Very good for a first novel and one that I'm still thinking about several days later. I would like to see more of John and more by this writer.

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/f... ( )

I really liked Crystal Rain. I read it on my own after I was assigned to review Ragamuffin for the SFRA Review.

The reviews I usually write are meant to be balanced, and very heavy on context. That’s my philosophical position on the purpose of most reviews, so it works for me. Context is everything. But since I’m not writing for any particular publication at the moment, I don’t have to be balanced unless it pleases me to be so, and it does not.

I’ve been looking for some good SF to take up the slack left by the lack of new Heinlein novels. He surprised me by posthumously producing For Us, The Living, but I don’t think there are any more. I think that Buckell’s kick-ass characters have some resonance with Heinlein’s characters, and I like that. One good thing about having written a reputable review of Ragamuffin is that I can quote it:

…one or two solitary, quasi-immortal characters who are technologically enhanced, augmented human beings hundreds of years old—very much like the characters in Wil McCarthy’s To Crush the Moon, or Heinlein’s Friday. Sometimes the action highlights the separateness of these superhuman people, each of whom is capable of taking out entire squadrons of trained soldiers alone. But the two we meet, Nashara and Pepper, are both part of something larger.

Some of the specific things I liked about Crystal Rain were the vividness of the main characters’ culture, the combat, and the sustained tension of the siege situations.

There is some beautiful stuff in there balancing the threat of something dangerous inside against something dangerous outside. I’m thinking of the journey on the ice, which uses the trope of a dangerous presence in a confined location in a hostile environment to excellent effect—that pays homage to Alien, The Thing, and many others.

And it may just be a matter of taste, but I really love how Buckell constructs almost unkillable protagonists, and then he almost kills them. He made me believe that one of the main characters might die, even though I’d already read the second book and knew he hadn’t. That plot definitely wasn’t on rails, because I knew where it ended up, but I couldn’t plot every move the author was going to make to get there.

Secret underwater cave? Oh, yeah. I want one of those. ( )

An excellent, very engaging read - I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it. I loved the world-building & the culture-building, and the technology, both pre-apocalyptic and what happens with it post-apocalypse. There's lots of interesting ideas packed into the book - it would easily hold up under another more leisurely read or three. & I adored that this was a book where the heroes were of Caribbean origin, where the whole reason their people are on the planet is because two guys decided to help their communities get off Earth (yes, profit motivated them too, but not exclusively). The world needs more well-written sf/f about people of color, and this one is a welcome addition to my library.

My one complaint is that it's all about men. There's one awesome female leader, and she is indeed awesome, but there's one of her and a slew of awesome male characters. What's up with that? I have the sequel, and I'm hoping it does better on this front. ( )