Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780575081888
ISBN: 0575081880
Label: Gollancz
Manufacturer: Gollancz
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: July 17, 2008
Publisher: Gollancz
Studio: Gollancz

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Rating: - How disappointing
I agree with one of the other reviewers; I wanted to like this book. I enjoyed SF some years ago and, reading a good account of this novel in a sunday newspaper, invested in the hardback as a holiday read feeling that it could reawaken some of my enjoyment of the genre. I found it unspeakably pretentious and remarkably poorly constructed. It completely lost its way about three quarters the way through! How damning is it when you are desperate to finish a book, but not because of any enjoyment, its ... Read More

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Rating: - City at the End of Time
Okay, only four and a half stars, but i opted for five not four because this is a truly magnificent, tho' difficult, book. Greg Bear has written some great SF; but i, at least, have found his recent work less exciting. This is Bear returning with a huge metaphysical vision, greater in its depth than even his 'The Way' series ('Eon', 'Eternity', and 'Legacy'). The story takes place in two time zones, now, and one hundred trillion years in the future in the eponymous city at the end of time; there ... Read More

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Rating: - 'Bearly' worth the struggle!
I had high hopes for Bear's latest; with 'Anvil of Stars' I felt he managed the very tough trick of marrying macro-space opera dynamics with micro-scale human drama, and was expecting the same here. Sadly Bear chooses mind-boggling boudary-pushing over narrative drive and sympathetic characters, leaving the reader adrift on a speculative stew of hard science, religion and philosophy which would tax the brain - and patience - of even the most slavish acolyte.

Bear's 'sum runners' are a glum ... Read More

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Rating: - Very Poor
I have been a fan of Greg Bear's work for many years now, and I consider EON and Forge of God books among the best science fiction I have read.

However this book has more in common with his fantasy writings in Songs of Earth and Power. There is some science buried in here, but it is merely a thin sprinkling to try to give some background to the fantastical (dare I say nonsensical) elements.

There are too many boring and confusing threads to be weaved and pulled together at the ... Read More

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Rating: - Hard going and ultimately not worth the work
It's taken me several days to get down to writing this, because I really hate doing it. I had had great expectations of this book, based on the authors previous work, and first impressions were promising - some odd characters and a setting, in part, in the unimaginably distant future. However, the further I got into the book the harder going I found it. I eventually finished it, and the facile ending (I won't spoil it) left me wishing I hadn't bothered. Perhaps the author was as fed up with the book as ... Read More

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