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nigellicus 's review for:
The Quiet War
by Paul McAuley
The Quiet War, by Paul J McAuley.
This was the book I read over Christmas, and I like McAuley, so that wan't a problem, but do you know what I prefer? For years I'd save books by a particular author for my Christmas book, the one I actually dipped into on Christmas Day, and lay about in front of the fireplace with on Stephen's Day, and that was Kim Newman. Paul McAuley won't mind, they're good mates. But there hasn't been a Kim Newman novel in years! Where's my new Kim Newman novel? Fair enough, there was The Man From The Diogenes Club and Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club, fix-up novels with more than enough new material to justify their purchase, but, frankly, I devoured them as soon as I got them. No will power, me. But where's the English Ghost Story book or the new Anno Dracula book? I want them! I want them noooooow! So I can put them aside for eleven months until next Christmas.
McAuley, on the other hand, well, his last two books were relatively poor. Cowboy Angels wasn't up to much and Players was downright mediocre. For heaven's sake, Paul! You wrote Fairyland! FAIRYLAND! One of the best science fiction novels of the nineties! Not to mention White Devils, whch was, amongst other things, a Michael Crichton book by someone who isn't scared shitless of science and who didn't structure their entire book around that fear.
The Quiet War is a return to form, a space opera about the growing schism between a conservative, ruthless Earth-based society and the more adventurous, genetically advanced but fatally complacent settlements scattered throughout the solar system. The book charts the slow buildup to war through the eyes of an ambitious geneticist, a hard-nosed bio-engineer, a gung ho fighter pilot, a genetically engineered sleeper agent and a ruthlessly ambitious diplomat.
McAuley's a reliably good writer, and this stuff is potter's clay in his hands. An entertaining mix of hard science fiction, espionage, social upheaval, political intrigue and high tech warfare, it turned out to be a damned fine Christmas Day book.
This was the book I read over Christmas, and I like McAuley, so that wan't a problem, but do you know what I prefer? For years I'd save books by a particular author for my Christmas book, the one I actually dipped into on Christmas Day, and lay about in front of the fireplace with on Stephen's Day, and that was Kim Newman. Paul McAuley won't mind, they're good mates. But there hasn't been a Kim Newman novel in years! Where's my new Kim Newman novel? Fair enough, there was The Man From The Diogenes Club and Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club, fix-up novels with more than enough new material to justify their purchase, but, frankly, I devoured them as soon as I got them. No will power, me. But where's the English Ghost Story book or the new Anno Dracula book? I want them! I want them noooooow! So I can put them aside for eleven months until next Christmas.
McAuley, on the other hand, well, his last two books were relatively poor. Cowboy Angels wasn't up to much and Players was downright mediocre. For heaven's sake, Paul! You wrote Fairyland! FAIRYLAND! One of the best science fiction novels of the nineties! Not to mention White Devils, whch was, amongst other things, a Michael Crichton book by someone who isn't scared shitless of science and who didn't structure their entire book around that fear.
The Quiet War is a return to form, a space opera about the growing schism between a conservative, ruthless Earth-based society and the more adventurous, genetically advanced but fatally complacent settlements scattered throughout the solar system. The book charts the slow buildup to war through the eyes of an ambitious geneticist, a hard-nosed bio-engineer, a gung ho fighter pilot, a genetically engineered sleeper agent and a ruthlessly ambitious diplomat.
McAuley's a reliably good writer, and this stuff is potter's clay in his hands. An entertaining mix of hard science fiction, espionage, social upheaval, political intrigue and high tech warfare, it turned out to be a damned fine Christmas Day book.