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Ancients of Days
An orphan seeks his destiny on the strange world of Confluence
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Ancients of Days
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By Paul J. McAuley
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Avon Eos
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$16.00/$24.00 Canada
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Hardcover, July 1999
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ISBN 0-030-97516-5
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 he orphan Yama knows that he was put onto his world for a purpose. He
just doesn't know what that purpose is. But it seems that just about
everyone else on the artificial, far-future world of Confluence has their
own ideas about Yama's destiny: savior, weapon, pawn, research subject.
Paul J. McAuley's sequel to last year's Child of the River
continues Yama's quest to find his people and his destiny. Yama has
come to the city of Ys to search the vast, ancient library for
clues. His research is interrupted when he is caught in the crossfire
between Confluence's warring bureaucracies. Then he's pursued by various
parties, including a computer simulation of a long-dead woman, a
persistent but somewhat lethargic energy being, and the self-serving
administrator Prefect Corin. Corin is bent on uncovering the secret of
Yama's inborn ability to control the ubiquitous, semi-intelligent
machines that have silently governed Confluence for countless years.
After many strange adventures and narrow escapes from doom, Yama and a
trio of loyal companions leave Ys to sail down Confluence's Great River
in search of a lost city that may be home to Yama's people. Each
encounter with his adversaries forces Yama to exercise more of his power,
but as his control of Confluence's ancient technology grows, Yama
increasingly loses control of himself. He succumbs to fits of blind fury,
with sometimes devastating results. For all his power, Yama feels like a
prisoner of his own destiny, and his amazing abilities are no insurance
against old-fashioned betrayal and deception.
Mystery, morality and a strange plot twist
The Confluence series got off to a strong start with Child of the
River. This second volume picks up the story without missing a beat
and holds out the tantalizing prospect of still more good things to come.
The series is strongly reminiscent of science fiction epics such as Gene Wolfe's
Book of the New Sun series and Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, but
McAuley has a story to tell that's all his own and well worth reading.
The real star of the show, of course, is not the conflicted hero but
the exotic world McAuley has created. Built by humanity's hyper-evolved,
long-vanished descendants, Confluence is populated with numerous
genetically engineered, almost-human species. The mystery of
Confluence--its origin, purpose and destiny--is neatly intertwined with
the mystery of Yama's identity.
The gradual and artful unfolding of these joint mysteries elevates the
Confluence series above many other hybrids of science fiction and heroic
fantasy. McAuley sustains the story's momentum by offering neither Yama
nor readers a clear-cut choice between good and evil. Confluence is
riven by a war between oppressive stagnation and perilous anarchy, and a
middle path has yet to appear.
Unfortunately, Ancients of Days sags a bit when Yama leaves the city of Ys. He
backtracks over familiar territory, and the bickering between his companions starts
getting repetitive. Fortunately, this is only a brief lull. Like the first volume,
Ancients of Days ends abruptly, but this time with a startling twist that will
leave readers even more eager for the next installment.
McAuley answers a lot of questions about Confluence in this novel,
only to raise even more.
-- Curt
Back to the top.
Souls in the Great Machine
Human ingenuity races against a nanotech-induced Ice Age
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Souls in the Great Machine
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By Sean McMullen
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Tor Books
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$27.95/$39.95 Canada
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Hardcover, June 1999
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ISBN 0-312-87055-8
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Review by A.M. Dellamonica
 ouls in the Great Machine is the story of Greatwinter, a
post-apocalyptic Australia transformed by nuclear winter and genetic
engineering into a complex patchwork of feudal city-states, nomadic desert
wanderers, and tribes of human-avian hybrids. Author Sean McMullen gives readers a
peek into a fantastic world where advanced technology is all but wiped out.
The fate of many characters hangs on their skill with dueling pistols, and everyone is
susceptible to the Call, a telepathic siren song that lures people and
animals to the ocean, where a horrible death awaits.
As the sole city not affected by the Call, Rochester is an important
administrative center, and no place in Rochester is as important as Libris.
As Souls in the Great Machine begins, this library has been taken
over by a ruthless genius named Zarvora. Promising increased efficiency, she
duels with old-guard administrators and builds within Libris a great machine
called a Calculor. Inside this strange marriage of galley ship and computer,
human components slave at mathematical tasks that were performed centuries earlier
by computers. Using the Calculor, Libris improves the communication and tax
systems and makes the wind-powered trains run on time.
Even as Zarvora's political star is rising, though, it is clear that the
Calculor is only a first step in her master plan. Her real objective is
orbiting miles above the Earth, a centuries-old project which is about to
bear fruit. Pre-apocalypse scientists, fearing global warming, had sent
nanotech devices to work on building a giant reflective shield between the
sun and the Earth. Unless Zarvora prevails, a second ice age will fall upon
Greatwinter. But with rebellion rising all around Rochester, she may well
lose her grip on power before she can prevent the coming of the cold.
Action, intrigue and all-out war
There is no shortage of either entertainment or intellectual stimulation
in Souls in the Great Machine. McMullen offers readers a thrilling
and thoroughly alien view of far-future Earth, playing fiendishly inventive
riffs on the post-apocalyptic theme. Moral complexity abounds in the cast of
characters, who undergo quicksilver changes of allegiance and circumstance
over the years-long course of the tale.
As Zarvoras' plan evolves, she alters the world, and these changes spiral
out of her control in utterly believable ways. Discovering the source of the
Call leads to vastly altered circumstances for the avian hybrids, and as the
secret of the Calculor leaks out to other city-states, Rochester's
stranglehold on power erodes. Despite the strangeness of the Greatwinter
landscape, McMullen creates a world that has a very real problem: as
new technology creates problems for humanity, the need arises for
ever-faster innovation.
Perhaps because of its massive scope--Souls in the Great Machine
is intended as the first in a series--the book sometimes fails in the fine
details. People fall in and out of love quickly, and lose their sanity even
faster. McMullen gives readers a lot of romance and sex, but much of the
action takes place behind closed doors. Battles within the
exhaustive wars are generally detailed at a remove. Readers who like to
linger over every kiss or moment of bloodshed may find this less satisfying.
Additionally, most of the book's movers and shakers--heads of state,
generals, intellectuals--are childless women who have risen to prominence as
either librarians or in convents. Though these women are never boring, their
behavior is not always convincing.
Even so, McMullen's writing is energetic, imaginative and
humorous. Souls in the Great Machine is an appealing book, crammed
with gems that are sure to please almost every kind of reader.
Every time you think you know where McMullen is taking you, he swerves
wildly, giving you a good hard laugh as you try to hang on.
-- A.L.
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