Reviews praise McAuley’s Gardens of the Sun
Note: Many US readers haven’t finished reading The Quiet War as it came out internationally in 2008 but only debuted in the US this year. Some spoilers for The Quiet War may appear in this article.
Paul McAuley’s new book Gardens of the Sun has started to garner positive reviews as readers approve of the conclusion to the 2008 novel The Quiet War by the British science fiction writer.
The Quiet War focused on the war between different branches of humans who live separately on Earth and on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, with the latter having genetically modified themselves and moved away from the Earth norm.
According to its blurb, however, that war is over in Gardens of the Sun:
The Quiet War is over. The city states of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn have fallen to the Three Powers Alliance of Greater Brazil, the European Union and the Pacific Community. A century of enlightenment, rational utopianism and exploration of new ways of being human has fallen dark.
Outers are herded into prison camps and forced to collaborate in the systematic plundering of their great archives of scientific and technical knowledge, while Earth’s forces loot their cities, settlements and ships, and plan a final solution to the ‘Outer problem’.
I won't post the full blurb here as it is a bit spoileriffic. But you can find out more from the website of publisher Pyr, which has also this week posted the new cover for Gardens of the Sun (see above right).
On his blog PunkaDiddle, respected reviewer Adam Roberts praised Gardens of the Sun in late October, although with caveats:
“To be clear: my sense is that The Quiet War/Gardens of the Sun, taken together, is a very major work of contemporary science fiction, amongst the great genre achievements of the noughties, a long novel that will still be being read and remembered fifty years from now.”
And on Amazon.com, A. J. Poulter similarly added positive comments about the book:
“While there is no FTL drive in sight, and robots are just clever, but not intelligent, workers, this novel re-invents optimism in space exploration. It sidesteps the dead end of building another Earth by terraforming Mars, and instead proposes a new goal of colonisation of the entire solar system, and hints at a new type of ‘generation starship’, built around Outer closed eco-system designs.”
Commentary
One thing I must firstly say about Gardens of the Sun is to wonder whether McAuley is aware of Steven Erikson’s heralded fantasy novel Gardens of the Moon, the first book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series?
I’m currently reading Gardens of the Moon. It would be a very strange event indeed if I happened to be reading both books at the same time, although they have nothing to do with each other :)
Anyway, enough with the silliness.
I was pretty harsh on The Quiet War’s few chapters when I had a chance to check them out a while back, although I haven’t read the full book yet (although a lot of people have, it was the first book featured by Io9’s book club).
However Roberts’ review in particular made me feel as though it would be a shame to miss out on The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun, and that the second book does much to correct shortcomings of the first – in fact, he suggests they should be published as one. Perhaps it is time to give The Quiet War a try.
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Ooooh. Thumbs up that you’re reading GOTM!
My favorite epic fantasy series of recent years. The first few books in the Malazan series are incredibly rewarding reading. Also check out Glen Cook’s Black Company books that inspired Erikson’s Malazan universe :)
heh well I’m not finished yet, still a few chapters to go. The first sections of Gardens of the Moon is quite problematic to read … but it starts to make a lot more sense after that!
Will add Glen Cook to my list (which is getting longer every day!)