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The Nulapeiron Sequence #1
Paradox
Nulapeiron is an isolated planet ruled by supra-human beings and the law of the Logic Lords. The people are impoverished and brutalised. In a life-changing event, a legendary Pilot gives Tom an info-crystal which he uses to change the destiny of all.
492 pages, Paperback
First published March 5, 2001
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December 5, 2013
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)
So what do you think -- is it possible to adequately analyze a sprawling 1,500-page science-fiction epic in a single thousand-word essay? Because that's exactly what I'll be trying to do today, after recently finishing the massive three-book "Nulapeiron Sequence" from author John Meaney, yet another set of titles from the big box of books I received not too long ago from respected genre publisher Pyr, which I've been slowly making my way through this spring. (And my thanks again to the hardworking publicity staff at Pyr for sending this pile of back-titles in the first place; they were certainly under no obligation to do such a thing for some snotty critic no one's ever heard of, so I very much appreciate it.) And in fact, just like many of these older titles the company ended up sending, Meaney too is a member of the so-called "British New Wave" of SF authors who made such a splash in the early 2000s, and prompted American companies like Pyr to reprint all their books here in the US years later; although the first two books of this sequence (Paradox and Context) were originally published in the UK in 2000 and 2002 respectively, they and the third book (Resolution) didn't come out here until all at once in 2006.
And then here's the other thing to understand right away, that this series is what's known as a "space opera," which many non-fans of the genre mistakenly believe to be the only kind of SF there is -- you know, "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" type stuff, where the whole point is to construct a grand saga that relies much more on plot than character development, and that leans heavily on such genre tropes as sleek spaceships, sexy aliens, intergalactic wars and more. (This is then opposed, to cite a good example, to the last book from Pyr I reviewed, Justina Robson's Silver Screen, a standalone volume where the point is merely to use speculative elements from the real world of modern science to construct the same kind of tight character-based tale as any other contemporary novel. And speaking of that review, by the way, to clear up the matter for good once and for all -- Dear Mister Jeff VanderMeer Who I Actually Do Like And Respect, I do not really believe that you're p-ssed off at me, just like I don't really believe that every single SF author from the early 2000s is literally drinking buddies with every single other SF author from the early 2000s. They were both jokes, albeit badly-written ones that apparently a lot of people didn't get.) And just to avoid further snippy emails from disgruntled fanboys, let me also clarify that there are all kinds of other SF styles than the two already mentioned; there are also 'world-building' stories, for example, where the whole point is to create a believable scientific guide to societies and planets that don't actually exist (see for example my past review of Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness), and then there are so-called "New Weird" stories that artfully blend several different genres into a brand-new hybrid, and even more that I'm not going to bother going into. Whew! Digression over! Now stop sending me angry emails!
Of course, these aren't mutually exclusive categories either; for example, you could argue that the Nulapeiron Sequence (named after the planet where it takes place) is as much a world-building saga as it is a space opera, a look at a "cavern planet" that humans colonized over 1,200 years before the current story takes place (and over 1,500 years from our own times), where a population of over ten billion live in a series of vertical underground quasi-feudal kingdoms, and where a strict caste system determines how near or far away one lives from the surface. (And yes, just like Isaac Asimov's classic The Caves of Steel, this population is terrified of going up to the actual surface of the planet, a detail which figures heavily into the militaristic plotline driving the books themselves.) In fact, this is a big reason why the original Paradox made such an impact to begin with when it first came out, was for the care and attention Meaney paid in creating such a fantastical yet believable world, and especially for all the ingenious ways he mixed technology and biology into this society's details -- from giant hollow bugs that serve as transport vehicles, to "living architecture" which can grow its own doors and hallways, to the so-called "Oracles" who can view possible futures but only by committing acts of horrific sexual violence upon the slaves charged with caring for them.
Why yes, if this is reminding you of another classic SF series, Frank Herbert's "" books, you're not alone -- both are detailed looks at far-future societies that have mostly done away with synthetic technology, within a semi-enlightened population that has gotten rid of its need for religion* but not for elaborate Shakespearean aristocracies. And also just like "Dune," Meaney's story is centered around an unassuming teenage boy who eventually grows into a planet-saving messiah-like figure; in this case, the merchant-son Tom Corcorigan, whose rise is mostly predicated on his natural mastery over the real-life mathematical discipline known as , which in the universe of Nulapeiron has become elevated almost to a religion unto itself, and is the main activity from which the rest of their society is curled around. (Confused? Think of yet another SF saga I've covered here before, David Louis Edelman's "Jump 225" series, of the way that free-market capitalism has in their far-future world become the "New Classicism," worshipped in the same unquestioned way that we currently worship the theories of the ancient Greeks.)
Ah, but see, everything I've just described is merely the background for the story itself; because much like the Dune universe's Paul Atreides, our hero Tom is a restless and inquisitive soul, which is what leads him first into trouble and then into understanding and eventually to a seismic shift in how the entire society on Nulapeiron works. Because near the beginning of the entire saga, through a series of mischievous acts, Tom ends up acquiring a sort of five-sense recording device from a mysterious stranger, which turns out to have etched in it the entire history of humans' flight to Nulapeiron back in the 2200s in the first place, how it happened and why it happened and why the information was then suppressed, and why it is that the idea of the current population re-learning the story is such a dangerous one. And so it's these near-future flashback scenes that make up an entire half of the storyline, every other chapter throughout all three books, as we watch humans first discover and then master the bizarre undimensional concept known as "mu-space," which turns out to be the key to traveling between planets at a speed faster than light. And without giving too much away, this is essentially what makes up the overall plotline of the three-book epic; Tom learning more and more about humanity's spacefaring past, Tom realizing more and more that Nulapeiron's caste system needs to be gotten rid of, and then the messy reality that his planet-wide revolt leaves behind after the bloodshed is all over, as well as the new threats their world now faces from outside forces after the revolution is finished.
But unfortunately there's a problem with all this as well, ironically enough the same problem seen in the Dune series; that while the first book in both epics are legitimate marvels that have rightly earned them both cult statuses within the SF community, it's almost as if both authors completely blew their creative wads on them (to use a gross yet apt metaphor), leaving afterwards a strong public outcry for sequels but with not a lot of ideas for what to do in those sequels. And in this you might want to think of a much more well-known example, the so-called "Matrix Trilogy" from the Wachowski Brothers also in the early 2000s; because as anyone who's seen those three movies knows, it's not really a trilogy at all, but rather one brilliant movie that became a surprise success and then two other related ones that were quickly sh-t out afterwards, creating a pretentious and overblown mess that's almost the opposite of what made the original so loved, which tries to retroactively shoehorn the elegant first tale into an overly complicated grand mythology created for the second and third, when in fact it was precisely the lack of this pretentious overblown grand mythology that made the original such a hit to begin with. (And by the way, wanna know why the projects that include such a messy grand mythology from page one are always flops? See The Chronicles of Riddick and get back to me.)
And so too is it the case with Meaney's saga, with a part two and three that hinge on a muddily-conceived concept not even mentioned in part one (a sorta hive-mind baddie called the "Blight" that Meaney compares to a galaxy-sized malignant virus), and that rely on Meaney awkwardly undoing many of the developments that ended part one (for example, re-establishing the aristocracy, after the entire point of part one was to get rid of it), introducing romantic yearnings between existing characters that weren't even hinted at in the original volume, etc etc etc. And that's a shame, because the original Paradox really is a remarkable and highly thought-provoking book; too bad that Meaney seemed to so profoundly run out of narrative steam when it came to the other two volumes of the series. (And yes, by the way, I too agree with the complaint that many other online reviewers have now made, that I got awfully sick and tired of every single character just happening to share the same specific personal interests as the author himself. "Oh, look, another character who's obsessively into martial arts! Oh, gee, another problem solved with a long-distance run and freehold rock climb! What a freaking surprise!")
So in the end, then, I guess I recommend the same thing with this series as I do with the Dune books (and the Matrix movies, and the Star Wars saga for that matter) -- that the first volume is well worth your time, the others not so much, and that ultimately it's up to us as audience members to decide exactly how we wish to enjoy a sprawling SF series, despite that author wishing that we would simply eat up every word with an insatiable hunger. Just because someone wants us to buy into every single detail of a fictional universe doesn't mean we have to; but just because some of it is crappy doesn't mean we should throw it all out either. That I think is the most important lesson to learn from the Nulapeiron Sequence as a whole, and a lesson crucial to understand in order to become a SF fan to begin with. It's something to keep in mind whenever approaching any overblown genre epic, but especially in this case.
*And as a final digression, may I please patiently explain this yet again to all you science-fiction authors out there? If you create a post-religious society for your own fictional universe, you cannot substitute scientific words within your characters' cursing without it coming across as anything else but immature, unintentionally funny horsesh-t. After all, it's the religious aspect of it all that defines cursing in the first place; that when you have a society that mostly believes in God, it becomes a legitimately shocking and offensive thing to damn and belittle that god in front of others. That's the entire point of cursing, and you completely miss the point when using such ridiculous phrases as, "Damn you to scientifically-proven random entropy! CHAOS ALMIGHTY, DAMN YOU TO ENTROPY!" Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
So what do you think -- is it possible to adequately analyze a sprawling 1,500-page science-fiction epic in a single thousand-word essay? Because that's exactly what I'll be trying to do today, after recently finishing the massive three-book "Nulapeiron Sequence" from author John Meaney, yet another set of titles from the big box of books I received not too long ago from respected genre publisher Pyr, which I've been slowly making my way through this spring. (And my thanks again to the hardworking publicity staff at Pyr for sending this pile of back-titles in the first place; they were certainly under no obligation to do such a thing for some snotty critic no one's ever heard of, so I very much appreciate it.) And in fact, just like many of these older titles the company ended up sending, Meaney too is a member of the so-called "British New Wave" of SF authors who made such a splash in the early 2000s, and prompted American companies like Pyr to reprint all their books here in the US years later; although the first two books of this sequence (Paradox and Context) were originally published in the UK in 2000 and 2002 respectively, they and the third book (Resolution) didn't come out here until all at once in 2006.
And then here's the other thing to understand right away, that this series is what's known as a "space opera," which many non-fans of the genre mistakenly believe to be the only kind of SF there is -- you know, "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" type stuff, where the whole point is to construct a grand saga that relies much more on plot than character development, and that leans heavily on such genre tropes as sleek spaceships, sexy aliens, intergalactic wars and more. (This is then opposed, to cite a good example, to the last book from Pyr I reviewed, Justina Robson's Silver Screen, a standalone volume where the point is merely to use speculative elements from the real world of modern science to construct the same kind of tight character-based tale as any other contemporary novel. And speaking of that review, by the way, to clear up the matter for good once and for all -- Dear Mister Jeff VanderMeer Who I Actually Do Like And Respect, I do not really believe that you're p-ssed off at me, just like I don't really believe that every single SF author from the early 2000s is literally drinking buddies with every single other SF author from the early 2000s. They were both jokes, albeit badly-written ones that apparently a lot of people didn't get.) And just to avoid further snippy emails from disgruntled fanboys, let me also clarify that there are all kinds of other SF styles than the two already mentioned; there are also 'world-building' stories, for example, where the whole point is to create a believable scientific guide to societies and planets that don't actually exist (see for example my past review of Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness), and then there are so-called "New Weird" stories that artfully blend several different genres into a brand-new hybrid, and even more that I'm not going to bother going into. Whew! Digression over! Now stop sending me angry emails!
Of course, these aren't mutually exclusive categories either; for example, you could argue that the Nulapeiron Sequence (named after the planet where it takes place) is as much a world-building saga as it is a space opera, a look at a "cavern planet" that humans colonized over 1,200 years before the current story takes place (and over 1,500 years from our own times), where a population of over ten billion live in a series of vertical underground quasi-feudal kingdoms, and where a strict caste system determines how near or far away one lives from the surface. (And yes, just like Isaac Asimov's classic The Caves of Steel, this population is terrified of going up to the actual surface of the planet, a detail which figures heavily into the militaristic plotline driving the books themselves.) In fact, this is a big reason why the original Paradox made such an impact to begin with when it first came out, was for the care and attention Meaney paid in creating such a fantastical yet believable world, and especially for all the ingenious ways he mixed technology and biology into this society's details -- from giant hollow bugs that serve as transport vehicles, to "living architecture" which can grow its own doors and hallways, to the so-called "Oracles" who can view possible futures but only by committing acts of horrific sexual violence upon the slaves charged with caring for them.
Why yes, if this is reminding you of another classic SF series, Frank Herbert's "" books, you're not alone -- both are detailed looks at far-future societies that have mostly done away with synthetic technology, within a semi-enlightened population that has gotten rid of its need for religion* but not for elaborate Shakespearean aristocracies. And also just like "Dune," Meaney's story is centered around an unassuming teenage boy who eventually grows into a planet-saving messiah-like figure; in this case, the merchant-son Tom Corcorigan, whose rise is mostly predicated on his natural mastery over the real-life mathematical discipline known as , which in the universe of Nulapeiron has become elevated almost to a religion unto itself, and is the main activity from which the rest of their society is curled around. (Confused? Think of yet another SF saga I've covered here before, David Louis Edelman's "Jump 225" series, of the way that free-market capitalism has in their far-future world become the "New Classicism," worshipped in the same unquestioned way that we currently worship the theories of the ancient Greeks.)
Ah, but see, everything I've just described is merely the background for the story itself; because much like the Dune universe's Paul Atreides, our hero Tom is a restless and inquisitive soul, which is what leads him first into trouble and then into understanding and eventually to a seismic shift in how the entire society on Nulapeiron works. Because near the beginning of the entire saga, through a series of mischievous acts, Tom ends up acquiring a sort of five-sense recording device from a mysterious stranger, which turns out to have etched in it the entire history of humans' flight to Nulapeiron back in the 2200s in the first place, how it happened and why it happened and why the information was then suppressed, and why it is that the idea of the current population re-learning the story is such a dangerous one. And so it's these near-future flashback scenes that make up an entire half of the storyline, every other chapter throughout all three books, as we watch humans first discover and then master the bizarre undimensional concept known as "mu-space," which turns out to be the key to traveling between planets at a speed faster than light. And without giving too much away, this is essentially what makes up the overall plotline of the three-book epic; Tom learning more and more about humanity's spacefaring past, Tom realizing more and more that Nulapeiron's caste system needs to be gotten rid of, and then the messy reality that his planet-wide revolt leaves behind after the bloodshed is all over, as well as the new threats their world now faces from outside forces after the revolution is finished.
But unfortunately there's a problem with all this as well, ironically enough the same problem seen in the Dune series; that while the first book in both epics are legitimate marvels that have rightly earned them both cult statuses within the SF community, it's almost as if both authors completely blew their creative wads on them (to use a gross yet apt metaphor), leaving afterwards a strong public outcry for sequels but with not a lot of ideas for what to do in those sequels. And in this you might want to think of a much more well-known example, the so-called "Matrix Trilogy" from the Wachowski Brothers also in the early 2000s; because as anyone who's seen those three movies knows, it's not really a trilogy at all, but rather one brilliant movie that became a surprise success and then two other related ones that were quickly sh-t out afterwards, creating a pretentious and overblown mess that's almost the opposite of what made the original so loved, which tries to retroactively shoehorn the elegant first tale into an overly complicated grand mythology created for the second and third, when in fact it was precisely the lack of this pretentious overblown grand mythology that made the original such a hit to begin with. (And by the way, wanna know why the projects that include such a messy grand mythology from page one are always flops? See The Chronicles of Riddick and get back to me.)
And so too is it the case with Meaney's saga, with a part two and three that hinge on a muddily-conceived concept not even mentioned in part one (a sorta hive-mind baddie called the "Blight" that Meaney compares to a galaxy-sized malignant virus), and that rely on Meaney awkwardly undoing many of the developments that ended part one (for example, re-establishing the aristocracy, after the entire point of part one was to get rid of it), introducing romantic yearnings between existing characters that weren't even hinted at in the original volume, etc etc etc. And that's a shame, because the original Paradox really is a remarkable and highly thought-provoking book; too bad that Meaney seemed to so profoundly run out of narrative steam when it came to the other two volumes of the series. (And yes, by the way, I too agree with the complaint that many other online reviewers have now made, that I got awfully sick and tired of every single character just happening to share the same specific personal interests as the author himself. "Oh, look, another character who's obsessively into martial arts! Oh, gee, another problem solved with a long-distance run and freehold rock climb! What a freaking surprise!")
So in the end, then, I guess I recommend the same thing with this series as I do with the Dune books (and the Matrix movies, and the Star Wars saga for that matter) -- that the first volume is well worth your time, the others not so much, and that ultimately it's up to us as audience members to decide exactly how we wish to enjoy a sprawling SF series, despite that author wishing that we would simply eat up every word with an insatiable hunger. Just because someone wants us to buy into every single detail of a fictional universe doesn't mean we have to; but just because some of it is crappy doesn't mean we should throw it all out either. That I think is the most important lesson to learn from the Nulapeiron Sequence as a whole, and a lesson crucial to understand in order to become a SF fan to begin with. It's something to keep in mind whenever approaching any overblown genre epic, but especially in this case.
*And as a final digression, may I please patiently explain this yet again to all you science-fiction authors out there? If you create a post-religious society for your own fictional universe, you cannot substitute scientific words within your characters' cursing without it coming across as anything else but immature, unintentionally funny horsesh-t. After all, it's the religious aspect of it all that defines cursing in the first place; that when you have a society that mostly believes in God, it becomes a legitimately shocking and offensive thing to damn and belittle that god in front of others. That's the entire point of cursing, and you completely miss the point when using such ridiculous phrases as, "Damn you to scientifically-proven random entropy! CHAOS ALMIGHTY, DAMN YOU TO ENTROPY!" Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.
February 16, 2017
I have to admit I pick up a lot of books simply because they were "there" at the right time. In this case Paradox caught my eye, could be the Jim Burns cover (now they always catch my eye) or the write up on the back cover.
Now at first glance it sounds like the usual class struggle and under dog turned hero - yes you are right I don't give away spoilers and you are right I have not here either. What I have said is really only the tip of this book. Yes there are elements here but when you get in the story you realise why Mr Meaney was shortlisted for British Science Fiction Association's Best Novel Award.
Basically what you have is an expert world builder and having (okay still reading) his Tristopolis series you realise he can take what is in essence a straight forward story and turn it to something spectacular and original.
Now this is the first in the series (I am sure I have the second volume around here somewhere) so its hard not to either give the story away or set up for impossible expectations for the next instalment but I am sure it will not disappoint.
John Meaney is not a prolific author and I will admit I am not sure he has published anything recently however if you are lucky enough to give his books a go I would highly recommend it.
Now at first glance it sounds like the usual class struggle and under dog turned hero - yes you are right I don't give away spoilers and you are right I have not here either. What I have said is really only the tip of this book. Yes there are elements here but when you get in the story you realise why Mr Meaney was shortlisted for British Science Fiction Association's Best Novel Award.
Basically what you have is an expert world builder and having (okay still reading) his Tristopolis series you realise he can take what is in essence a straight forward story and turn it to something spectacular and original.
Now this is the first in the series (I am sure I have the second volume around here somewhere) so its hard not to either give the story away or set up for impossible expectations for the next instalment but I am sure it will not disappoint.
John Meaney is not a prolific author and I will admit I am not sure he has published anything recently however if you are lucky enough to give his books a go I would highly recommend it.
May 28, 2014
This is a classic example of a great story ruined by style.
Here we have an epic of a impoverished boy in a heavily stratified society who against all odds grows up to become nobility. He causes a revolution that upsets the balance of his world. Great themes, use of symbolism and unique resolution. I liked the hard scifi elements blended in, even if I didn't understand all the logic or the sprawling formulas.
Unfortunately, this story has a style that is not intuitive. I appreciate an economy of words: simply said is simply better. But this book suffered from a deficit of words. There seemed to be more fractured sentences than complete ones, and the narrator kept jumping to details that A) were poorly defined, and B) didn't always seem to have anything to do with what was going on in the story. After 492 pages, I still don't know what Diastral is, but everyone's drinking it. (is it like coffee?) I was 292 pages in before the author told us what Nulapeiron was, but it wasn't told as an ah-ha!, just an "oh, and by the way..." The complex social stratification was important but not well illustrated. It's good for suspense to periodically have scenes end on an ambiguous note, but it's not good when the reader gets to the end of a scene and isn't clear what's happened. This was the case far too many times. Their machines, mental augmenting software and holographic projections were described in the same clipped tongue as if this were an epic poem, in which understanding was second to flow, feel. Indeed, it sort of felt like I was reading the transcript of an epic dream. I knew lots of important stuff was happening, but was only seldom clear as to what.
Last note: this is an idea story. The two narratives follow two different people's lives, but we get remarkably little internal dialogue. Coupled with the clipped style, we don't always understand why the characters made the choices they did. That's not a good thing. Throughout the story, we get a sense that Tom is in love with the woman who ordered his arm to be cut off, but we never figure out why. Maybe these things will be resolved in the second and third books. Sadly, I don't feel up to a thousand more pages of this.
Here we have an epic of a impoverished boy in a heavily stratified society who against all odds grows up to become nobility. He causes a revolution that upsets the balance of his world. Great themes, use of symbolism and unique resolution. I liked the hard scifi elements blended in, even if I didn't understand all the logic or the sprawling formulas.
Unfortunately, this story has a style that is not intuitive. I appreciate an economy of words: simply said is simply better. But this book suffered from a deficit of words. There seemed to be more fractured sentences than complete ones, and the narrator kept jumping to details that A) were poorly defined, and B) didn't always seem to have anything to do with what was going on in the story. After 492 pages, I still don't know what Diastral is, but everyone's drinking it. (is it like coffee?) I was 292 pages in before the author told us what Nulapeiron was, but it wasn't told as an ah-ha!, just an "oh, and by the way..." The complex social stratification was important but not well illustrated. It's good for suspense to periodically have scenes end on an ambiguous note, but it's not good when the reader gets to the end of a scene and isn't clear what's happened. This was the case far too many times. Their machines, mental augmenting software and holographic projections were described in the same clipped tongue as if this were an epic poem, in which understanding was second to flow, feel. Indeed, it sort of felt like I was reading the transcript of an epic dream. I knew lots of important stuff was happening, but was only seldom clear as to what.
Last note: this is an idea story. The two narratives follow two different people's lives, but we get remarkably little internal dialogue. Coupled with the clipped style, we don't always understand why the characters made the choices they did. That's not a good thing. Throughout the story, we get a sense that Tom is in love with the woman who ordered his arm to be cut off, but we never figure out why. Maybe these things will be resolved in the second and third books. Sadly, I don't feel up to a thousand more pages of this.
March 7, 2022
This is the second time I have read this book and was very surprised to realise that I had only remembered the very bare bones of the story. There was a lot more going on here than I was expecting to read, which made it feel like a whole new book.
This is one of those hard SF books where you kind of feel proud if you can even begin to follow the techno-babble - even reading the words is an achievement. Although the author doesn't go into much explanation of what it all means, you don't exactly feel lost - you can kind of grasp the gist of what it means and how it impacts on the story. It's actually the story that can make you feel a bit lost at times, as it moves around a lot and the short chapters only add to the disjointed feel you sometimes get.
That said, I really enjoyed the read and am intrigued by this underground world. The mystery surrounding the Pilots and how they've manipulated Tom's life, even if accidentally, is intriguing and I can't wait to see if it's solved in the next two books.
This is one of those hard SF books where you kind of feel proud if you can even begin to follow the techno-babble - even reading the words is an achievement. Although the author doesn't go into much explanation of what it all means, you don't exactly feel lost - you can kind of grasp the gist of what it means and how it impacts on the story. It's actually the story that can make you feel a bit lost at times, as it moves around a lot and the short chapters only add to the disjointed feel you sometimes get.
That said, I really enjoyed the read and am intrigued by this underground world. The mystery surrounding the Pilots and how they've manipulated Tom's life, even if accidentally, is intriguing and I can't wait to see if it's solved in the next two books.
July 2, 2017
I trudged my way through it, but didn't really enjoy it. It felt like the main character was totally disassociated from everything happening to him and around him. If he doesn't care, why should I. Meh. Abandoned at the 400+ page mark, couldn't even force myself to be interested enough to finish it...
April 19, 2021
This is another one of those books that begs the question, "Why do I even have this?" and the sad answer probably is, "I needed to get something, and I had a coupon." It must have been quite a sale, since I have this and its follow up novel, which turned out to be a part of a trilogy where I never saw the last book and thus will probably go through this series not entirely sure how it ends. Well, isn't that just like life?
The cover features a one-armed man apparently attempting to outrun a stationary spaceship and while that sounds like a feverish executive pitch for "The Fugitive! But in space! And focusing on the wrong guy!" it’s a basic feature of the story of Tom Corcorigan, who will spend a lot of running but not a lot of clapping over the course of the novel. We meet him when he's a teenager living with his parents on one of the lower levels of his world where people are mostly just trying to exist. One day he's writing okay poetry when a strange woman comes up to him and hands him a crystal before running off to get herself killed (its not clear that he's her plan but its definitely the end result). She has completely black eyes, the telltale sign of a Pilot. What are Pilots? Like the buffalo wings at the local bar that allegedly once caused someone to reenact that scene from "Bleak House", they're completely legendary. What does that mean? Don't ask me, the book never really bothers to explain.
There are some novels that want to hold your hand like a parent grasping a small child and there are some novels that are quite content teleporting you into the middle of a foreign country where no one speaks your language, all the customs are utterly different and maps have been outlawed (and not even the outlaws have maps). Meaney seems to have felt that was the right approach here as we're plunged into Tom's life without much in the way of introduction to anything, which wouldn't be a big deal except that having some understanding of the social and economic underpinnings of this whole society is sort of key to figuring out just what the heck is going on. But unfortunately you're going to realize that at the exact same moment you realize that on Meaney's medical records, among whatever else is there, he has "exposition" listed under his allergies.
From what you'll figure Tom's world exists as a series of levels and things get nicer as you go up. The people who live on the upper levels are your standard lords and ladies, and like lords and ladies in fiction everywhere, are pretty okay with treating everyone like their servants. There are also Oracles, people who tend to randomly "truecast" and see the future, though since nobody seems to be able to stop what happens in the visions its unclear how useful this is. Early on, one of the Oracles take Tom's mother as a consort or something (who's not all there due to some kind of addiction), with the end result being something along the lines of Bambi being inspired to go after the firearms industry . . . a notable goal perhaps, but you have to wonder, "How is this adorable guy going to pull it off?"
With the magic of logic, it seems. Before too long Tom is pressed into servitude by the Lord of his realm and quickly catches peoples' attention with his mathematical logosphere abilities, which seem to involve visualizing the nature of time itself and perhaps tapping into Mu space. For all their skills in treating people like garbage, the Lords seem to recognize merit, leading to Tom's elevation in society.
Alternating with Tom's travails are chapters that are apparently being projected by the crystal given to him by the Pilot . . . those chapters are set hundreds of years earlier and feature someone named Karyn on Earth as she goes through some kind of pilot training with some colleagues. These are meant to be learning modules (and haven't we all had enough of remote learning lately?) and while Tom seems to be interpreting them as lessons of a sort, its not entirely clear what lesson they're supposed to be imparting or what puzzle he's supposed to try and solve so he can unlock the next module (the story at least implies that in the early modules, later its just seems like its straight-up telling Karyn's story). Either way, it seems to be helping his progress in making all the lords and ladies gasp at the mention of his name.
None of this is necessarily very obvious, which points to peoples' most common complaint about this novel . . . its extremely difficult to tell what's going on sometimes. Not even in a "where on earth is this plot heading?" fashion but even in the chapters themselves where it seems like Meaney decided that what the SF world needed was an aggressively hyperactive version of Ernest Hemingway's style where stripped bare sentences are just firing at you constantly like that dude from the X-Men shooting out deadly playing cards one after the other, only instead of trying to hurt you he's insisting you guess the card. Its an interesting choice of presentation and I'm not sure it entirely works given that very little of the action in the book seems to warrant this breakneck approach and as an attempt at immersing the reader in a new environment it falls somewhere short, like trying to catalog species in a lake by strapping a camera to a rock and skipping it wildly across the surface. Sure, you can get some idea of what's going on but its not clear what's important or what difference it makes.
For me, the style worked exactly once . . . during a major confrontation things turn rapid and angular, with a wobbly sense of tension that suggests even the book doesn't know what's going to happen next. Unfortunately, this scene would probably have been the climax of any other story but instead winds up occurring about halfway through, which means the book spends the rest of its time in a sort of perpetual "Now what?" Which is a good question, but not one it answers very well.
Part of that is because, in keeping with the "someone cut the brakes" aesthetic, the plot has a tendency to feel like Meaney is making up scenes as he goes along without a real scene of how they relate to one another, or further any kind of overall plot. He keeps throwing up roadblocks for Tom (or Tom keeps up throwing up roadblocks for himself) but it often feels haphazard, a "drama! I thus summon you!" approach where an issue comes out of left field that keeps Tom busy for a handful of chapters until the book seems to remember that he still exists and plot goes out to find him again. Which can mean that when you're in a scene the book can read just fine, but ultimately it starts making the book feel like a bunch of vaguely connected sketches featuring the same character that isn't really building to anything (tellingly, the biggest event in the book happens at a distance to Tom, who's unaware of it until after the fact) so much as leaping from one problem to the next.
This would be easier to take if Tom was a more dynamic or interesting character but, alas, he's kind of flat. While we don't need every lead character to heroically takes the reins every time things get rough Tom is mostly swept along by events . . . once in a while he tries to swim against them but there are quite a few moments when he seems like a supporting character in his own story. His motivation for the first half of the novel is mostly selfish and then afterwards he's mostly absent from anything that can affect the plot for a good chunk of the book. Which would work better if he was a supporting character since he could vanish for a bit and then reappear dramatically but since he's our guy we're stuck with him while more interesting things happen elsewhere. And he's just not fascinating enough to warrant that attention . . . he seems to meet the Pilot purely by accident and beyond his useful logosphere abilities (he's not even the smartest person with that stuff) really doesn't have much more going on except for reacting to whatever in-the-moment travail the book decides to throw at him.
It’s a shame because while Meaney's world here doesn't break any new ground, its has the potential to not be totally boring. But we rarely get a sense of the culture beyond the bog-standard "lords and ladies lording and ladying over the oppressed populace" angle and the whole logosphere stuff, beyond forging new territory in hard SF, eventually across with the same rapid-fire mumbo-jumbo as the rest of the book, with just as much technical verve as old Doc Smith or AE Von Vogt stories but without their sense of flair (and five times as long). Instead of being dazzling people with its promise of science pushed beyond known limits, once the revved up science terms are stripped away it feels no different than elves standing around to cast spells to open portals to other worlds.
The end result is a book that has all the trappings of something epic but winds up having little weight to it at all, images and events cycling by rapidly like a Viewmaster with an methamphetamine habit, with very little gripping the mind. It slips by and slips away before you can even hope to grasp it, leaving you behind to watch it speed ahead with a confident laugh, insisting that you have to keep it with it if you want to understand even as you're standing by watching it plow forward gleefully unaware into a pile of rocks and wondering if at any point its going to realize its heading in the wrong direction.
The cover features a one-armed man apparently attempting to outrun a stationary spaceship and while that sounds like a feverish executive pitch for "The Fugitive! But in space! And focusing on the wrong guy!" it’s a basic feature of the story of Tom Corcorigan, who will spend a lot of running but not a lot of clapping over the course of the novel. We meet him when he's a teenager living with his parents on one of the lower levels of his world where people are mostly just trying to exist. One day he's writing okay poetry when a strange woman comes up to him and hands him a crystal before running off to get herself killed (its not clear that he's her plan but its definitely the end result). She has completely black eyes, the telltale sign of a Pilot. What are Pilots? Like the buffalo wings at the local bar that allegedly once caused someone to reenact that scene from "Bleak House", they're completely legendary. What does that mean? Don't ask me, the book never really bothers to explain.
There are some novels that want to hold your hand like a parent grasping a small child and there are some novels that are quite content teleporting you into the middle of a foreign country where no one speaks your language, all the customs are utterly different and maps have been outlawed (and not even the outlaws have maps). Meaney seems to have felt that was the right approach here as we're plunged into Tom's life without much in the way of introduction to anything, which wouldn't be a big deal except that having some understanding of the social and economic underpinnings of this whole society is sort of key to figuring out just what the heck is going on. But unfortunately you're going to realize that at the exact same moment you realize that on Meaney's medical records, among whatever else is there, he has "exposition" listed under his allergies.
From what you'll figure Tom's world exists as a series of levels and things get nicer as you go up. The people who live on the upper levels are your standard lords and ladies, and like lords and ladies in fiction everywhere, are pretty okay with treating everyone like their servants. There are also Oracles, people who tend to randomly "truecast" and see the future, though since nobody seems to be able to stop what happens in the visions its unclear how useful this is. Early on, one of the Oracles take Tom's mother as a consort or something (who's not all there due to some kind of addiction), with the end result being something along the lines of Bambi being inspired to go after the firearms industry . . . a notable goal perhaps, but you have to wonder, "How is this adorable guy going to pull it off?"
With the magic of logic, it seems. Before too long Tom is pressed into servitude by the Lord of his realm and quickly catches peoples' attention with his mathematical logosphere abilities, which seem to involve visualizing the nature of time itself and perhaps tapping into Mu space. For all their skills in treating people like garbage, the Lords seem to recognize merit, leading to Tom's elevation in society.
Alternating with Tom's travails are chapters that are apparently being projected by the crystal given to him by the Pilot . . . those chapters are set hundreds of years earlier and feature someone named Karyn on Earth as she goes through some kind of pilot training with some colleagues. These are meant to be learning modules (and haven't we all had enough of remote learning lately?) and while Tom seems to be interpreting them as lessons of a sort, its not entirely clear what lesson they're supposed to be imparting or what puzzle he's supposed to try and solve so he can unlock the next module (the story at least implies that in the early modules, later its just seems like its straight-up telling Karyn's story). Either way, it seems to be helping his progress in making all the lords and ladies gasp at the mention of his name.
None of this is necessarily very obvious, which points to peoples' most common complaint about this novel . . . its extremely difficult to tell what's going on sometimes. Not even in a "where on earth is this plot heading?" fashion but even in the chapters themselves where it seems like Meaney decided that what the SF world needed was an aggressively hyperactive version of Ernest Hemingway's style where stripped bare sentences are just firing at you constantly like that dude from the X-Men shooting out deadly playing cards one after the other, only instead of trying to hurt you he's insisting you guess the card. Its an interesting choice of presentation and I'm not sure it entirely works given that very little of the action in the book seems to warrant this breakneck approach and as an attempt at immersing the reader in a new environment it falls somewhere short, like trying to catalog species in a lake by strapping a camera to a rock and skipping it wildly across the surface. Sure, you can get some idea of what's going on but its not clear what's important or what difference it makes.
For me, the style worked exactly once . . . during a major confrontation things turn rapid and angular, with a wobbly sense of tension that suggests even the book doesn't know what's going to happen next. Unfortunately, this scene would probably have been the climax of any other story but instead winds up occurring about halfway through, which means the book spends the rest of its time in a sort of perpetual "Now what?" Which is a good question, but not one it answers very well.
Part of that is because, in keeping with the "someone cut the brakes" aesthetic, the plot has a tendency to feel like Meaney is making up scenes as he goes along without a real scene of how they relate to one another, or further any kind of overall plot. He keeps throwing up roadblocks for Tom (or Tom keeps up throwing up roadblocks for himself) but it often feels haphazard, a "drama! I thus summon you!" approach where an issue comes out of left field that keeps Tom busy for a handful of chapters until the book seems to remember that he still exists and plot goes out to find him again. Which can mean that when you're in a scene the book can read just fine, but ultimately it starts making the book feel like a bunch of vaguely connected sketches featuring the same character that isn't really building to anything (tellingly, the biggest event in the book happens at a distance to Tom, who's unaware of it until after the fact) so much as leaping from one problem to the next.
This would be easier to take if Tom was a more dynamic or interesting character but, alas, he's kind of flat. While we don't need every lead character to heroically takes the reins every time things get rough Tom is mostly swept along by events . . . once in a while he tries to swim against them but there are quite a few moments when he seems like a supporting character in his own story. His motivation for the first half of the novel is mostly selfish and then afterwards he's mostly absent from anything that can affect the plot for a good chunk of the book. Which would work better if he was a supporting character since he could vanish for a bit and then reappear dramatically but since he's our guy we're stuck with him while more interesting things happen elsewhere. And he's just not fascinating enough to warrant that attention . . . he seems to meet the Pilot purely by accident and beyond his useful logosphere abilities (he's not even the smartest person with that stuff) really doesn't have much more going on except for reacting to whatever in-the-moment travail the book decides to throw at him.
It’s a shame because while Meaney's world here doesn't break any new ground, its has the potential to not be totally boring. But we rarely get a sense of the culture beyond the bog-standard "lords and ladies lording and ladying over the oppressed populace" angle and the whole logosphere stuff, beyond forging new territory in hard SF, eventually across with the same rapid-fire mumbo-jumbo as the rest of the book, with just as much technical verve as old Doc Smith or AE Von Vogt stories but without their sense of flair (and five times as long). Instead of being dazzling people with its promise of science pushed beyond known limits, once the revved up science terms are stripped away it feels no different than elves standing around to cast spells to open portals to other worlds.
The end result is a book that has all the trappings of something epic but winds up having little weight to it at all, images and events cycling by rapidly like a Viewmaster with an methamphetamine habit, with very little gripping the mind. It slips by and slips away before you can even hope to grasp it, leaving you behind to watch it speed ahead with a confident laugh, insisting that you have to keep it with it if you want to understand even as you're standing by watching it plow forward gleefully unaware into a pile of rocks and wondering if at any point its going to realize its heading in the wrong direction.
September 22, 2014
The world of Nulapeiron has been isolated from the rest of Human society for some time, living in its own subterranean world, in a feudal society, with the closer strata to the surface being the more opulent and powerful, while those lower down are vassals of their Lord or Lady. Tom Corcorigan, a poor boy living in one of the lower strata, is writing poetry one day, when a chance encounter with a fabled Pilot changes his life forever. She doesn't survive, but the gift that she gives him will change not just Tom, but the whole world.
There's a lot to like in this book, set, I think, in the same universe as Meaney's debut, . Tom is an interesting, textured protagonist, the world is interesting, although there are frustrating omissions: why is Nulapeiron's society subterranean? There's a segment set on the surface, so it's not uninhabitable. Why has the world isolated itself from the rest of Human society? What is the agenda of the Pilots skulking around the lower strata? These questions are never answered in this volume, but perhaps future Nulapeiron books may answer them.
I did have problems with the book. Firstly, the overall structure feels odd. Each segment (or 'scene') is very short and there's a lot of chopping between scenes, which can be widely dispersed in space and time. It makes you quite breathless and although it imparts an energy to the prose, it can get tiring after a while. To use an unkind analogy, at times it felt like a Michael Bay film (not as bad, I hasten to add). Then there was a point, about two thirds the way through when I almost gave up, as it seemed to be turning into a revenge story, which isn't hugely interesting to me. Thankfully, I ploughed through and it changed again, turning into something more interesting.
I've got the other two books in the sequence (I picked them up for cheap at this year's Eastercon, where Meaney was Guest of Honour) but although I enjoyed this, I won't be jumping at the bit to read the others.
There's a lot to like in this book, set, I think, in the same universe as Meaney's debut, . Tom is an interesting, textured protagonist, the world is interesting, although there are frustrating omissions: why is Nulapeiron's society subterranean? There's a segment set on the surface, so it's not uninhabitable. Why has the world isolated itself from the rest of Human society? What is the agenda of the Pilots skulking around the lower strata? These questions are never answered in this volume, but perhaps future Nulapeiron books may answer them.
I did have problems with the book. Firstly, the overall structure feels odd. Each segment (or 'scene') is very short and there's a lot of chopping between scenes, which can be widely dispersed in space and time. It makes you quite breathless and although it imparts an energy to the prose, it can get tiring after a while. To use an unkind analogy, at times it felt like a Michael Bay film (not as bad, I hasten to add). Then there was a point, about two thirds the way through when I almost gave up, as it seemed to be turning into a revenge story, which isn't hugely interesting to me. Thankfully, I ploughed through and it changed again, turning into something more interesting.
I've got the other two books in the sequence (I picked them up for cheap at this year's Eastercon, where Meaney was Guest of Honour) but although I enjoyed this, I won't be jumping at the bit to read the others.
March 4, 2010
Wow; just...Wow!
I picked this up based on the strength of a short story in the Fast Forward collection I was reading a few weeks back. I checked the Author's website, was further intrigued by his bio, and picked up this book. 150 pages in to the book, I rushed out during lunch to the WBBS (World's Biggest Book Store) and bought the remaining two in the series.
So why the wow? Simple: I haven't enjoyed a scifi world to this extent in a decade or more. The world 'tastes' like a mix of Moebius' Incal (high-praise from me) and Wingrove's early Chung Kuo books. The lead Tom is interesting, fallible, and passionate, but the supporting characters are no less fleshed out. Trude, Chef, Elva and any number of others were all deep and interesting. The other fun thing was that the plot through me a few curves early on that were a pleasant surprise (spoiler: I wish the cover didn't disclose one of those plot developments; it robbed the actual scene of some of its horror).
Complaints? I couldn't grok the explanation of logosophy or the underlying science it was tied to, nor did I wholly grasp some of the cosmology underlying the world-building. This is likely my shortcoming.
Great stuff.
I picked this up based on the strength of a short story in the Fast Forward collection I was reading a few weeks back. I checked the Author's website, was further intrigued by his bio, and picked up this book. 150 pages in to the book, I rushed out during lunch to the WBBS (World's Biggest Book Store) and bought the remaining two in the series.
So why the wow? Simple: I haven't enjoyed a scifi world to this extent in a decade or more. The world 'tastes' like a mix of Moebius' Incal (high-praise from me) and Wingrove's early Chung Kuo books. The lead Tom is interesting, fallible, and passionate, but the supporting characters are no less fleshed out. Trude, Chef, Elva and any number of others were all deep and interesting. The other fun thing was that the plot through me a few curves early on that were a pleasant surprise (spoiler: I wish the cover didn't disclose one of those plot developments; it robbed the actual scene of some of its horror).
Complaints? I couldn't grok the explanation of logosophy or the underlying science it was tied to, nor did I wholly grasp some of the cosmology underlying the world-building. This is likely my shortcoming.
Great stuff.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2013
Part of the thrill of science fiction is discovering brand new worlds, times, technologies and societies. And all of that newness gives an author great latitude to create names, relationships and concepts out of thin air.
But some books can cross a line in creating a new and different world. Most authors compensate by paying special attention to the descriptions and backgrounds. In Paradox, the author leaves the reader to fend for himself, leap from chapter to chapter in ignorance, and finally piecing together understanding hundreds of pages later.
By the time I had a grasp of the world and time and society of Paradox - more than half way through the book - I finally could enjoy it.
But some books can cross a line in creating a new and different world. Most authors compensate by paying special attention to the descriptions and backgrounds. In Paradox, the author leaves the reader to fend for himself, leap from chapter to chapter in ignorance, and finally piecing together understanding hundreds of pages later.
By the time I had a grasp of the world and time and society of Paradox - more than half way through the book - I finally could enjoy it.
December 5, 2013
awesome book, that blends some hard science in an epic storytelling style, including character development .. was hard for me to follow through at times (context flipping)
August 23, 2022
My feelings towards this book are so mixed. We follow Tom, who grows up in a poor community and his journey upwards after a Pilot gives him an info-crystal before she dies. We also follow the story of Kayrn, 1000 or so years earlier.
This book was so confusing. Its one of those high fantasy/sci-fi books that throws you straight into an intense world and expects you to figure it out through the nuggets of information it gives you, etc. Except I was never given any information. I'm still confused about half of this book, and half of the new terms, descriptions, the science?! Wow there was a lot of intense scientific info in this book - it was so fascinating to read about but made no sense to me!
I have no idea whether I loved or hated this book. I really wanted to dnf it throughout the first half and then was hooked in the second half. The writing was fast paced, and we were constantly moving but I'm still unsure if I liked that. It was a negative in the first half and made me even more confused, and a positive in the second half, adding to the suspense and excitement.
In terms of the story, I found that most of the time, I really couldn't care less about Tom. He was brilliant and skilled, and worked so hard, but I couldn't connect to him. He excelled at everything he put his mind to and was just pulled forward by his circumstances, and this felt very surface level. Kayrn, on the other hand, was everything. I found myself anxiously waiting for her chapters and her story, and wish we had gotten to see more of her.
Overall, it's a 3⭐️ read, kind of in the middle. Not bad but not outstanding.
This book was so confusing. Its one of those high fantasy/sci-fi books that throws you straight into an intense world and expects you to figure it out through the nuggets of information it gives you, etc. Except I was never given any information. I'm still confused about half of this book, and half of the new terms, descriptions, the science?! Wow there was a lot of intense scientific info in this book - it was so fascinating to read about but made no sense to me!
I have no idea whether I loved or hated this book. I really wanted to dnf it throughout the first half and then was hooked in the second half. The writing was fast paced, and we were constantly moving but I'm still unsure if I liked that. It was a negative in the first half and made me even more confused, and a positive in the second half, adding to the suspense and excitement.
In terms of the story, I found that most of the time, I really couldn't care less about Tom. He was brilliant and skilled, and worked so hard, but I couldn't connect to him. He excelled at everything he put his mind to and was just pulled forward by his circumstances, and this felt very surface level. Kayrn, on the other hand, was everything. I found myself anxiously waiting for her chapters and her story, and wish we had gotten to see more of her.
Overall, it's a 3⭐️ read, kind of in the middle. Not bad but not outstanding.
December 21, 2019
I’ve always liked To Hold Infinity, so picked this up for another read by the author. It didn’t hit me in the same way though, a little overfilled of “logosphere� references which just made my eyes glaze over. Karen’s story which is given as small episodes through the book was by far the most interesting. Not likely I’ll hunt flout the others in this series
July 7, 2019
Horrible
I do not understand why this received high ratings. Convoluted. Gave me a headache. The hero was horrible. I felt initial sympathy for him for his losses, then was progressively annoyed with his ongoing lack of guts.
I do not understand why this received high ratings. Convoluted. Gave me a headache. The hero was horrible. I felt initial sympathy for him for his losses, then was progressively annoyed with his ongoing lack of guts.
September 8, 2017
DNF, couldn't get interested. Tant pis.
July 15, 2019
it is hard to follow with the words and terms.but is a good read.
April 9, 2020
DNF. Bored after a very short time. Just couldn't get into it.
June 17, 2020
I enjoyed the sci-fi future, and the interweaving of two stories, but the math segways and other technical discussions left me behind.
January 6, 2024
Some of the writing of the protagonist's character and history seemed a bit awkward, but the story overall is very good.
November 23, 2014
‘With its vast subterranean cities and extraordinary organic technologies, Nulapeiron is a world unlike any other. However, such wonders mean little to the majority of its inhabitants, ruled over by despotic Logic Lords and the Oracles, supra-human beings whose ability to truecast the future maintains the status quo.
But all this is about to change.
In a crowded marketplace Tom Corcorigan is witness to the brutal killing of a fleeing woman by a militia squad. His shock turns to horror when he recognises her as the stranger who, only the day before, had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. Only now, as the fire in her obsidian eyes fades, does he realise who � or what � she really was: a figure from legend, a Pilot.
What Tom has yet to discover is that this crystal holds the key to mu-space, and so to freedom itself. For he has been given a destiny to fulfil � nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world…�
Blurb from the 2001 Bantam paperback edition
Meaney’s marvellous and intricate tale of the rise and fall of Tom Corcorigan begins somewhat blandly, but soon shifts into high gear and rampages along to the brilliant finale.
The fourteen year old Tom is the son of a market trader on (or rather in, for this is set in a subterranean world of class-based levels somewhat like Wingrove’s Chung Kuo) the planet Nulapeiron. One day he meets a strange woman who gives him a gift, only later discovering that she is a forbidden Pilot when he sees her killed in public by the local police.
There’s an odd Dickensian aspect to this novel. It’s almost a futuristic David Copperfield. Tom loses his parents (his father dies after his mother is seduced away by an Oracle, one of the rulers of the world, who can see into the future) and not being old enough to be eligible for housing is sent off to a school.
There he is bullied by both teachers and pupils and one day is falsely accused of stealing, has one of his arms removed at the order of the local aristocracy and is indented into the Lord’s household.
This is the turning point in Tom’s life. He begins to exercise and to learn martial arts from Maestro DaSilva, and here is born a plan to murder the Oracle who took his mother away and ruined his life.
Tom � who has devoted as much time to the development of his mind as well as his body (partly being taught by Modules stored within the Pilot’s crystal) is awarded a rare accolade and elevated to the aristocracy as Lord Corcorigan.
Only then does he achieve his aim and finally (in a complex and convoluted plan) kill the Oracle.
This however, awakens hope in the underground revolutionary groups who wish to remove the Oracles from power, and Tom becomes the figurehead and chief-architect for a plan to bring down their rule.
The novel is interspersed with excerpts from a kind of diary of a Pilot which Tom finds within the Pilot’s info-crystal.
There are echoes of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance here with the weird but oddly credible mixture of feudal society and advanced technology.
Meaney however is a very individual and stylish writer and will no doubt be another important British writer of the 21st Century.
But all this is about to change.
In a crowded marketplace Tom Corcorigan is witness to the brutal killing of a fleeing woman by a militia squad. His shock turns to horror when he recognises her as the stranger who, only the day before, had presented him with a small, seemingly insignificant info-crystal. Only now, as the fire in her obsidian eyes fades, does he realise who � or what � she really was: a figure from legend, a Pilot.
What Tom has yet to discover is that this crystal holds the key to mu-space, and so to freedom itself. For he has been given a destiny to fulfil � nothing less than the rewriting of his future, and that of his world…�
Blurb from the 2001 Bantam paperback edition
Meaney’s marvellous and intricate tale of the rise and fall of Tom Corcorigan begins somewhat blandly, but soon shifts into high gear and rampages along to the brilliant finale.
The fourteen year old Tom is the son of a market trader on (or rather in, for this is set in a subterranean world of class-based levels somewhat like Wingrove’s Chung Kuo) the planet Nulapeiron. One day he meets a strange woman who gives him a gift, only later discovering that she is a forbidden Pilot when he sees her killed in public by the local police.
There’s an odd Dickensian aspect to this novel. It’s almost a futuristic David Copperfield. Tom loses his parents (his father dies after his mother is seduced away by an Oracle, one of the rulers of the world, who can see into the future) and not being old enough to be eligible for housing is sent off to a school.
There he is bullied by both teachers and pupils and one day is falsely accused of stealing, has one of his arms removed at the order of the local aristocracy and is indented into the Lord’s household.
This is the turning point in Tom’s life. He begins to exercise and to learn martial arts from Maestro DaSilva, and here is born a plan to murder the Oracle who took his mother away and ruined his life.
Tom � who has devoted as much time to the development of his mind as well as his body (partly being taught by Modules stored within the Pilot’s crystal) is awarded a rare accolade and elevated to the aristocracy as Lord Corcorigan.
Only then does he achieve his aim and finally (in a complex and convoluted plan) kill the Oracle.
This however, awakens hope in the underground revolutionary groups who wish to remove the Oracles from power, and Tom becomes the figurehead and chief-architect for a plan to bring down their rule.
The novel is interspersed with excerpts from a kind of diary of a Pilot which Tom finds within the Pilot’s info-crystal.
There are echoes of Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance here with the weird but oddly credible mixture of feudal society and advanced technology.
Meaney however is a very individual and stylish writer and will no doubt be another important British writer of the 21st Century.
August 1, 2012
Gave up on this one fairly early- it's possible I didn't give it enough of a chance. The first 30 or 40 pages never seem to come together in one narrative. The narrator's the same, but each event described is totally isolated and out of context with any other event. There's an Oracle, being transported randomly through the street. It seems like Oracles may be a bad thing but we don't know why. We spend a lot of time in a market square, but it's unclear if the merchants or the shoppers are poor, comfortable, or how silks and spices are afforded and where the food comes from. It's unclear if there is even a sky.
I don't mind working a bit to get into a book. Ian M. Banks, Charles Stross, and Hannu Rajaniemi have all dropped me into the middle of their stories and expected me to hit the ground running, and I can do that. But the prose in this book was extremely fragmented and the narrative wasn't intriguing enough to me that I wanted to go further to find out how things fit together. Maybe my loss, but I think I can spend the time I would have spent reading 600+ pages on this book on reading something else. It's going to be the new Charles Stross instead.
I don't mind working a bit to get into a book. Ian M. Banks, Charles Stross, and Hannu Rajaniemi have all dropped me into the middle of their stories and expected me to hit the ground running, and I can do that. But the prose in this book was extremely fragmented and the narrative wasn't intriguing enough to me that I wanted to go further to find out how things fit together. Maybe my loss, but I think I can spend the time I would have spent reading 600+ pages on this book on reading something else. It's going to be the new Charles Stross instead.
April 27, 2016
I decide what books to read by reading the reviews, and not just the positive reviews. I've learned that if the positive reviews say "sexy" or "liberating" or "slow-paced and introspective" then the book is definitely not for me. However, I've also learned that if the negative reviews use the words "complex", "techno-babble" and "confusing", then this is probably a book I will like.
This is such a book. You're thrown into a far-future world with no background explanations, which is confusing, but feels immersive. The world is fascinating, and the technology is brilliant. The story isn't complex in that it just follows one main character, but it's complex in that there are layers to everything that are only partially explained. That, and the math and science are pretty cerebral and theoretical, and so are hard to get your mind around. This book was great: I loved it. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
This is such a book. You're thrown into a far-future world with no background explanations, which is confusing, but feels immersive. The world is fascinating, and the technology is brilliant. The story isn't complex in that it just follows one main character, but it's complex in that there are layers to everything that are only partially explained. That, and the math and science are pretty cerebral and theoretical, and so are hard to get your mind around. This book was great: I loved it. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
March 9, 2016
I have all 3 books of the trilogy. It was an interesting book, but it took me a while to get into it. The author didn't do a lot of exposition. Mostly in-the-moment writing, with a nugget of background dropped here and there. A long book, and a bit of a slog. And then there's the major minor storyline thing. The major story occurs several hundred years in the future on a human colonized world where all the folks live underground in a rigid somewhat feudal class system. The major storyline follows the son of a very low class merchant and how he rises to the upper crust of society. The minor story line occurs on earth a hundred years in the future an follows a women interstellar pilot trainee. As the book closes, I caught some glimmers of the two storylines merging. I'm not gonna rush to read the other ones, but they're on the "to read" pile, so I could get the urge one day.
December 19, 2009
Again Meany excels in creating new worlds with amazing and perplexing technology and the culture that results. Technically challenging to read, he creates a unique science which is a central theme in this series. In Paradox, the main character is a young man who's incredible life takes him from the lowest class strata to the highest and back. Meany highlights the class divisions and the impacts that the highly stratified world has on individuals and relationships.
My only complaint is that Meany seems to ignore race except for mentioning Asian characters. No other characters have any descriptors of race. It's slightly weird. His other book, To hold Infinity, does a much better job in not just assuming that all the characters are white unless he explains otherwise.
My only complaint is that Meany seems to ignore race except for mentioning Asian characters. No other characters have any descriptors of race. It's slightly weird. His other book, To hold Infinity, does a much better job in not just assuming that all the characters are white unless he explains otherwise.
September 4, 2014
The technobabble is dense in this book. Not "The Quantum Thief" level of babble, but it permeates the book.
I feel like I should have started with his previous series so I'd understand more of what he was talking about. That said, the first half of the book was great, I was able to just go with the sciency bits, and enjoy the story. Then the book kinda stumbles, and the last half is a slow fragmented mess. Up until then I was considering reading the rest of the series, now, not so much.
Good, not great. I've read much better, and much worse.
I feel like I should have started with his previous series so I'd understand more of what he was talking about. That said, the first half of the book was great, I was able to just go with the sciency bits, and enjoy the story. Then the book kinda stumbles, and the last half is a slow fragmented mess. Up until then I was considering reading the rest of the series, now, not so much.
Good, not great. I've read much better, and much worse.
October 3, 2008
This book was intriguing, but it had too many intricate details of the world Nulapeiron and how it worked - especially the mathematics relating to mu-space. Some of the details were very cool though, such as the way the world was structured in underground levels. Also, the story of the Pilots didn't fit in at all. I anticipate that the next two books will explain that part, as well as continuing the story of the one-armed hero Tom. I
June 3, 2013
Okay, this book is not bad. I like Meaney's style, but in this case I couldn't get along with the story. It went too slow, and I found myself being given tastes of what to come without any of it ever happening. Due to this, I found I could not care too much about the protagonist, and there's only so much time and so many books...
I will pick up another Meaney book sometimes, but for now this one is not for me.
I will pick up another Meaney book sometimes, but for now this one is not for me.
January 27, 2013
This was an amazing book. Full of ideas about cosmology, the meaning of time, destiny and predestination, logic, revolution, betrayal, love, martial arts, poetry, the world of Nulapeiron and it's strange social structure is detailed as the story of Tom Corcorigan's rise (literally) through the social strata is told. There is a blending of ideas and action that definitely works and leaves you wanting more; luckily there is.
February 16, 2008
While it's not without it's flaws, it's a good read for people who like big, fast-paced space opera. For a full review, see on Suite101.
March 7, 2015
The world created in this book is captivating, but sometimes it just goes too far in its wonders. Furthermore, some parts of the plot are a bit inconsistent in the light of the described technology, but make for a nice story.
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August 23, 2008isbn,original
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