What do you think?
Rate this book
Entire and the Rose #1
Bright of the Sky
Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme.
Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption.
But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm.
This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption.
But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm.
This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons’s Hyperion.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
453 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2007
194 people are currently reading
2,111 people want to read
About the author
Kay Kenyon
50Ìýbooks251ÌýfollowersKay Kenyon is the author of nineteen fantasy and science fiction novels. Her work has been shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the American Library Association Reading List award.
Her newest fantasy series is The Arisen Worlds quartet. "A story of powers and magic on a grand scale. This will be a series to treasure.� —Louisa Morgan, author of The Great Witch of Brittany.
The series: Book 1, The Girl Who Fell Into Myth, Book 2, Stranger in the Twisted Realm, Book 3, Servant of the Lost Power and Book 4, Keeper of the Mythos Gate.
Her acclaimed 4-book series, The Entire and The Rose, has been reissued with new covers. It opens with Bright of the Sky. Called "a riveting launch" by Publishers Weekly (starred review) and "a splendid fantasy quest" by The Washington Post.
Other novels include: Queen of the Deep, A Thousand Perfect Things, and The Dark Talents, a trilogy that begins with At the Table of Wolves. Connect with her at .
She lives in beautiful eastern Washington State in the foothills of the Cascades.
Her newest fantasy series is The Arisen Worlds quartet. "A story of powers and magic on a grand scale. This will be a series to treasure.� —Louisa Morgan, author of The Great Witch of Brittany.
The series: Book 1, The Girl Who Fell Into Myth, Book 2, Stranger in the Twisted Realm, Book 3, Servant of the Lost Power and Book 4, Keeper of the Mythos Gate.
Her acclaimed 4-book series, The Entire and The Rose, has been reissued with new covers. It opens with Bright of the Sky. Called "a riveting launch" by Publishers Weekly (starred review) and "a splendid fantasy quest" by The Washington Post.
Other novels include: Queen of the Deep, A Thousand Perfect Things, and The Dark Talents, a trilogy that begins with At the Table of Wolves. Connect with her at .
She lives in beautiful eastern Washington State in the foothills of the Cascades.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 224 reviews
April 27, 2009
Far into our future, the world and the known galaxy is run by a bare handful of powerful corporations, the brightest people born, and machine sapients. The routes to the colonies on other planets are unstable: the K-tunnels (black holes) keep collapsing and whole shiploads of people are being lost. The company that controls the K-tunnels, Minerva, is struggling to hold onto its position and profits.
A machine sapient running a space station and stabilising a K-tunnel inadvertently stumbles across a parallel world, and Minerva is hoping it could provide a fast short-cut to humanity's colonies and further. They know nothing about this parallel world except that one of their men has been there before, but no one believed him.
Two years ago, Titus Quinn was found, disorientated and insensible, shouting gibberish, on a far-flung mining planet. He claimed he had spent ten years in another world, but had only been missing for six months. He claimed his wife, Johanna, and young daughter, Sydney, had been taken from him, but soon after being rescued, his memories vanished.
Having lost his job as a pilot for Minerva, and been discredited in the bargain, Quinn lives as a recluse by the sea, building train tracks throughout his house and wallowing in the pain of losing his wife and daughter and not being able to remember any of it - but knowing it's true.
Now Minerva is knocking on his door, blackmailing him into going back to a world they had scoffed at, to a world where something very bad happened. But for the chance of finding his wife and child, Quinn accepts.
The world he arrives in remembers him all too well, for being the first visitor from the Rose, for being a captive of the cruel and superior ruling Tarig for ten years, and for being the first person to assault one and escape. But there's more to his history here than he is told, but the memories are slow in coming. As he finds his footing once more, he realises there's far more at stake than a simple travel route for spaceships through this plane, where time is not the same, and he'll have to make the decision yet again: his home, the Rose, or his daughter.
I can't rave enough about this book. If I could give it ten stars, I would. It's a beautiful blend of science fiction and fantasy, both a quest story and a political one, with familiar and bizarre characters you can really get attached to. And I absolutely love this cover, by Stephan Martiniere. I think it's beautiful, and fascinating. It's distinctly alien and imaginative, and even though the figures in the foreground don't appear in this city, called the Ascendancy, in the book, it's more like two separate scenes or landscapes have been merged or layered, which plays with the whole construct of the world. I'll try to explain what I mean. It's also a handsome book to hold, if heavy, with care and attention gone into every detail.
The prose is flawless. Smooth, elegant, precise and perfectly paced. There's control here, but also poetry. Written in the third person past tense, it has that quality that present tense has: that Here, Now quality that adds to an unpredictability that keeps you on your toes. While some books have that "long, long ago" story-telling tone, Bright of the Sky has an edgy quality that brings you right alongside Quinn and the other characters whose perspectives we enter the story from, and the danger and excitement is palpable.
Which is another thing: it's never boring. Everything in the Entire - the parallel world - is familiar and yet new, similar and yet unique. Kenyon has an impressive imagination to draw from, and her prose draws vivid images in your head. It also had a familiar feel to it, like I'd dreamed it once - which I think comes from the altered state of being in the Entire.
The Entire is a creative world, populated by sentient beings modelled from "real" worlds like Earth. The Chalin people are modelled from humans - the Chinese in particular, which race they liked the most, but they changed things. Other sentient beings are modelled from what they glimpsed of other worlds. The Tarig rule here absolutely, powerful beings that resemble insects - Mantis Lords, Sydney calls them - with their elongated, thin and narrow bodies, incredibly strong.
The Entire is their creation, and is no planet. The bright is the fiery red sky, and the vast land winds like ribbons bordered by storm walls, from which smaller branches stretch off, and smaller ones still, becoming more and more unstable. It is in these unstable places that the Tarig have created veils, so that scholars can watch the Rose and study our world. But no one has ever come through the veils before Titus Quinn and his family, and one of their laws is that the Rose shall never learn of the Entire.
This is the first book of four - the first three are already out, with the fourth due out in January 2010 - and promises a thought-provoking, gritty science fiction merged with a powerful, character-driven fantasy. I could talk forever about this book but it'd be better if you read it for yourself!
A machine sapient running a space station and stabilising a K-tunnel inadvertently stumbles across a parallel world, and Minerva is hoping it could provide a fast short-cut to humanity's colonies and further. They know nothing about this parallel world except that one of their men has been there before, but no one believed him.
Two years ago, Titus Quinn was found, disorientated and insensible, shouting gibberish, on a far-flung mining planet. He claimed he had spent ten years in another world, but had only been missing for six months. He claimed his wife, Johanna, and young daughter, Sydney, had been taken from him, but soon after being rescued, his memories vanished.
Having lost his job as a pilot for Minerva, and been discredited in the bargain, Quinn lives as a recluse by the sea, building train tracks throughout his house and wallowing in the pain of losing his wife and daughter and not being able to remember any of it - but knowing it's true.
Now Minerva is knocking on his door, blackmailing him into going back to a world they had scoffed at, to a world where something very bad happened. But for the chance of finding his wife and child, Quinn accepts.
The world he arrives in remembers him all too well, for being the first visitor from the Rose, for being a captive of the cruel and superior ruling Tarig for ten years, and for being the first person to assault one and escape. But there's more to his history here than he is told, but the memories are slow in coming. As he finds his footing once more, he realises there's far more at stake than a simple travel route for spaceships through this plane, where time is not the same, and he'll have to make the decision yet again: his home, the Rose, or his daughter.
I can't rave enough about this book. If I could give it ten stars, I would. It's a beautiful blend of science fiction and fantasy, both a quest story and a political one, with familiar and bizarre characters you can really get attached to. And I absolutely love this cover, by Stephan Martiniere. I think it's beautiful, and fascinating. It's distinctly alien and imaginative, and even though the figures in the foreground don't appear in this city, called the Ascendancy, in the book, it's more like two separate scenes or landscapes have been merged or layered, which plays with the whole construct of the world. I'll try to explain what I mean. It's also a handsome book to hold, if heavy, with care and attention gone into every detail.
The prose is flawless. Smooth, elegant, precise and perfectly paced. There's control here, but also poetry. Written in the third person past tense, it has that quality that present tense has: that Here, Now quality that adds to an unpredictability that keeps you on your toes. While some books have that "long, long ago" story-telling tone, Bright of the Sky has an edgy quality that brings you right alongside Quinn and the other characters whose perspectives we enter the story from, and the danger and excitement is palpable.
Which is another thing: it's never boring. Everything in the Entire - the parallel world - is familiar and yet new, similar and yet unique. Kenyon has an impressive imagination to draw from, and her prose draws vivid images in your head. It also had a familiar feel to it, like I'd dreamed it once - which I think comes from the altered state of being in the Entire.
The Entire is a creative world, populated by sentient beings modelled from "real" worlds like Earth. The Chalin people are modelled from humans - the Chinese in particular, which race they liked the most, but they changed things. Other sentient beings are modelled from what they glimpsed of other worlds. The Tarig rule here absolutely, powerful beings that resemble insects - Mantis Lords, Sydney calls them - with their elongated, thin and narrow bodies, incredibly strong.
The Entire is their creation, and is no planet. The bright is the fiery red sky, and the vast land winds like ribbons bordered by storm walls, from which smaller branches stretch off, and smaller ones still, becoming more and more unstable. It is in these unstable places that the Tarig have created veils, so that scholars can watch the Rose and study our world. But no one has ever come through the veils before Titus Quinn and his family, and one of their laws is that the Rose shall never learn of the Entire.
This is the first book of four - the first three are already out, with the fourth due out in January 2010 - and promises a thought-provoking, gritty science fiction merged with a powerful, character-driven fantasy. I could talk forever about this book but it'd be better if you read it for yourself!
August 19, 2009
An interesting concept for speculative fiction involving an alternate universe crafted by an alien race but copied from bits and pieces of our universe. Even some of the sentient races and plant life mimic specimens from our dimension. But the physics of that realm defy understanding and twist sideways all familiar conventions.
I was unconvinced of the protagonist's passion and devotion to his obsession. Frankly, the characters bored me. No spark of compassion flamed to life in my heart for Quinn or Sydney or Anzi. No flutter of empathy for his wife's final message squirreled away and hidden in plain sight in the archives.
Much of the story was devoted to world building, and such a strange world the Tarig created in the Entire (or the All as the inhabitants sometimes refer to it). Storm walls between primacies of infinite length but finite breadth, dividing the alternate dimension from others. An endless river that is not a river flowing in one direction but connecting all regions. The bright in the sky, another river of light that never ceases, and only dims, or ebbs, every few hours. No suns, no stars, no moon, just perpetual light.
The pace picked up during the last hundred pages, providing more action and improbable insights causing mind-jarring changes to well laid plans. Convenient? For the author perhaps, but not the reader. The ending felt like a train wreck written to meet a deadline that whooshed past the author while she languished in her alternate landscapes.
I doubt I will continue with this series, even though several loose ends, plots and story arcs are obviously left hanging.
I was unconvinced of the protagonist's passion and devotion to his obsession. Frankly, the characters bored me. No spark of compassion flamed to life in my heart for Quinn or Sydney or Anzi. No flutter of empathy for his wife's final message squirreled away and hidden in plain sight in the archives.
Much of the story was devoted to world building, and such a strange world the Tarig created in the Entire (or the All as the inhabitants sometimes refer to it). Storm walls between primacies of infinite length but finite breadth, dividing the alternate dimension from others. An endless river that is not a river flowing in one direction but connecting all regions. The bright in the sky, another river of light that never ceases, and only dims, or ebbs, every few hours. No suns, no stars, no moon, just perpetual light.
The pace picked up during the last hundred pages, providing more action and improbable insights causing mind-jarring changes to well laid plans. Convenient? For the author perhaps, but not the reader. The ending felt like a train wreck written to meet a deadline that whooshed past the author while she languished in her alternate landscapes.
I doubt I will continue with this series, even though several loose ends, plots and story arcs are obviously left hanging.
June 22, 2010
This is one of those unfortunate books where the promise of a fine story and impressive world-building is completely stifled by mediocre writing. There are some startlingly powerful images in the novel, and some impressive set pieces, but there is so much dreck that I wanted to give up on the book from the very first page.
If you read science fiction mainly to explore well-imagined alien worlds, there is a fair amount here to enjoy. It takes 77 abysmal pages to finally reach the Entire, but when the book does arrive there, there are plenty of strange creatures and a several interesting concepts that Kenyon clearly enjoyed playing with. She could have used a better editor -- I really only needed to have the Entire's time-sense explained to me once, and the same thing goes with the bright looking like boiling porridge, the river Nigh passing through all the Primacies, and quite a few other world-building elements that got repeated ad infinitum. But still, by the end of the novel I had a sense that there was this strange, chaotic, haphazard place out there, and that is saying something for the scope of Kenyon's imagination.
However, nearly every word I read made me want throw the book far, far away. Everything about Kenyon's craft is obvious -- the sentences plod rather than dance, the story takes all of the most predictable turns, and the characters. . . there is no stretch of the imagination that will let me call them people. They are mere compilations of wants that Kenyon moves about the page by means of cattle prod: Quinn wants his family and will seek them no matter what the danger (even when the danger puts him at risk of being totally useless to his family); Anzi wants to please Quinn (actually, every "good" character wants to please Quinn, for no reason that is apparent to me, except authorial fiat); all of the high-ups at Minerva want their profit margins to increase, and that is all they want because that is how Kenyon makes them the bad guys (and apparently the want of profit makes them want to make the most inhumane choice, even when there are better options available). There is no complexity to these characters, no point where they are at war with themselves because they want mutually exclusive things, no point where what they want puts them in conflict with any sort of moral sense or where they wonder if what they want is a good thing or not. Kenyon's characters are flat, and that makes every conversation, every internal monologue absolutely torturous.
If there is a ray of light in that morass, it was the all-too-brief sections in Sydney's perspective among the Inyx. In those sections, Kenyon's ridiculously simplistic treatment of her characters actually worked, because Sydney's world is one of simple wants almost entirely in the present tense. Those sections I was able to actually enjoy -- though it's entirely possible that I'm just another girl who's a softie for a horse story.
But other than those brief moments with the Inyx, I really disliked reading this book, and even though the action finally picked up in the last fifty pages and the story has clearly just begin, I will definitely not be picking up the next book.
And that makes me a little sad, because the series has absolutely gorgeous covers.
If you read science fiction mainly to explore well-imagined alien worlds, there is a fair amount here to enjoy. It takes 77 abysmal pages to finally reach the Entire, but when the book does arrive there, there are plenty of strange creatures and a several interesting concepts that Kenyon clearly enjoyed playing with. She could have used a better editor -- I really only needed to have the Entire's time-sense explained to me once, and the same thing goes with the bright looking like boiling porridge, the river Nigh passing through all the Primacies, and quite a few other world-building elements that got repeated ad infinitum. But still, by the end of the novel I had a sense that there was this strange, chaotic, haphazard place out there, and that is saying something for the scope of Kenyon's imagination.
However, nearly every word I read made me want throw the book far, far away. Everything about Kenyon's craft is obvious -- the sentences plod rather than dance, the story takes all of the most predictable turns, and the characters. . . there is no stretch of the imagination that will let me call them people. They are mere compilations of wants that Kenyon moves about the page by means of cattle prod: Quinn wants his family and will seek them no matter what the danger (even when the danger puts him at risk of being totally useless to his family); Anzi wants to please Quinn (actually, every "good" character wants to please Quinn, for no reason that is apparent to me, except authorial fiat); all of the high-ups at Minerva want their profit margins to increase, and that is all they want because that is how Kenyon makes them the bad guys (and apparently the want of profit makes them want to make the most inhumane choice, even when there are better options available). There is no complexity to these characters, no point where they are at war with themselves because they want mutually exclusive things, no point where what they want puts them in conflict with any sort of moral sense or where they wonder if what they want is a good thing or not. Kenyon's characters are flat, and that makes every conversation, every internal monologue absolutely torturous.
If there is a ray of light in that morass, it was the all-too-brief sections in Sydney's perspective among the Inyx. In those sections, Kenyon's ridiculously simplistic treatment of her characters actually worked, because Sydney's world is one of simple wants almost entirely in the present tense. Those sections I was able to actually enjoy -- though it's entirely possible that I'm just another girl who's a softie for a horse story.
But other than those brief moments with the Inyx, I really disliked reading this book, and even though the action finally picked up in the last fifty pages and the story has clearly just begin, I will definitely not be picking up the next book.
And that makes me a little sad, because the series has absolutely gorgeous covers.
September 23, 2015
Highly imaginative, huge concept science fiction that's a bit let down by a plodding pace.
Titus Quinn, half-mad former spaceship pilot, once left our universe for another called the Entire. He returns to our universe, but he is forced to leave his wife and young daughter and most of his memory in the Entire. Now, powerful people in our universe have discovered a way back and have recruited Titus for the trip. But he isn't unknown there, and the alien lords of that universe are hunting him.
The world-building is intricate. The people of the Entire (they call our universe the Rose) are varied and created as copies of creatures from other universes by the rulers of the Entire, the Tarig. The human-analogues are called the Chalin and have a culture loosely based on medieval Chinese culture. But there's lots of other very interesting species like the Inyx, telepathic herd beasts that keep sentient slaves to be their riders but demand that the slaves be blinded.
Where the novel struggles is in pacing, as it really just plods along. It also has a problem with introduction of world-building elements far too late and sometimes lacking in explanation. The only aircraft in the Entire are the Tarig brightships which Titus encounters several times during the book, but it's only right near the end that it gets mentioned that the brightships are actually stunted and bound extra-dimensional creatures in constant pain. And it's revealed as if everyone knows this. And nothing is explained why a less horrible form of aircraft wouldn't be better ...
Still, the scenario is interesting enough, and the characters are interesting enough. I'll be reading the next one.
Titus Quinn, half-mad former spaceship pilot, once left our universe for another called the Entire. He returns to our universe, but he is forced to leave his wife and young daughter and most of his memory in the Entire. Now, powerful people in our universe have discovered a way back and have recruited Titus for the trip. But he isn't unknown there, and the alien lords of that universe are hunting him.
The world-building is intricate. The people of the Entire (they call our universe the Rose) are varied and created as copies of creatures from other universes by the rulers of the Entire, the Tarig. The human-analogues are called the Chalin and have a culture loosely based on medieval Chinese culture. But there's lots of other very interesting species like the Inyx, telepathic herd beasts that keep sentient slaves to be their riders but demand that the slaves be blinded.
Where the novel struggles is in pacing, as it really just plods along. It also has a problem with introduction of world-building elements far too late and sometimes lacking in explanation. The only aircraft in the Entire are the Tarig brightships which Titus encounters several times during the book, but it's only right near the end that it gets mentioned that the brightships are actually stunted and bound extra-dimensional creatures in constant pain. And it's revealed as if everyone knows this. And nothing is explained why a less horrible form of aircraft wouldn't be better ...
Still, the scenario is interesting enough, and the characters are interesting enough. I'll be reading the next one.
January 3, 2012
This is, without a doubt, the most painfully boring science-fiction novel I have ever sadistically forced myself to finish.
Before I rant about why I did not like this story, let me first account for what I thought were its merits, few though they may be. While the premise of alternative universes is a fairly well-developed landscape for science-fiction settings, Kenyon does create a plausible job of world-building within this framework (this is, apparently, the area of writing in which she is most noted). The science geek in me enjoyed the few instances in which quantum physics jargon was used to explain concepts. And, I liked the couple brief references of future storyline regarding how the Tarig planned to harness new energy sources for The Entire and the implications that could have on the rest of the universe.
However, these few positives are, unfortunately, lost within the miasma of literary mediocracy. First off, hello plot, where art thou? Search though I did, the plot could not be found. Titus discovers a new universe, The Entire, in a failed space voyage, losing his daughter and wife to said universe. He returns to Earth, only to get asked to go back to The Entire for more intelligence gathering. He, of course, has other motives... like finding his wife and daughter. While back in The Entire he learns their fates, along with what the rulers of The Entire, the Tarigs, are up to and returns to earth yet again. That's it. Thin, very thin. Hardly any action but a lot of whining. Obvious set up for a sequel, but usually SOMETHING is resolved within the covers of a novel... particularly if the book is over 400 pages long.
Secondly, the characters lacked any personality. None. They all seemed uniform. Even the ones that were clearly "good" or "bad". No character development either, though I suppose, Titus, being the main character, was supposed to have gone through a type of aggression-calming change. Whatever.
Lastly, the writing was contrived, at best. No style, no finesse. The descriptions were either very long-winded or really blunt. The words did not inspire sentiment for the characters, they didn't make the reader yearn for more.
I was, to say the least, disappointed. Will not be continuing with this series.
Before I rant about why I did not like this story, let me first account for what I thought were its merits, few though they may be. While the premise of alternative universes is a fairly well-developed landscape for science-fiction settings, Kenyon does create a plausible job of world-building within this framework (this is, apparently, the area of writing in which she is most noted). The science geek in me enjoyed the few instances in which quantum physics jargon was used to explain concepts. And, I liked the couple brief references of future storyline regarding how the Tarig planned to harness new energy sources for The Entire and the implications that could have on the rest of the universe.
However, these few positives are, unfortunately, lost within the miasma of literary mediocracy. First off, hello plot, where art thou? Search though I did, the plot could not be found. Titus discovers a new universe, The Entire, in a failed space voyage, losing his daughter and wife to said universe. He returns to Earth, only to get asked to go back to The Entire for more intelligence gathering. He, of course, has other motives... like finding his wife and daughter. While back in The Entire he learns their fates, along with what the rulers of The Entire, the Tarigs, are up to and returns to earth yet again. That's it. Thin, very thin. Hardly any action but a lot of whining. Obvious set up for a sequel, but usually SOMETHING is resolved within the covers of a novel... particularly if the book is over 400 pages long.
Secondly, the characters lacked any personality. None. They all seemed uniform. Even the ones that were clearly "good" or "bad". No character development either, though I suppose, Titus, being the main character, was supposed to have gone through a type of aggression-calming change. Whatever.
Lastly, the writing was contrived, at best. No style, no finesse. The descriptions were either very long-winded or really blunt. The words did not inspire sentiment for the characters, they didn't make the reader yearn for more.
I was, to say the least, disappointed. Will not be continuing with this series.
June 24, 2010
3.5 stars. Excellent world building highlight this first installment. Will defintely read the second book in the series.
December 24, 2010
I was just glad to have it finished, which is probably not a good sign.
Interesting premise, plot was decent, some very good alien creature and world building, but I simply could not relate to the characters. There was a lot of telling the reader how the characters felt (particularly toward each other), but not a lot of showing. Actions speak louder than words, right? I often found myself thinking, "What?? Where did THAT come from?" Having not seen the emotion between characters develop over time it would comme as a suprise when BOOM!, all of a sudden we have significant feeling between them. The characters seemed not just reserved, but robotic.
Frankly, I started out liking the main character, but by the end I thought he was an ass. Maybe he redeems himself in later books, but I don't know that I want to spend the time finding out.
Interesting premise, plot was decent, some very good alien creature and world building, but I simply could not relate to the characters. There was a lot of telling the reader how the characters felt (particularly toward each other), but not a lot of showing. Actions speak louder than words, right? I often found myself thinking, "What?? Where did THAT come from?" Having not seen the emotion between characters develop over time it would comme as a suprise when BOOM!, all of a sudden we have significant feeling between them. The characters seemed not just reserved, but robotic.
Frankly, I started out liking the main character, but by the end I thought he was an ass. Maybe he redeems himself in later books, but I don't know that I want to spend the time finding out.
January 6, 2013
(Originally reviewed on )
Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.� Author Kay Kenyon has created a universe where the technology is just that advanced, so that it feels more like a fantasy realm than a science fiction realm.
That universe is called the Entire, and the inhabitants of the Entire call our own universe the Rose, which is where the name of the series comes from: The Entire and the Rose. The first book, Bright of the Sky, introduces us to the Entire by way of a future in which corporations run the Earth, most people live on the dole, and people travel through wormholes stabilized by super-advanced AIs called machine sapients, or mSaps. When one of the mSaps goes off the deep end obsessing over what appears to be a possible way into another universe, the Minerva corporation goes to call on the one human who had made it into that other universe and returned, though his story had been ridiculed at the time. But now, they want him to go back and see if he can negotiate with the leaders of the Entire for safe passage through it for their ships. So, Titus Quinn returns to the Entire, and begins a dual mission. Not only does he need to act as an envoy of the Rose, he also needs to find his wife and daughter who’d crossed over into the Entire with him the first time, but hadn’t returned.
The politics of the Entire are convoluted, but not nearly as odd as the universe they inhabit. In the Entire, there’s no open space with stars, it all appears to be a single enormous land mass, with the Bright above serving as the sky. It also seems to have as much room as all the planets of the Rose combined, and is inhabited by various sentient creatures, including the Tarig, the Bright Lords who rule the Entire. There is a version of humanity in the Entire called the Chalin, so Titus can pass with a little help from a few friends. Entire technology is amazingly different from what we’re used to, and so in many cases it seems like magic; for example, Titus� face is altered so he won’t be recognized by using special needles to stimulate the changes in his face, in sort of an incredibly advanced acupuncture.
While the Entire parts of the book read like fantasy, the parts that happen in our own “Rose� universe are pretty solid science fiction, and good old human office politics are a big part of it. The part that kept drawing me in, though, is the Entire. It’s a universe completely unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and while it’s unusual, it all fits together very well. Titus and his daughter Sydney, while separated throughout the whole book, are nonetheless well drawn characters who make mistakes and face the consequences, and yet manage to muddle through and do the right thing.
For a fascinating alternate universe, and engaging characters, Bright of the Sky is well worth picking up. And since it’s currently free in Kindle edition [update: no longer free in Kindle edition, sorry], it’s not going to cost much to check it out, and see if you want to read the other three books in the series.
Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.� Author Kay Kenyon has created a universe where the technology is just that advanced, so that it feels more like a fantasy realm than a science fiction realm.
That universe is called the Entire, and the inhabitants of the Entire call our own universe the Rose, which is where the name of the series comes from: The Entire and the Rose. The first book, Bright of the Sky, introduces us to the Entire by way of a future in which corporations run the Earth, most people live on the dole, and people travel through wormholes stabilized by super-advanced AIs called machine sapients, or mSaps. When one of the mSaps goes off the deep end obsessing over what appears to be a possible way into another universe, the Minerva corporation goes to call on the one human who had made it into that other universe and returned, though his story had been ridiculed at the time. But now, they want him to go back and see if he can negotiate with the leaders of the Entire for safe passage through it for their ships. So, Titus Quinn returns to the Entire, and begins a dual mission. Not only does he need to act as an envoy of the Rose, he also needs to find his wife and daughter who’d crossed over into the Entire with him the first time, but hadn’t returned.
The politics of the Entire are convoluted, but not nearly as odd as the universe they inhabit. In the Entire, there’s no open space with stars, it all appears to be a single enormous land mass, with the Bright above serving as the sky. It also seems to have as much room as all the planets of the Rose combined, and is inhabited by various sentient creatures, including the Tarig, the Bright Lords who rule the Entire. There is a version of humanity in the Entire called the Chalin, so Titus can pass with a little help from a few friends. Entire technology is amazingly different from what we’re used to, and so in many cases it seems like magic; for example, Titus� face is altered so he won’t be recognized by using special needles to stimulate the changes in his face, in sort of an incredibly advanced acupuncture.
While the Entire parts of the book read like fantasy, the parts that happen in our own “Rose� universe are pretty solid science fiction, and good old human office politics are a big part of it. The part that kept drawing me in, though, is the Entire. It’s a universe completely unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and while it’s unusual, it all fits together very well. Titus and his daughter Sydney, while separated throughout the whole book, are nonetheless well drawn characters who make mistakes and face the consequences, and yet manage to muddle through and do the right thing.
For a fascinating alternate universe, and engaging characters, Bright of the Sky is well worth picking up. And since it’s currently free in Kindle edition [update: no longer free in Kindle edition, sorry], it’s not going to cost much to check it out, and see if you want to read the other three books in the series.
June 20, 2020
The over-arching idea of this book, that a whole other universe unlike -yet very like- this one is passing -or tunnelling- through ours is -though hardly blindingly original- an intrinsicly intriguing one. Indeed, some of the vistas and occupants of that universe as Kenyon exhibits them verged upon invoking Sensawunda in even such a jaded SF fan as I.
But, overall, punches are pulled.
Kenyon, instead of flying with the science (even pseudo-science), instead seems to want to turn everything into standard quest Fantasy (the nasty-ish rulers of this adjacent realm may as well be elves, there are sentient horses, magic stones for data storage, mainly Medieval technology, a creation story riffing -but not evoking- Tolkein). Worse, there's a muffled quality to her writing that never let me properly engage with proceedings or any character's feelings for any worthwhile length of time - surface depiction with only occasional depth. There's a convenience, too, to travel between the dimensions (at least from this one to that): we're talking two UNIVERSES here, and we're often told of the remote chances of successful travel between them... yet happy coincidence puts our hero precisely where he needs to be to begin the execution/ continuance of his quest, amongst precisely the correct people.
An okay book with some good ideas; however, I won't be going out of my way to complete the trilogy it begins.
But, overall, punches are pulled.
Kenyon, instead of flying with the science (even pseudo-science), instead seems to want to turn everything into standard quest Fantasy (the nasty-ish rulers of this adjacent realm may as well be elves, there are sentient horses, magic stones for data storage, mainly Medieval technology, a creation story riffing -but not evoking- Tolkein). Worse, there's a muffled quality to her writing that never let me properly engage with proceedings or any character's feelings for any worthwhile length of time - surface depiction with only occasional depth. There's a convenience, too, to travel between the dimensions (at least from this one to that): we're talking two UNIVERSES here, and we're often told of the remote chances of successful travel between them... yet happy coincidence puts our hero precisely where he needs to be to begin the execution/ continuance of his quest, amongst precisely the correct people.
An okay book with some good ideas; however, I won't be going out of my way to complete the trilogy it begins.
July 31, 2013
1 1/2 Stars
A man named (damn, had to go look it up because I forgot already) Titus landed on another planet with his wife and daughter. Somehow he got back to planet earth minus said wife and daughter. The peeps here on earth thought he was crazy because he said he'd been gone 10 years when it hadn't been that long. Titus has forgotten everything about this new world.
Titus retreats into himself until 2 years later evidence is found that supports his story that he was in another world and they want him to try to find it again and do research.
Titus is starting to remember thing slowly and he is shipped off again to this land with a Bright Sky like a flame in search of his family.
The story continues as he is captured then retrained to their customs and his memory comes back. He's caused a lot of problem here and some want him dead. The search for answers is on.
The ending was a to-be-continued that really took the joy (if I had had any) out of the read and left it wanting.
The characters were either full of rage, hatred, or out for themselves. They were really unlikeable. The story was missing something? I honestly don't know what it was. The dialect in which the Sky people talk (Be this way going?) slows down the read.
This read just didn't interest me. I tried.
A man named (damn, had to go look it up because I forgot already) Titus landed on another planet with his wife and daughter. Somehow he got back to planet earth minus said wife and daughter. The peeps here on earth thought he was crazy because he said he'd been gone 10 years when it hadn't been that long. Titus has forgotten everything about this new world.
Titus retreats into himself until 2 years later evidence is found that supports his story that he was in another world and they want him to try to find it again and do research.
Titus is starting to remember thing slowly and he is shipped off again to this land with a Bright Sky like a flame in search of his family.
The story continues as he is captured then retrained to their customs and his memory comes back. He's caused a lot of problem here and some want him dead. The search for answers is on.
The ending was a to-be-continued that really took the joy (if I had had any) out of the read and left it wanting.
The characters were either full of rage, hatred, or out for themselves. They were really unlikeable. The story was missing something? I honestly don't know what it was. The dialect in which the Sky people talk (Be this way going?) slows down the read.
This read just didn't interest me. I tried.
August 31, 2009
Twenty-fourth-century Earth, where society is organized by intelligence and aptitude, and corporations rule. A decommissioned pilot (the wormhole kind) is sent to an alternate universe as a corporate emissary, while personally he just wants to find his wife and daughter, missing there with a lot of his memories.
Huh, okay. It's the first in a quadrology, which explains why it feels about 95% setup, though the series plot does eventually show up at the end. And this is a creative book � the alternate universe is a weird, whacky place, with exotic matter rivers and creepy alien overlords. And there are some complicated psychological layers rubbing up against each other.
But I never cared. Partly because of all the setup, and partly because there just aren't that many authors who can make me like this tired 'man who lost wife and child' routine. (Which isn't terribly toxic here, I should clarify, because the daughter's story is part of the book). But still, I kept picking this book up and putting it down, and it never connected with me where I live.
Huh, okay. It's the first in a quadrology, which explains why it feels about 95% setup, though the series plot does eventually show up at the end. And this is a creative book � the alternate universe is a weird, whacky place, with exotic matter rivers and creepy alien overlords. And there are some complicated psychological layers rubbing up against each other.
But I never cared. Partly because of all the setup, and partly because there just aren't that many authors who can make me like this tired 'man who lost wife and child' routine. (Which isn't terribly toxic here, I should clarify, because the daughter's story is part of the book). But still, I kept picking this book up and putting it down, and it never connected with me where I live.
September 28, 2010
The book, while remarkably different, has many parallels to Clavell's Shogun. Yulin is in many ways similar to Yabu and the "lost in a foreign land" and "learning the language" aspects of the book are quite identical. This book is set apart from Shogun, but one can't help wonder if some plot devices were borrowed. At least the pace of Kenyon's book is more captivating than Clavell's. Such similarities fade by the middle of the book, however.
The language and flow of the book are excellent and the main characters are believable, if not entirely likeable. It seems that Kenyon's penchant is for dark themes (something she mentions on her blog) which can be off-putting.
I have not yet read further books in the series.
The language and flow of the book are excellent and the main characters are believable, if not entirely likeable. It seems that Kenyon's penchant is for dark themes (something she mentions on her blog) which can be off-putting.
I have not yet read further books in the series.
November 7, 2017
Rating
Review
*** This review originally appeared on . ***
Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon is the first book in The Entire and the Rose series. Subsequent novels include A World Too Near, City Without End, and Prince of Storms.
The novel is a blend of science fiction and fantasy, the latter coming into play because the technology is so far advanced that it might as well be magic. The setting is reminiscent of such series as The Chronicles of Narnia or the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, both of which feature characters who travel from our world into one that is both wonderful and strange. What Kenyon does, however, borders on brilliant: instead of journeying with the main character into this other world for the very first time, we quickly learn that our main character, Titus Quinn, has already been there. This sets things up in an entirely different way than if he's just come into the Entire (the name for this otherworldly dimension). The catch is that he doesn't remember much about his previous stay, and only once he's back and immersed in the Entire's strange culture do bits and pieces return to him. As readers, everything is new. But with Titus as our guide, we're able to skip over some of the minutia and get right into the good stuff. That's the brilliance of Kenyon's approach.
The only thing that Titus does remember for sure is that he didn't enter the Entire alone: with him were his wife and daughter. They did not return with him, though, and so Titus spends much of his time trying to convince others back in his own world that he isn't crazy, that there is another world or dimension that he somehow traveled to, and that his wife and daughter are still there. The opportunity to return final presents itself when your somewhat atypical greedy corporation steps in offering to send Titus back in exchange for his performing some reconnaissance for them. It seems space-time works differently in the Entire, and they think it can be used to speed up interstellar travel. Titus agrees, and off he goes.
The Entire is an odd place based loosely on feudal Chinese society. Ruled by the Mantis Lords, or Tarig, there are humans and many others races there, but all are kept in a sort of subjugation by the Tarig, who are the creators of the Bright, an energy source that makes the Entire possible. Our world is called the Rose, because while those of the Entire view it as a thing of beauty, they also have seen its thorns. Interaction with the Rose is forbidden, and punishable by death, as is aiding someone like Titus who's come from there. Titus does find allies, though, those who are tired of the Tarig yoke. HIs journey becomes one of deception and subterfuge as he avoids detection at all costs while trying to determine the fate of his wife and daughter.
Titus comes across initially as a bit of a bitter kook. He was ridiculed and discredited upon his return to our world, so he chooses to live a life of solitude until given the chance to return to the Entire. He is ruled by guilt over leaving his family behind, though, and so he desperately wants to return. This desperation sets him up ultimately as a sympathetic character whom I wanted to succeed. As the story unfolds and Titus's memories return to him, the fate of his family is both sad and bittersweet. Ultimately, what begins as a sort of rescue mission for Titus becomes something else entirely as old enemies emerge and secrets are revealed. Suffice to say that Kenyon resolves some threads while leaving others spinning on the loom for the next two books in the series.
I give Bright of the Sky a solid four rockets and I plan to continue with the series.
Review
*** This review originally appeared on . ***
Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon is the first book in The Entire and the Rose series. Subsequent novels include A World Too Near, City Without End, and Prince of Storms.
The novel is a blend of science fiction and fantasy, the latter coming into play because the technology is so far advanced that it might as well be magic. The setting is reminiscent of such series as The Chronicles of Narnia or the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, both of which feature characters who travel from our world into one that is both wonderful and strange. What Kenyon does, however, borders on brilliant: instead of journeying with the main character into this other world for the very first time, we quickly learn that our main character, Titus Quinn, has already been there. This sets things up in an entirely different way than if he's just come into the Entire (the name for this otherworldly dimension). The catch is that he doesn't remember much about his previous stay, and only once he's back and immersed in the Entire's strange culture do bits and pieces return to him. As readers, everything is new. But with Titus as our guide, we're able to skip over some of the minutia and get right into the good stuff. That's the brilliance of Kenyon's approach.
The only thing that Titus does remember for sure is that he didn't enter the Entire alone: with him were his wife and daughter. They did not return with him, though, and so Titus spends much of his time trying to convince others back in his own world that he isn't crazy, that there is another world or dimension that he somehow traveled to, and that his wife and daughter are still there. The opportunity to return final presents itself when your somewhat atypical greedy corporation steps in offering to send Titus back in exchange for his performing some reconnaissance for them. It seems space-time works differently in the Entire, and they think it can be used to speed up interstellar travel. Titus agrees, and off he goes.
The Entire is an odd place based loosely on feudal Chinese society. Ruled by the Mantis Lords, or Tarig, there are humans and many others races there, but all are kept in a sort of subjugation by the Tarig, who are the creators of the Bright, an energy source that makes the Entire possible. Our world is called the Rose, because while those of the Entire view it as a thing of beauty, they also have seen its thorns. Interaction with the Rose is forbidden, and punishable by death, as is aiding someone like Titus who's come from there. Titus does find allies, though, those who are tired of the Tarig yoke. HIs journey becomes one of deception and subterfuge as he avoids detection at all costs while trying to determine the fate of his wife and daughter.
Titus comes across initially as a bit of a bitter kook. He was ridiculed and discredited upon his return to our world, so he chooses to live a life of solitude until given the chance to return to the Entire. He is ruled by guilt over leaving his family behind, though, and so he desperately wants to return. This desperation sets him up ultimately as a sympathetic character whom I wanted to succeed. As the story unfolds and Titus's memories return to him, the fate of his family is both sad and bittersweet. Ultimately, what begins as a sort of rescue mission for Titus becomes something else entirely as old enemies emerge and secrets are revealed. Suffice to say that Kenyon resolves some threads while leaving others spinning on the loom for the next two books in the series.
I give Bright of the Sky a solid four rockets and I plan to continue with the series.
August 16, 2012
I wanted to like this book. The author has built an intriguing world, and the plot looked interesting and complex.
Also, I love character-driven science fiction, which this is.
Unfortunately, I hate all the characters.
I do have to give the book credit, though - the prose is lovely, if sometimes a bit vacuous, and there are interesting ideas buried in here. I just don't think I can put up with the characters long enough to find out what happens next. I won't be following this series.
Also, I love character-driven science fiction, which this is.
Unfortunately, I hate all the characters.
I do have to give the book credit, though - the prose is lovely, if sometimes a bit vacuous, and there are interesting ideas buried in here. I just don't think I can put up with the characters long enough to find out what happens next. I won't be following this series.
April 5, 2013
Disclosure: A couple of years ago, I read an ebook by a female author about transdimensional travel associated with a big, bad Company. I thought it was well written, but not quite my thing. When I saw this book, by a female author, about transdimensional travel associated with a big, bad Company, I thought it was the same writer, and figured "Hey, I'll give her another try." Turns out, not the same person. The names aren't even all that similar. But I didn't know that until, halfway through the book, I checked on my supposition that this was the author's first book. Why did I do that? Because, even with as little as I remembered of the first author, I was surprised by the sudden drop in writing quality. Had I realized the error earlier, I might have given up on the book.
Bright of the Sky starts weak. The concept itself is okay, and the plot starts with something of a bang. Titus Quinn is an ex-pilot who once crossed over into an alternate world, where he left his wife, child, and much of his memory. The Company didn't believe him, mistreated him, but now wants him to go back. He does, and gradually recovers his memory.
If plot is adequate, the writing is distinctly disappointing. The human world is nicely described, and comes across distinctly, as a very urban, stratified society. The alternate world is much less clear, both physically and culturally, though the alien Tarig are clearly in charge. The intrigues and substories are interesting on the cultural level, but on the character level they're sketchy. For example, once Titus has crossed over, he spends a lot of time with Anzi, who's just dying to know what Earth (the Rose) is like. But she never asks him any questions. I don't buy it - as if here's your chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about fairyland, and instead, you talk about the local bus schedule and how to get to the mall.
While the worldbuilding is generally good, there are a few careless details - e.g., an airship that's reluctant to take passengers, but appears to have no other reason for being. More troubling to me were the character issues. There are some key episodes of unexplained, irrational behaviour - the way key character Sydney treats sycophant Akay Wat, or the key-plot-driver crime committed by Titus toward the end. I didn't find the actions well enough supported. In addition, Titus' returning memory is far too often used as a magic ex machina wand to provide information or escape.
All in all, it's an adequate story with successful worldbuilding, but characters that need work. It won't hurt you to read it, but it won't leave much impression. I won't be going on to the sequels.
Bright of the Sky starts weak. The concept itself is okay, and the plot starts with something of a bang. Titus Quinn is an ex-pilot who once crossed over into an alternate world, where he left his wife, child, and much of his memory. The Company didn't believe him, mistreated him, but now wants him to go back. He does, and gradually recovers his memory.
If plot is adequate, the writing is distinctly disappointing. The human world is nicely described, and comes across distinctly, as a very urban, stratified society. The alternate world is much less clear, both physically and culturally, though the alien Tarig are clearly in charge. The intrigues and substories are interesting on the cultural level, but on the character level they're sketchy. For example, once Titus has crossed over, he spends a lot of time with Anzi, who's just dying to know what Earth (the Rose) is like. But she never asks him any questions. I don't buy it - as if here's your chance to find out everything you ever wanted to know about fairyland, and instead, you talk about the local bus schedule and how to get to the mall.
While the worldbuilding is generally good, there are a few careless details - e.g., an airship that's reluctant to take passengers, but appears to have no other reason for being. More troubling to me were the character issues. There are some key episodes of unexplained, irrational behaviour - the way key character Sydney treats sycophant Akay Wat, or the key-plot-driver crime committed by Titus toward the end. I didn't find the actions well enough supported. In addition, Titus' returning memory is far too often used as a magic ex machina wand to provide information or escape.
All in all, it's an adequate story with successful worldbuilding, but characters that need work. It won't hurt you to read it, but it won't leave much impression. I won't be going on to the sequels.
March 30, 2011
Titus Quinn , his wife Johanna and 9 year old daughter Sydney are stranded in a parallel universe. That is where the similarities to other books I have read end.
The Setting: The new universe, called the "Entire"is described in vivid detail. The book flips back and forth between a future day earth and the parallel universe. The Entire is described in vivid detail and it allowed my imagination to take over and form a three dimensional planet as I read.
I found some of the more "scientific" explanations beyond my grasp, but it did not distract me too much from the actual story. Some will find these explanations interesting and supportive details necessary to the book. I'm just not one of them.
The Characters: Titus Quinn is a wonderfully flawed hero. His character and many of the others seemed to walk right off the page. The reader get incite into all aspects of his personality and his character as it changes throughout the book.
The other characters are just as engaging. The different species and variety of sentient beings that walk in and out of the storyline are odd and interesting in ways that are sometimes surprising. They add to the texture of the Entire, giving it life.
What I liked: Obviously, the characters and the world of the Entire. There are many under lying themes within this book. It would be an interesting book club selection. The topic of discussion range from religion to ethics. For those of you that prefer not to look to deeply and just want to be entertained, this book will satisfy!
The writing flowed well, with the exception of one part in the middle of the book. The fact that it is meant to be a series and the book left several plots unfinished. I love that I can look forward to reading more about this intriguing new universe and these interesting characters!
What I did not like: As I mentioned the more detailed technical explanations seemed to distract me from the plot. The writer was very cognizant of this fact and kindly repeated many of the details so I didn't have to back track to remember what a certain term meant. As I said, many will find that this adds to the story. Don't let this scare you away from this book...it is a journey worth taking!
The Setting: The new universe, called the "Entire"is described in vivid detail. The book flips back and forth between a future day earth and the parallel universe. The Entire is described in vivid detail and it allowed my imagination to take over and form a three dimensional planet as I read.
I found some of the more "scientific" explanations beyond my grasp, but it did not distract me too much from the actual story. Some will find these explanations interesting and supportive details necessary to the book. I'm just not one of them.
The Characters: Titus Quinn is a wonderfully flawed hero. His character and many of the others seemed to walk right off the page. The reader get incite into all aspects of his personality and his character as it changes throughout the book.
The other characters are just as engaging. The different species and variety of sentient beings that walk in and out of the storyline are odd and interesting in ways that are sometimes surprising. They add to the texture of the Entire, giving it life.
What I liked: Obviously, the characters and the world of the Entire. There are many under lying themes within this book. It would be an interesting book club selection. The topic of discussion range from religion to ethics. For those of you that prefer not to look to deeply and just want to be entertained, this book will satisfy!
The writing flowed well, with the exception of one part in the middle of the book. The fact that it is meant to be a series and the book left several plots unfinished. I love that I can look forward to reading more about this intriguing new universe and these interesting characters!
What I did not like: As I mentioned the more detailed technical explanations seemed to distract me from the plot. The writer was very cognizant of this fact and kindly repeated many of the details so I didn't have to back track to remember what a certain term meant. As I said, many will find that this adds to the story. Don't let this scare you away from this book...it is a journey worth taking!
March 2, 2011
Now I remember why I stopped reading series. It's hard to evaluate Bright of the Sky as a novel, because it isn't one. It's Act 1 of a really big novel, and by the end the characters have only begun to develop and the plot is just starting to get interesting. Without being able to see the story as a whole, all I can really judge it on is the world-building, which is refreshingly original.
"The Entire" is the ultimate in Big Dumb Objects - an artificial universe created by a race called the Tarig and populated with life forms based on, but not identical to, species in our own universe. The Entire isn't a cosmos of stars and planets, but is instead a galaxy-sized plain beneath an ever-burning sky, the Bright. Neat concept, but Kenyon never quite gets across the sense of immensity that I think she means to. Larry Niven's Ringworld, for example, feels much bigger.
The Tarig rule the Entire with an iron fist, but the hero, Titus Quinn, infiltrates their society by posing as a member of the human-derived species, the Chalin. The Chalin are roughly based on Chinese culture, or at least on suffocating Chinese bureaucracy. The future Earth Titus comes from is a corporate dystopia, so it's hard for the reader to feel any kind of connection to either of the universes presented.
It's hard to connect with the characters as well, not because they aren't developed, but just because few of them really seem likable. In fact, the hero might have been more interesting if Kenyon had gone all the way and made him an outright bastard. Toward the end, Titus started to remind me of the most classic Unlikeable Character from epic fantasy, Thomas Covenant. (see: Stephen R. Donaldson) Like Covenant, Titus is essentially selfish in his motivations, and he commits an unspeakable act that will come to define him for the rest of the story. For Covenant, that act came pretty early in Lord Foul's Bane. For Titus, it happens toward the end of this novel, and it will be interesting to see the consequences in later volumes.
So yeah, I will give Book 2 a try. Just not right away.
"The Entire" is the ultimate in Big Dumb Objects - an artificial universe created by a race called the Tarig and populated with life forms based on, but not identical to, species in our own universe. The Entire isn't a cosmos of stars and planets, but is instead a galaxy-sized plain beneath an ever-burning sky, the Bright. Neat concept, but Kenyon never quite gets across the sense of immensity that I think she means to. Larry Niven's Ringworld, for example, feels much bigger.
The Tarig rule the Entire with an iron fist, but the hero, Titus Quinn, infiltrates their society by posing as a member of the human-derived species, the Chalin. The Chalin are roughly based on Chinese culture, or at least on suffocating Chinese bureaucracy. The future Earth Titus comes from is a corporate dystopia, so it's hard for the reader to feel any kind of connection to either of the universes presented.
It's hard to connect with the characters as well, not because they aren't developed, but just because few of them really seem likable. In fact, the hero might have been more interesting if Kenyon had gone all the way and made him an outright bastard. Toward the end, Titus started to remind me of the most classic Unlikeable Character from epic fantasy, Thomas Covenant. (see: Stephen R. Donaldson) Like Covenant, Titus is essentially selfish in his motivations, and he commits an unspeakable act that will come to define him for the rest of the story. For Covenant, that act came pretty early in Lord Foul's Bane. For Titus, it happens toward the end of this novel, and it will be interesting to see the consequences in later volumes.
So yeah, I will give Book 2 a try. Just not right away.
December 5, 2011
This was one of the free books offered by Amazon Kindle. The premise captured my attention and I figured it would be a good read. It started off pretty decently with some action and the reader is introduced to a curmudgeonly fellow, Titus Quinn. It's pretty understandable why Quinn is such a tormented man, he lost his wife and daughter to a place that no one ever believes he went. After that introduction, it goes downhill. The book drags on mercilessly and I know Kay Kenyon is known for how she builds the worlds in her novels but this was a little too much. She spent so much time going into details of the world (The Entire) that there was little character development, little action, and no story. It took me almost two weeks to read this and that is completely unlike me. I can read a good book from 500 - 1000 pages in a week. I almost stopped reading this book completely but had to slog through it to completion. Everything was left unresolved. I usually don't mind that books with no resolution, specifically ones that are series because the authors usually resolve them in later books. However, the no resolution did not encourage me to want to purchase any of the other books in this series; in fact it discouraged it. I am not interested in reading anything else in this series.
June 12, 2009
I finally finished this today. It took me almost 2 weeks to read!! Very unusual for me. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just much too easy to put down. I wasn't intrigued by the plot, and with so many other books I also wanted to read, I kept procrastinating. But this week I finally told myself to shape up and finish it... if for no other reason, then for my own 'job satisfaction' ;-)
The plot was actually quite well thought out, but Kay Kenyon totally failed to make me care for Titus Quinn, and therefore I wasn't really interested in knowing what happened to him, which made it difficult to stay motivated. Also Bright of the Sky practised my number one pet peeve in series - it spent the entire book setting up the universe and introducing the characters, so there was no time at all to resolve the plot.
I loved Sydney though, and wish we could have heard more about her. Her life among the Inyx was fascinating, and she seemed like a much more interesting character than Titus did.
The plot was actually quite well thought out, but Kay Kenyon totally failed to make me care for Titus Quinn, and therefore I wasn't really interested in knowing what happened to him, which made it difficult to stay motivated. Also Bright of the Sky practised my number one pet peeve in series - it spent the entire book setting up the universe and introducing the characters, so there was no time at all to resolve the plot.
I loved Sydney though, and wish we could have heard more about her. Her life among the Inyx was fascinating, and she seemed like a much more interesting character than Titus did.
May 30, 2012
My impression of this book likely suffered because it took me too long to read; it became something of a chore to get through.
The major weaknesses are an unsympathetic protagonist and a structure overly dependent on being the first book in a series. There are major plot elements that lead nowhere significant within the bounds of the book, primarily the segments devoted to Sydney but also the import of the plotline regarding Small Girl. It's easier to see where Sydney's strand will go; one hopes Small Girl will come back to bite Titus eventually. The threat to our universe posed at the end of the book is too unbelievable and too dramatic - it could be scaled down to be a threat to humanity with no loss to the book.
Perhaps things would improve if I completed the entire quartet. However, given the normal plot trajectory of a series, I have little incentive to read books two and three and watch things get grimmer and grimmer before the eventual resolution in book four.
The major weaknesses are an unsympathetic protagonist and a structure overly dependent on being the first book in a series. There are major plot elements that lead nowhere significant within the bounds of the book, primarily the segments devoted to Sydney but also the import of the plotline regarding Small Girl. It's easier to see where Sydney's strand will go; one hopes Small Girl will come back to bite Titus eventually. The threat to our universe posed at the end of the book is too unbelievable and too dramatic - it could be scaled down to be a threat to humanity with no loss to the book.
Perhaps things would improve if I completed the entire quartet. However, given the normal plot trajectory of a series, I have little incentive to read books two and three and watch things get grimmer and grimmer before the eventual resolution in book four.
June 8, 2011
This is Book 1 of the series, The Entire and the Rose by Kay Kenyon. Kenyon describes a world that is an entire universe governed by strange and fierce beings. While taking a lot of artistic license with scientific theories, she describes the effects of relativity and quantum mechanics without getting technically involved in the details while at the same time making the world very real and interesting. The story is absorbing, the book is not easily put down. If you enjoy sci fi, this is a great read and the story doesn't end in this book, it continues in 3 sequels. So,if you want to read these books, clear your calendar and send the kids to grandma's.
March 26, 2023
Re-read for the second time. Still giving it 5 stars, still one of my favorite sci-fi stories. The world-building, the alien species, the plot. Except for a little bit of a slow start, this book has it all for me. I always recommend it to others but for whatever reasons, only one person ever took me up on that recommendation (as far as I know). Now I'm on to the second book :-)
September 1, 2010
Kay Kenyon has done it yet again...created a new world with new inhabitants and new crisies. Will Quinn choose the Entire or will he choose the Rose? What will Sydney do? And let's not forget Helice and her ambitions.
May 5, 2011
This is certainly different! I've read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but nothing like this. If you're tired of the same old spaceships, sword and sorcery, or urban vampires, try this on for size.
September 26, 2018
My reread of this before continuing with the other books in the trilogy. Truly creative and innovative universe, the Entire, a parallel dimension to ours. I loved Titus Quinn, a deliciously flawed, emotional, and yet compelling character.
Shelved as 'dnf'
September 20, 2016Never could get into this one, even though the premise sounds interesting.
March 4, 2012
One of the better SciFi book of late.
December 24, 2012
Really enjoyed this whole series (4 books in all)
May 24, 2013
Originally posted on my review blog, Stomping on Yeti, at the following location [ Words or Less: An undeniable triumph of world building, Kay Kenyon's The Entire and The Rose is a science fantasy tale of two worlds worth exploring despite the gradual pace dictated by occasional prose problems.[return][return]The Good: Absolutely unique world-building that combines science fiction and fantasy elements and continues to grow throughtout the entire series; Carefully plotted narrative that spans and evolves over four volumes; The world is exceptionally well integrated into the narrative rather than being adjacent to it.[return][return]The Bad: Early volumes have problems with jarring perspective changes; Worldbuilding often uses infodumping rather than in-narrative elements; The story isn't well segmented into individual novels, leaving readers with an all-or-none decision.[return][return]The Review: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Rarely is this truer than in Kay Kenyon's science fiction/fantasy hybrid quadrilogy. An undeniable triumph of world building split into four books, The Entire and the Rose is 1700 pages of complex characters and intricate narrative. The events of the series revolve around Titus Quinn, the first denizen of the Rose (our universe) to cross through into The Entire, a complex infinite world constructed by the harsh, alien Tarig and inhabited by a number of races of their creation. Several years before the series begins, Quinn and his wife and daughter were pulled into the Entire when the ship he was piloting broke apart mid-wormhole jump. Quinn returns months later in our time with no family and little recollection of what happened despite living in the Entire for over a decade. When science proves that his ravings about a second reality may in fact be true, Quinn returns to the Entire in search of his missing wife and daughter and to explore what, if any, benefit The Entire may offer Earth. As Quinn quickly becomes embroiled in the politics of the world he left behind, it becomes obvious that much more is at stake than the fate of his family. The plot only gets more complex from there, the majority of which takes place in the profoundly strange world of the Entire, although the story does take place in both universes. [return][return]To provide any more detail than that would ruin the game-changing revelations that occur frequently throughout the series, shifting plots and loyalties in unexpected but exciting ways. There are several power players on both sides of the divide and rarely is there any way of knowing who is playing who. If the Earth universe is referred to as the Rose, the other universe labeled as the Entire might be better known as the Onion. From the start of the series to the final pages, Kenyon slowly peels back layer after layer of world building, unveiling an amazingly concocted world. Religion, politics, cultural divides, a forever war, teenage cults, complex transit systems: the facets of the Entire go on and on. Kenyon details aspect after aspect of her created universe and she does an unbelievable job of unobtrusively bringing the elements she has previously cultivated back into the main plot.[return][return]It's a rare occurence but if anything there is almost too much world building. The Entire is inhabited by a number of races and species all of which are fairly unique when compared to the genre standards. However, a few of these races are almost superfluous, with not a single primary or secondary character coming from their ranks. Kenyon could have either edited them out or integrated them into the story as well as she did the primary species of Humans, Chalin, Tarig, Inyx, Hirrin, and Paion. The cultural depth of these imagined races is continually capitalized upon by Kenyon and as a result the few species that don't get starring roles ultimately fall to the wayside. [return][return]While the extraneous elements could have been handled better, the world of the Entire and the thoroughly constructed characters that inhabit it are the main attractions of the series. Kenyon's writing, on the other hand, leaves a little bit to be desired especially in the early volumes. Kenyon writes from an extremely tight third person perspective and she has an unfortunate tendency to jump perspectives mid-scene without warning, generating confusion and necessitating rereading just to confirm which character was thinking what. Kenyon gets better at this as the books go on but early on these jarring transitions occur disappointingly often especially considering a small change symbol (which is often used to switch perspectives between scenes) could have easily been used to remedy this problem. As the books progress, Kenyon does manage to reduce the frequency with which these occur. The third and fourth volumes are much stronger than the first in this regard.[return][return]Kenyon also has a propensity to take a "tell not show" approach to her worldbuilding and while the world is interesting enough, there is no in-narrative reason for the characters to lecture the way they do. Consequently, the books of The Entire and The Rose read somewhat slowly. While not a bad thing in and of itself, these are not necessarily beach reads and due to the complex nature of the world and plot, it should be read in its entirety for full effect, commanding a significant time investment on the part of the reader.[return][return]Additionally, it is important to bear in mind that this epic series would be best described as science fantasy. While Kenyon maintains the premise that all of the places and structures of her world are science-based, the science satisfies Clarke's axiom and is indistinguishable from magic. Anyone who goes into this series expecting to understand the physics underpinning the world will be sorely disappointed. Despite the trappings of science that frame the Entire, at its core it's a fantasy world; it exists and behaves the way it does because the story dictates the way it does. But it works and it works well.[return][return]Here are individual reviews of each of the four volumes in the series.[return][return]Bright of the Sky: Arguably the weakest book in the series, Kenyon's series debut suffers from exposition overload. Kenyon essentially sets up the story three times; first in the future Earth universe, than in the future Entire world, and then revealing Quinn's backstory and what occurred during his first trip to the Entire. With three full histories to explain in additional to all of the characters she introduces, it doesn't feel like a whole lot happens. The last fifty or so pages feel rushed when compared to the whole and while the end of the book comes at a natural stopping point it doesn't really resolve any of the threads introduced. With such a To-Be-Continued ending, it produces contradictory emotions - on one hand there was too little payoff after the slower prose associated with complex world building; on the other hand, A World Too Near beckoned from the shelf immediately. Bright of the Sky is also the book that suffers the most from those aforementioned perspective shifts. [return][return]A World Too Near: With A World Too Near and subsequent novels, the pace begins to pick up as Kenyon spends less time crafting her world and more time playing in it. Building on some of the surprises that emerge toward the end of Bright of the Sky, the principal conflict of the series is revealed and the battle lines are drawn. The question of who to trust is paramount and a looming decision allows Kenyon to really dig into her cast of characters. Where Bright of the Sky was about introducing the Entire, A World Too Near is really about establishing the key characters and fleshing out their motivations as they traverse the fantastic civilization. One of the most significant developments in this regard is the introduction of Helice Maki, another transplanted Earthling with an endgame that may or may not align with Quinn's. Upon entering the Entire, the plot evolves from a simple us-versus-them conflict into a more complex adventure. Although it suffers slighty from middle novel syndrome, A World Too Near really sets the stage well for the last half of the series. [return][return]A City Without End: The strongest and most science fictional of the volumes, A City Without End sees Kenyon accelerate the thread of Quinn's battle with the fearsome Tarig to a frenetic pace. Even though she still pens a few new characters, Kenyon's takes advantage of the gradual set up of the first two novels and really pushes the plot forward in unexpected directions. Unlike the other novels, A City Without Endalso includes a strong second plotline set in the Rose universe; one that could support an entire novel in and of itself. As it is, this thought provoking idea is only furthers the existing conflict. As the Rose and Entire plotlines collide on an unexpected battleground, the pages really start to turn. While the first two books were structured similar to classic "journey fantasies", A City Without End is more of a political SF thriller than a traditional fantasy. There is a great balance between closure and setup as Kenyon slams some doors and opens others, creating numerous possibilities for the direction of the concluding volume, Prince of Storms.[return][return]Prince of Storms: In the concluding volume of the series, Kenyon manages to wrap up the numerous threads of The Entire and The Rose while continuing to grow her characters in the face of new challenges. At first the final volume feels likes it would just be a prolonged epilogue especially after the spectacular ending of A City Without End but it's clear that Kenyon has a few more tricks up her sleeve. Prince of Storms takes a more fantastical approach to the Entire, taking advantage of some of the more unexplained intricacies of the Entire to raise the stakes once again. Reading the final book made it extremely clear how well Kenyon had planned out the entire series. Things that seemed to be throw away lines in the first two volumes were brought full circle, adding an appreciated cohesion to the story and lending credence to the final climax. Prince of Storms ends the series on a strong note, leaving the readers with a robust narrative that doesn't leave the door open for future derivative adventures. [return][return]Ultimately, The Entire and The Rose is more than a sum of its composite volumes, so much so that it was too difficult to reach a conclusion on one book before reading the others. The story flows through the pages like one of the arms of the Nigh (a river of exotic matter from the story), bearing strongly motivated characters through alternating periods of slow progress and torrential action. The narrative twists and turns unexpectedly, creating new letters to place between points A and B. At the core of Kenyon's series is her imagined Entire, rivaling any fantasy world for its complexity and surpassing the vast majority for sheer inventiveness. Despite some missteps in presentation, Kay Kenyon's The Entire and The Rose has created a unique science fantasy series that is worth reading, well, in its entirety.
June 13, 2019
This is a weird blend of scifi and fantasy, one that starts and ends with a bang. It's the plodding middle of the book that was partly responsible for me taking so long to finish it and my impression of the book dropped because of it. It was one of those weird books that was easy to put down and difficult to pick back up, but when I did get going again I was engrossed. I went back and forth on it during the course of reading. A real mixed bag in other words.
Ordinarily in any new scifi series there's a period of acclimatization as you're getting to grips with the technobabble and worldbuilding. That's compounded here with the parallel universe (the fantasy half of the aforementioned blend) which is downright bizarre and sometimes difficult to imagine. Probably accounts for the rest of my struggle with the book, but it's also its greatest strength, imaginative worldbuilding. I'm envious of the author's ability to dream up this setting.
The characters generally aren't likable although almost all of them have believable motivations and backgrounds. The protagonist, Titus, has stupid moments that lead to unspeakable acts, ones that I hope have significant ramifications in later books. There's a general sense that so much could have been avoided if some characters like Anzi and Titus just talked things out properly. We don't get that and it leads to moments of plot-convenient amnesia reversal which almost broke my suspension of disbelief. All of it is played incredibly straight. There's a consistent grim tone to things with not a hint of humour. Some variation in tone would have been nice but it's not a deal-breaker for me. It doesn't seem to be that kind of story.
There are plot elements that don't really go anywhere in this book and are clearly setup for future books (such as the segments involving Sydney). I can't say that what we do get resolved is entirely satisfactory either. Titus feels like he's left in a similar position to where he started, he just now has his memories. The trade-off doesn't seem worth it. That said I am intrigued by those dangling elements and revelations. I do want to know more about so many of those mysteries (particularly those pertaining to the Tarig). The main reason I will be continuing with the series really. So it's doing something right by the end.
A mixed opening act in a clearly bigger story that doesn't quite work as its own satisfactory novel, but does just enough to have kept its hooks in me by the end thanks in large part to imaginative worldbuilding. I will continue with the series but not right away. 2.5 stars rounding up to 3.
Hard to recommend unless you're looking for some examples of weird scifi. Be warned it takes a while to get to the weirder parts.
Ordinarily in any new scifi series there's a period of acclimatization as you're getting to grips with the technobabble and worldbuilding. That's compounded here with the parallel universe (the fantasy half of the aforementioned blend) which is downright bizarre and sometimes difficult to imagine. Probably accounts for the rest of my struggle with the book, but it's also its greatest strength, imaginative worldbuilding. I'm envious of the author's ability to dream up this setting.
The characters generally aren't likable although almost all of them have believable motivations and backgrounds. The protagonist, Titus, has stupid moments that lead to unspeakable acts, ones that I hope have significant ramifications in later books. There's a general sense that so much could have been avoided if some characters like Anzi and Titus just talked things out properly. We don't get that and it leads to moments of plot-convenient amnesia reversal which almost broke my suspension of disbelief. All of it is played incredibly straight. There's a consistent grim tone to things with not a hint of humour. Some variation in tone would have been nice but it's not a deal-breaker for me. It doesn't seem to be that kind of story.
There are plot elements that don't really go anywhere in this book and are clearly setup for future books (such as the segments involving Sydney). I can't say that what we do get resolved is entirely satisfactory either. Titus feels like he's left in a similar position to where he started, he just now has his memories. The trade-off doesn't seem worth it. That said I am intrigued by those dangling elements and revelations. I do want to know more about so many of those mysteries (particularly those pertaining to the Tarig). The main reason I will be continuing with the series really. So it's doing something right by the end.
A mixed opening act in a clearly bigger story that doesn't quite work as its own satisfactory novel, but does just enough to have kept its hooks in me by the end thanks in large part to imaginative worldbuilding. I will continue with the series but not right away. 2.5 stars rounding up to 3.
Hard to recommend unless you're looking for some examples of weird scifi. Be warned it takes a while to get to the weirder parts.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 224 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.