J-Sun
⚡
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2008
- Messages
- 5,324
I don't usually dive into a series in the middle of it but (a) I did read some of the stuff Steele built his core Coyote books out of when they were first published in magazines (along with several of his other stories) and (b) I gathered - perhaps erroneously - that this was a fairly standalone book just set in the Coyote universe. And it sounded so cool that I just had to get it.
As usual, I'll gloss the bad stuff first: this is a painfully linear plot that would have benefited from a good dose of in media res and hews pretty closely to the standard plot skeleton - while cardinal sins to many, these things aren't so much sins in themselves for me, but they lead to the cardinal sin of boredom in the beginning and impression of "I know how this is going to end" in the end. Similarly, reading this and reading a comment by Anthony G Williams in his review of The War Against the Rull ("[t]he characterisation is minimal") made what was wrong with Steele's characterization click: van Vogt is good with his minimal characterization because the characterization is often unimportant. It's not bad - it's minimal, as in much idea-driven fiction. Steele caves to character pressure and makes two of his characters and their relationship central to the novel... but they aren't good characters, their relationship is trite and superficial and obviously resolved, and they distract from what should have been the centerpiece of the book: the honkin' big doohickey the aliens built: the Hex - a Dyson sphere (in the true sense) of trillions of interconnected hexagons that form habitats for innumerable species invited by the builders of the artifact - and a very cool species creation - the danui. So his characterization is not minimal - would that it had been. Worse, his characters are too stupid to live and some of them don't and sometimes I didn't much care and sometimes I was actually "pleased" - not really, in a human sense, of course, but in an aesthetic sense. So: plot, characterization: not so great.
But, despite all that, it was a really cool idea with really cool species and seems rife with potential sequels (that, if they happen, I hope better utilize the concept), with lots of fascinating possible interactions and several sensawunda moments.
Incidentally, there's another slight flaw related to this virtue: I wouldn't want overwritten purple prose repeatedly trying to convince me how great it was but, honestly, Steele underdid this. He basically said "it was big - an amazing engineering feat - the protagonists gasped - wow" and kind of let it stand for itself like I was just supposed to be sort of automatically gosh-wowed. I would have liked a little more detail and tech-wonk-y stuff, myself.
Anyway - except for the characterization attempts, I think this book is pretty uncompromisingly for a certain kind of reader, which I mostly am, and I think it falls short of what it ought to have been but works pretty well, anyway. For certain other kinds of readers, it likely wouldn't appeal at all. I gather that, while his works are various, Hex (other than maybe in scale) is probably not an atypical book for him.
That's just my impression based on a few stories and this one book, though. (I picked up a used Lunar Descent around the same time I was getting Hex but haven't read it yet and, unfortunately, it's the middle volume of another series (his first major one). I don't know how tightly connected those are - I was kind of astonished I couldn't find a good series overview for either on the web, so I don't know.)
Anybody else know (more) about this author and/or could provide a series overview about how the Coyote Universe leg bone is connected to the Coyote Trilogy hip bone and so on? Or just want to express your thoughts about him in general?
As usual, I'll gloss the bad stuff first: this is a painfully linear plot that would have benefited from a good dose of in media res and hews pretty closely to the standard plot skeleton - while cardinal sins to many, these things aren't so much sins in themselves for me, but they lead to the cardinal sin of boredom in the beginning and impression of "I know how this is going to end" in the end. Similarly, reading this and reading a comment by Anthony G Williams in his review of The War Against the Rull ("[t]he characterisation is minimal") made what was wrong with Steele's characterization click: van Vogt is good with his minimal characterization because the characterization is often unimportant. It's not bad - it's minimal, as in much idea-driven fiction. Steele caves to character pressure and makes two of his characters and their relationship central to the novel... but they aren't good characters, their relationship is trite and superficial and obviously resolved, and they distract from what should have been the centerpiece of the book: the honkin' big doohickey the aliens built: the Hex - a Dyson sphere (in the true sense) of trillions of interconnected hexagons that form habitats for innumerable species invited by the builders of the artifact - and a very cool species creation - the danui. So his characterization is not minimal - would that it had been. Worse, his characters are too stupid to live and some of them don't and sometimes I didn't much care and sometimes I was actually "pleased" - not really, in a human sense, of course, but in an aesthetic sense. So: plot, characterization: not so great.
But, despite all that, it was a really cool idea with really cool species and seems rife with potential sequels (that, if they happen, I hope better utilize the concept), with lots of fascinating possible interactions and several sensawunda moments.
Incidentally, there's another slight flaw related to this virtue: I wouldn't want overwritten purple prose repeatedly trying to convince me how great it was but, honestly, Steele underdid this. He basically said "it was big - an amazing engineering feat - the protagonists gasped - wow" and kind of let it stand for itself like I was just supposed to be sort of automatically gosh-wowed. I would have liked a little more detail and tech-wonk-y stuff, myself.
Anyway - except for the characterization attempts, I think this book is pretty uncompromisingly for a certain kind of reader, which I mostly am, and I think it falls short of what it ought to have been but works pretty well, anyway. For certain other kinds of readers, it likely wouldn't appeal at all. I gather that, while his works are various, Hex (other than maybe in scale) is probably not an atypical book for him.
That's just my impression based on a few stories and this one book, though. (I picked up a used Lunar Descent around the same time I was getting Hex but haven't read it yet and, unfortunately, it's the middle volume of another series (his first major one). I don't know how tightly connected those are - I was kind of astonished I couldn't find a good series overview for either on the web, so I don't know.)
Anybody else know (more) about this author and/or could provide a series overview about how the Coyote Universe leg bone is connected to the Coyote Trilogy hip bone and so on? Or just want to express your thoughts about him in general?
