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This fantasy is the second entry in the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, concerning a country whose culture borrows elements from World War I-era England and France, except that in Ile-Rien, sorcery exists and works hand-in-hand with science. At the end of the previous volume, Ile-Rien was about to be entirely overrun by the Gardier, a mysterious invading force wielding magic unfamiliar to the Rienish. Tremaine Valiarde, a playwright with underworld connections, joined a military expeditionary force and a group of refugees on the Ravenna, an ocean liner converted into a warship. The Ravenna is journeying through a parallel world in search of both safe haven and the Gardier's home base. Tremaine's shipboard task is to mediate between the Rienish, who think Tremaine is mentally unstable; and their potential allies, the Syprians, a somewhat more primitive people from this newly discovered world, who distrust and fear magic of all kinds, including the Rienish variety. Meanwhile, there appears to be a sorcerous saboteur aboard the ship.
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Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
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Pratchett mocks the conventions of warfare and has yet another go at one of his favorite topics--the role of women in a repressive society--in this 29th Discworld novel. In the small, constantly warring country of Borogravia, it is against the local religion for women to own a business. That means that Polly Perks won't be able to keep running her family's inn after her father dies. Her only choice is to find his lawful heir, her older--and considerably less clever--brother Paul, who joined the army the previous year. Dressing herself as a boy, she too turns soldier, and is shocked to discover that practically all of the other recruits in her units seem to be women in disguise, too.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
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Richard Powers' people are ideas and his ideas are people; and so, right away, he sets himself apart from writers who sketch an engaging intellectual path but don't find characters to tread it.'Galatea 2.2' is about a man who programs an artificial intelligence system only to find it is more human than he is. Powers' characters and ideas are all over the place. Their engagement is wholehearted, the results are uncertain. Frequently a glittering insight will be thrown up from the dust and the skirmishing, or a shard of human sadness or wicked enjoyment. Other times the ideas submerge just as they are about to crystallize, or characters tire and blur. At the end the reader may well be unsatisfied, but that is not the same as dissatisfied. It is closer to art to be left unfilled
and wanting more than to be sated and wanting less, as tends to happen in out pile-on culture. I finished'Galatea' not totally sure of the destination but with a vivid memory of points along the way.
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When a group of scientists vanish from a remote planet where they were involved in a first-contact mission, Ross Murdock and Eveleen Riordan are sent to investigate. This is a novel was written as part of the Time Traders series, the first volume of which appeared in 1958.
Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005.
For personal use only.
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