On the Steel Breeze
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4.3 • 126 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The award-winning author of the Revelation Space series continues his Poseidon's Children saga as the next generation of the Akinya family crosses interstellar space seeking humanity’s future...
Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice Akinyaand heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars.
The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds—holoships—putting their faith in a physics they barely understand. Chiku’s ship is called Zanzibar—and over time, she will discover it contains an awesome secret—one which will lead her to question almost every certainty about her voyage, and its ultimate destiny...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Reynolds's depth of imagination, adeptness with creating multi-dimensional characters, and brisk pacing are again in evidence in his second Poseidon's Children SF novel. Chiku Akinya was born on the Moon and grew up during a tranquil time in human history. Lacking major challenges to overcome, she feels inferior compared to her ancestors (whose achievements were chronicled in Blue Remembered Earth). To broaden her experiences, Akinya creates clones of herself, gives them her memories, and sends them off one to journey to the stars in search of their ancestor Eunice, and one to help the quest for a new human home on the planet Crucible. The bulk of the book focuses on the latter Akinya, who makes some disturbing discoveries about the holoship she's on and its target. While familiarity with the first book isn't necessary, the complicated story structure may confuse both new and returning readers.
Customer Reviews
Reynolds Wrap
Alastair Reynolds is a phenomenal storyteller, I was first enthralled by his "Revalation Space" universe which had great macro and micro details in the storyline and this eventually led to his many other novels and works.
Admittedly I was a little skeptical when I started Blue Remembered Earth; it was my opinion that this masters time would be better spent on the massive universes such as the "House of Suns" or back into the "RS" universe, however after reading the first two books in the Akinya series I can honestly say I am sold.
Reynolds brings elements from all aspects of his previous works and wraps them into a fantastic tale of the "near" future in "OtSB" Technology from HoS, to RS, and Terminal World, and other tales also make their way into the frame of the story and I love it; from the vacuum towers to cloning. Fantastic.
"On the steel breeze" is a unique tale once you get used to the pace, and it made me want to go back and re-read the previous book to get a better scope of the story.
I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates Reynolds' work, or anyone who enjoys scifi: Reynolds will continue defining the genre for years to come.
I can't wait to see what lies in what for the Akinya family in the next installment of the series.
Steel Boring Breeze
Regarding space opera, Alastair Reynolds consistently wrote compelling novels. On The Steel Breeze is a compelling concept for a novel. However, On The Steel Breeze is a step too far. The novel embraces too much concept without a compelling story to flesh out the ideas. It is like the remnants of many ideas that Alastair Reynolds tried to incorporate into a novel. Way too long on fragments, especially elephants in space. Save yourself the trial of reading this novel and reread of his earlier novels. This novel was long, overly conceptual, lacking in interesting story and painful as space opera.
Philosophy or Novel?
I've been a fan of Reynolds since his Revelation Space series, but I found this novel to be too much talking and not enough actually happening. A novel about the relationship between man, machine, and non human intelligence is timely, but unfolds way too slowly. And the ending struck me as too much straight out of Close Encounters. If you liked Blue Remembered Earth, give it a try, if you didn't either read or like the first book I doubt you'll like this.