Knight Moves

The first 50 pages of Knight Moves were excellent, it brought up and discussed themes that reminded me of a combination of Roger Zelazny's books "This Immortal" and "Lord of Light". The writing was a bit whimsical, the characters interesting.

Then, the novel takes a turn into standard plot devices like romance and regret and forgets about all the interesting themes introducted in the first pages of the book.

Then, at the end, he comes back to the themes and tries to salvage the whole soggy mess.

If the author - Walter Jon Williams would rewrite this book and keep the major themes in mind - The earth depopulated and being investigated by an alien species - the impact of immortality on the human pysche - the effect of a diasporia on the show more human race, I would read that book in a second.

I'm probably hard on the book by rating it 3 stars, but I can't get over the disappointment of what could have beens. show less

This is my favorite Walter Jon Williams book (and I have read several). I like it mostly because of the alien intelligences and the Centaurs (back on 'Earth'). Mr. Williams has his protagonist become a dentist in order to teach 'GMO' Centaurs to speak classical Greek (because he likes the way it deals with philosophical concepts). I found this book a fascinating read because of the science that is done, and the 'real' aliens that appear about 2/3 of the way through. It is also a great read.

Humans can have immortality, but only if they leave Earth to avoid over-populating it. On a colony planet they discover a non-sentient species that can teleport. Unraveling the mystery of the teleportation makes for a surprise ending and an interesting meditation on immortality -- Tim

Entertaining. Different.

I was in Forbidden Planet, the London sf bookshop, looking in vain for something to read on the train, when I found this. It came with an enthusiastic review from George R. R. Martin comparing Williams to the young Roger Zelazny. Oh well, I thought. That’ll do.

In the end I read something else on the train. Later, I read eight chapters and then put the book down. I was disgruntled to find that it fitted its description rather too closely: not only was it like Zelazny, but it came close enough to Zelazny’s first novel to be accused of imitation. Not just the writing style, but the restless immortal seeking in future Greece for traces of the past, the alien influence, the creatures out of human legend (in this case centaurs created by show more genetic engineering). It felt like the guy had read This Immortal and decided, Hey, I can do that too. The whole feel of the thing was so similar.

The idea of someone deliberately trying to copy a specific book of Zelazny’s seemed bizarre and even rather pathetic. But it wasn’t a bad imitation; and eventually I picked up the book again.

In due course it livened up and diverged enough to become imitative only in style; and, in the end, I have to admit it was quite a good read, more or less up to Zelazny’s own standards; lacking something of his flair, perhaps, but not giving ground on characterization, poetry, or philosophy. The plot is reasonably coherent and encompasses love, death, humour, and sadness. Zelazny fans could check it out.

(Review written in 1985) show less