Voyage to the City of the Dead

Spoilers, obviously.

This is apparently part of a... not exactly a series, but a set of linked books. I haven't read any others, but I don't think it's affected my enjoyment of the book.

Generally speaking, I enjoyed this book. I read it pretty much in a single sitting over an afternoon, which says a lot. ADF did a good job of worldbuilding; the planet is novel and interesting, and though it's probably scientifically impossible, I didn't have any trouble suspending my disbelief. He sketches out the culture fairly quickly, giving enough information to read the story smoothly, but leaving things vague. This vagueness avoids leaving much open to scepticism, and given how little the humans know about the world in question, is also entirely show more appropriate. I quite liked the alien races as well, though the Na were a bit cardboard for my taste.

This book has some really nice ideas and concepts in it. The monetary basis of the Mai culture was quite fun, and I loved the vertical division of cultures and the Topapasirut. He also defied my expectations by turning round the Tsla when they seemed bound for tired old stereotype territory. Slightly on the other hand, all of the alien characters confirm rigidly to their cultural norms. Now ADF doesn't go very deeply into their cultures, and the humans don't have enough knowledge to pick out subtle differences, so I can't hold it too strongly against him, but really the supporting cast don't get much in the way of characterisation.

Just in passing, I liked that the humans are not automatically white Anglo-Saxon types, which is casually mentioned at the start without making it too pointed; calling them Lyra and Etienne seems slightly odd if ADF was going for something different, but it's fine.

I also enjoyed the way the journey let the relationship between Lyra and Etienne develop. I thought it did a decent job of portraying a couple whose relationship is strained after years of field research and planet-hopping, and the ways that might manifest. Both the manifestations and the characters were a little gender-stereotyped: a logical male geologist who gets frustrated, is foolishly jealous, comes up with plans and does the last-minute rescuing; an empathic female anthropologist who is passive-aggressive, is unreasonable in arguments, and loses her objectivity to fall in love with the native culture. It is from the 1980s, so it's not all that surprising, and Lyra does get her turn at problem-solving too. ADF does a reasonable job of convincing me they're genuinely fond of each other, though, and I was interested in how things would turn out at the end; their journey up the river is both an exploration of the planet and a chance to explore the status of their relationship, and I expected a decent emotional payoff.

And that - the end - is really where things fell down for me. Perhaps I was naive, but I'd been reading this book as something genuinely different, a sci-fi novel about exploration and relationships, with something in common with Gerald Durrell or Attenborough novels about real-life travels and the incidents and friendships that they bring. Although the prelude to the novel is a Mai-based vignette about a mythical El Dorado-type treasure trove they expect the humans to find for them, it's largely ignored for the rest of the book; in fact, the ambush section doesn't make much sense in the light of the prelude, as it would completely frustrate the Mai's own plans. So what I vaguely expected was for the human voyage to bring them to the City of the Dead as the novel proclaims, which... well, they sort of do, but it's a bit odd, as the City doesn't seem to actually be a city or anything like one. Then the interesting story about exploration and relationships goes away and something entirely less interesting takes its place. The remaining aliens are killed off, which is basically unnecessary; as they were largely indistinguishable except by species, the deaths doesn't get much of a reaction, so it mostly comes across as a way to create some cheap tension and isolate the humans for the Message. The betrayal did get to me, but mostly because I was disappointed Homat was pushed into a cheap dramatic ending so easily. Now in some ways, it was more appropriate for him to stick with authentic Mai behaviour than to be a token Friendly Native, so I do appreciate that. However, there was no indication anywhere that it would happen, and it doesn't entirely make sense if he's supposed to be clever. You can argue that the riches on offer sent him a bit mad, I suppose, but taking unnecessary risks is highlighted early on as being quite un-Mai.

Mostly, though, it was the revelation that annoyed me. Suddenly, the book I was enjoying turned into another book. Yulour is revealed to be not a Tsla, but another type of alien entirely, which is known only by rumour across the galaxy and is the mystic caretaker race of a previous galaxy-spanning higher civilisation that has mysteriously vanished! Now, let me be clear. I'm not especially interested in that story, which has been done plenty of times, but that's not what bothered me. What bothered me was ADF dropping that on me in the last chapter of a book without a single suggestion that such aliens existed; that such a prior civilisation existed; or that this was going to be a book about revealing mystic truths to worthy humans in a secret cave. Right until this point, I had been lulled into believing that this was a fascinating and original travelogue, gently exploring ADF's world and the heads of the human protagonists. Suddenly, the ending I had expected - no, earned, by reading the rest of the book - was denied me in favour of this tired old mystic twaddle, which threw out the satisfying climax in favour of something much LESS interesting.

This unwanted twist also reminded me of the actual premise of the book, which suddenly made less sense. The City of the Dead turns out to be neither a City nor full of anything Dead, and as the machines are described as still functional, I can't see how the Mai trader in the prelude has apparently looted one for a vast bar of sunit (nor indeed how he brought it back on his own...). It also turns out that, although the humans were given permission to explore the river in the hopes of them finding the City for the Mai, the Mai don't seem to have ever had a clever plan to actually benefit from that discovery; they're clearly stated as being too wary to risk the journey themselves, so how do they expect to get any sunit back? The devious plan they do have in place turns out to be ambushing the boat on its way up the river, which... doesn't get them any sunit, so why bother with the whole City of the Dead thing in the first place? Similarly, Homat ends up undermining his own perfectly functional plans for huge self-betterment.

Basically, this is a mostly solid and pleasant read, with novel and interesting settings and ideas, which ends up undermining itself by suddenly trying to be a completely different book (in a different subgenre) in the last chapter, bringing its own plotlines into question and denying the reader satisfying resolutions to the issues the rest of the book has dealt with. We get a quick 'happy ending' for the relationship plotline, rather than anything substantial; the scientific elements are largely ignored; the alien characters are all dead in a fairly unsatisfying way; and there's no indication of what the successful journey means for (or says about) the interrelation of the three native sentient species. Instead, ADF gives me a sudden infodump of exposition that I never wanted to explain the world whose nature I hadn't been nudged to question, a bit of "powerful beings are looking after things" and more exposition about the nature of these new aliens he's suddenly introduced, and some random portentiousness.

I'm still glad I've read it, and I enjoyed it on the whole, but it's frustrating to think how much better it would have been - both more enjoyable and simply better and more interesting as a book - if ADF had simply made good on the premise and promise of the bulk of the book. My experience here will make me wary of getting invested in any of his other works, for fear of being cheated in the same way. show less

Etienne and Lyra Redowl map the planet Horseye's dangerous, 12,000-kilometer River Skar. They navigate treacherous, uncharted waters to uncover the secrets of the river's mysterious source.

Married research team Etienne and Lyra Redowl, experts in alien cultures, explore the planet Horseye, a world known for its massive, dangerous river chasm. They document the three distinct sentient species living along the river, including the traders, the Mai, who assist the researchers while pursuing their own agenda.

They face significant natural hazards and environmental hazards while traveling upriver. The explorers reach the mysterious City of the Dead at the river's source, only to discover the rumored treasure is actually an ancient artifact show more and a massive device used for monitoring deep space. show less

Romanzo di viaggio ed esplorazione, su un'altro pianeta, una bella avventura magistralmente sviluppata, ricca ed avvincente. Lettura consigliata.