the writing is still… workmanlike at best, comparable to The Three-Body Problem The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ Remembrance of Earth's Past #1The Three-Body Problem was recommended as a exciting, hard-scifi book full of new ideas. I was eager to read it, having just gotten back into fiction. I bought it for my flight from Melbourne to San Francisco and I threw it in the airport trash as I got off the plane.House of Suns House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ House of Suns is a standalone hard sci-fi book by Alastair Reynolds . It tells the story of the Gentian Line, a family of clones who are betrayed, nearly wiped out, and must unravel what happened.Adrian Tchaikovsky repeats himself over and over and over, maybe worried the reader won’t remember or pick up on things the first time. At one point I ran into this sentence:
They crossed to the docking field just as the planet was coming into view, a veiny gas giant like an infected testicle crawling up the horizon of Hismin’s Moon and leaving precious little of the sky free of its malign radiance.
I put the book down and stared into space for a few minutes thinking, “This series won a Hugo award.”
So why do I like this book? The universe’s mysteries are keeping me going. I want to know what the entity in Unspace is, and what its connection to the Architects might be. I want to see how the war ends. Normally, worldbuilding alone isn’t enough to hold my interest, but in this case, it’s doing the job.
This book reminded me of a few other works of fiction:
The Parthenon garden ships, with their blend of nature and structure, feel like Culture ships, especially Sleeper Service from Excession Excession by Iain M. Banks ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ Culture #5Excession , by Iain M. Banks , is the fourth novel and fifth book in the Culture series. It follows the reaction of the Culture and other civilizations to an “excession”: an “Outside Context Problem” —something mysterious, unpredictable, and enormously powerful.
The way everything has a price—even getting the police to ignore a murder—is like the Corporation Rim in Exit Strategy Exit Strategy by Martha Wells ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ The Murderbot Diaries #4Exit Strategy , by Martha Wells , is the fourth book in The Murderbot Diaries . It wraps up the GrayCris storyline as Murderbot returns to save its friends.
The settlement in the Originator ruins, with its awkward integration into alien architecture, recalls Makkathran in The Dreaming Void The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ The Void Trilogy #1The Dreaming Void , by Peter F. Hamilton , is set in the same universe as the Commonwealth Saga , but saying that isn’t quite strong enough: it is really a sequel. You pretty much must read the Commonwealth Saga first because half of the characters return, and every major plot point from the earlier books is spoiled in this one.
Tothiat parasite–host naming (Emma and Neth becoming Emmaneth) works a lot like how the Trill are named in Deep Space 9 .
The planet Matachin is a clear homage to the Matachin Tower in The Shadow of the Torturer The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ The Book of the New Sun #1The Shadow of the Torturer is the first installment in Gene Wolfe ’s The Book of the New Sun tetralogy. It follows the life of Severian, a torturer and executioner on a dying Earth. The pacing is slow, but Wolfe’s worldbuilding is fantastic, crafting a setting that pulls the reader in.
An intelligence embedded in the fabric of Unspace parallels the mind stored in the magnetic field of a black hole in Eater Eater by Gregory Benford ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Eater is a hard sci-fi novel by Gregory Benford . It follows a group of astrophysicists who discover a sentient black hole that is headed straight towards Earth.
Ahab, the Naeromathi consumed by vengeance, is obviously modeled on his namesake from Moby Dick .
Once again, I’m going to take a break to read Honor of the Regiment Honor of the Regiment by S. M. Stirling et al. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ Bolo #10Honor of the Regiment is the tenth book in the Bolo series. It’s an anthology of Bolo stories written by ten different authors. The stories range from high-action military tales to more thoughtful pieces on the role of sentient war machines in society, all while treating the Bolos as central characters.The War of the Worlds The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ The War of the Worlds , by H. G. Wells , is a landmark science fiction novel. It takes place in late Victorian England as an unnamed narrator witnesses a terrifying invasion by Martians with advanced weaponry.Network Effect Network Effect by Martha Wells ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ The Murderbot Diaries #5Network Effect , by Martha Wells , is the fifth book in The Murderbot Diaries . It’s the first full-length novel in the series and features Murderbot getting kidnapped by ART to rescue its crew.Lords of Uncreation Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ The Final Architecture #3Lords of Uncreation , by Adrian Tchaikovsky , is the third and final book in The Final Architecture series. In it, humanity takes the war into Unspace to destroy the Architects and their Originator masters.
