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Sky Lords #2

Войната на небесните господари

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Джан Дорвин, жената от Минерва, е наложила властта си над цели пет могъщи въздушни кораба, наричани Небесни господари.

Под нейно управление са „Господарят Монкалм“, „Господарят Матаморос“, „Ароматният бриз“, „Господарят възмездие“ и „Господарят Нимрод“. Те с нежелание се подчиняват на древната, но ужасяващо могъща технология, която Джан измъква от околоземна орбита.

Но не всеки Небесен господар е под неин контрол. Враговете й трябва да забравят своите вражди и да се обединят, за да оцелеят. Тяхната мощ може да надделее над лазерните лъчи на Небесния ангел, над разумната компютърна програма в него и даже над упоритостта на една жена от Минерва…

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

6 people are currently reading
130 people want to read

About the author

John Brosnan

71 books29 followers
* Pen names:
Harry Adam Knight, Simon Ian Childer, James Blackstone, John Raymond

John Raymond Brosnan was an Australian writer of both fiction and non-fiction works based around the fantasy and science fiction genres. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, and died in South Harrow, London, from acute pancreatitis. He sometimes published under the pseudonyms Harry Adam Knight, Simon Ian Childer (both sometimes used together with Leroy Kettle), James Blackstone (used together with John Baxter), and John Raymond. Three not very successful movies were based on his novels–Beyond Bedlam (aka Nightscare), Proteus (based on Slimer), and Carnosaur. In addition to science fiction, he also wrote a number of books about cinema and was a regular columnist with the popular UK magazine Starburst.

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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
Profile Image for Scott.
323 reviews402 followers
July 8, 2019
I loved this book when I was thirteen.

This tells me something embarrassing about my younger self.

Despite some serious internal cringing while I type this I am forced to admit that I was obviously a rampantly horny teenager who loved gratuitous T&A and Mary Stu protagonists who get sucked from obscurity and boredom (hello, 1990's Wellington, New Zealand!) into a world where they are meet a series of ridiculously willing women while having grand adventures.

Yep, I was a pretty stock-standard thirteen year old boy, and The War of The Sky Lords is pretty standard pulpy SF. That’s not to say it’s a terrible book – it isn’t – but it’s sure as hell no Dune.

Following on from Brosnan’s first book in this trilogy - The Sky Lords, The War of The Sky Lords begins with warrior woman Jan Dorvin in control of a Sky Angel- a brand new, massively powerful airship in a world that has suffered centuries of decay. In a shaky partnership with a near-psychotic AI who runs her ships she rules over a fleet of Sky Lords that she is using to try and help the ground communities struggling against the ever-encroaching blight that has stricken Earth.

Things aren’t going well. The AI Jan relies upon is becoming more and more erratic, the people in the Sky Lords she controls are rebelling against her, and her son Simon, fathered by the immortal sociopath Milo Haze, is having problems that do not bode well for his future.

Circumstances are turning against Jan, and the vast power at her disposal is in danger of being turned against her and the ground communities that desperately need her help.

Pretty cool stuff huh? Well, it isn’t perhaps told as well as it could have been. For starters, The War of The Sky Lords doesn’t spend as much time with Jan as I would have liked. Instead, a large part of the story concerns Ryn (the Mary Stu of the story), a young man from an undersea habitat in Antarctica. Ryn has spent his life in a boring, controlled environment, has never even met a live woman, and is full of his own importance - he’s basically thirteen year old me, but in a post-apocalyptic future.

Ryn manages to circumvent his imprisonment and land on a nearby Sky Lord that has come to Antarctica as part of an expedition looking for Ryn’s habitat. Ryn convinces Duke du Lucent - the leader of the airship - that he will assist him in destroying Jan and her fleet. In return he asks for some clothes… and someone to have sex with. The someone he is given is du Lucent’s daughter, Andrea, a beautiful but dangerous princess who despite her tempestuous nature… sigh. It isn’t quite as cheesy as it sounds, but it’s pretty cheesy, and typical of the treatment women get in these novels.

Once again, Jan, despite her Amazon pedigree as a warrior and general ass-kicker, plays second fiddle to a bunch of not-very-inspiring men, and never really kicks ass like I felt she should. She constantly seems to be at the mercy of men, much like in Brosnan’s first book.

There's also some rather nasty sadism, which gets tiresome quickly, and reduces one interesting character (returning from the first book) to a tedious and irritating caricature of a villain.

Still, despite all this, thirty-eight year old me enjoyed The War of The Sky Lords in the manner I would enjoy a donut-and–hot-chocolate binge right after skipping my gym workout. This isn’t a great work of SF, or even a particularly good one, but there’s some junk-food reading pleasure to be had here as Brosnan whips the story along from tense encounter to tense encounter.

It’s very pacy- almost farcically so at times, with characters bed hopping, getting over major traumas, and falling madly in love in what seems like a day or two at most, but it’s action packed too, which kept me from dwelling on the narrative’s numerous flaws.

So, despite its many weaknesses I still rate this book as an enjoyable read at least, even if it is pretty pulpy. Perhaps thirteen year old me is still buried somewhere in my inner reader, occasionally craving a pacy, racy story that goes from A to Z at a rapid clip without too much thinky-thinky.


Three weakly portrayed female stars out of five.
Profile Image for Olethros.
2,724 reviews534 followers
July 4, 2016
-Más pulp.-

Género. Ciencia-Ficción.

Lo que nos cuenta. Ryn vive en un asentamiento bajo la Antártida con moderna tecnología de tiempos pasados, antes de las Guerras Genéticas, en el que no acaba de encajar por la diferencia evolutiva artificial que tiene con el resto de sus diletantes pobladores. Varios señores del cielo han hecho una alianza un poco antinatural para enfrentarse a la amenaza de Jan Dorvin y sus seis aeronaves, que en realidad sólo trata de traer un poco de orden y esperanza a los que viven en el suelo, por lo que se dirigen hacia la Antártida, donde hay rumores de un viejo hábitat con tecnología que puede permitirles destruir a Jan. Segundo libro de la trilogía Los Señores del Cielo.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....
Profile Image for Петър Стойков.
Author 2 books328 followers
July 19, 2024
Поредицата за Небесните господари е сред най-добрите образци на постапокалиптичната фантастика, която така или иначе любя, тача и милея.

Джон Броснан обаче се отличава не само с отличен литературен стил, а и развива няколко много интересни идеи относно бъдещето на човечеството, генетиката и сингулярността.
Profile Image for Ben.
564 reviews12 followers
November 20, 2013
Previously I had ranked this out of print book at three stars, as I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Apparently my tastes have changed in twenty years or so, or perhaps my memory is just not so accurate. This is a very weak sequel to Brosnan's The Sky Lords - which while not a masterwork in its own right, was definitely a lot punchier and interesting than this lackluster installment of the trilogy.

On the good side, I was able to finally re-read it after all these years. Owning Sky Lords, I have been able to re-read that book several times over the year and it has been frustrating not to have been able to get my hands on the sequels. Now with Gollancz releasing a number of out of print or difficult to find titles in e-format, I could get around to enjoying the conclusion of this story once again and see if it lived up to the test of time. Sadly it does not, at least so far. The Fall of the Sky Lords may pick things back up again, but I will not know until I re-read that one too.

There were two main problems which stood out with this book, and one good thing which made an impression on me. The first was that the characterisation seemed incredibly flat. We are introduced to a new character, Ryn, who I found it hard to care about. In contrast, Jan the heroine from the first book, is dealt with very poorly and turns in a largely pathetic femme fatale whose abrupt emotional whims are either rather inexplicable or rather irritating. There could be some kind of explanation for it in the third book, but I suspect it is mostly the result of sloppy writing and pulp style taking over a little too much. Perhaps this is also the result of trying to tell the story from multiple different view points, a number of which we do not really care about very much.

Secondly, nothing very much happens in the story in comparison with the events of the first book. Most of the book could be summed up succinctly in a single sentence. Rather than a volume which can be read on its own, this very much feels like the middle of something and is merely preparing us for the third book.

The thing I like most was the little touches which added to the history of the world Brosnan has created, the little flourishes which help us to see the relics of the old world coming through into this new post gene-war one which is slowly being strangled to death. The abandoned shopping mall with semi-functioning fashion manequins, a security device brought to us by Coca-Cola, a huge hand monster created from genetic alteration of an African elephant and other similar things still served to deepen my enjoyment of the world.

At the end of the day it was ok, but a bit of a disappointment after years of hoping to read this again. My expectations for the third shall be suitably dialed down.
Profile Image for Aleksandar Nikolov.
185 reviews12 followers
September 9, 2017
Има голямо разминаване стилово в сравнение с първата част. Бих казал че тази прилича на будуарен сай-фай, в който секса и нелогичните действия на героите е водещ елемент. На косъм бях да се откажа....
Profile Image for Xabi1990.
2,126 reviews1,386 followers
February 8, 2019
7/10. Media de los 3 libros leídos del autor: 7/10.

En realidad solo me he leído su trilogía de Los señores del cielo, entretenida de leer.
Profile Image for Alain Santos.
Author 5 books2 followers
June 13, 2021
Un poco lenta al principio, pero coge el ritmo a partir del 20%. A la altura de la primera, una aventura muy entretenida. No va más allá de ofrecer diversión pero cumple su cometido.
Profile Image for Vladimir.
51 reviews1 follower
March 23, 2022
Isto kao i za prethodnicu: drugo čitanje, nakon dvadesetak godina. Još je jednako dobra.
Profile Image for Martina.
52 reviews5 followers
November 17, 2013
Ovaj roman je bio mnogo uzbudljiviji, upoznali smo mnogo uzbudljivih likova, iako su mnogi išli na živce. Pošto je Lord Pangloth uništen i Jan je preuzela sve u svoje ruke, upoznajemo još dva nebeska gospodara, Lord Modred i Islamska sablja, koji međusobno surađuju iako su neprijatelji. U Lordu Modredu žive kršćani (većinom Rimokatolici), a u Islamskoj sablji muslimani. Upoznajemo vojovodu Davina koji je žedan za moći, namjerava uništiti nebesku ženu iz straha da ne zavlada zemljom, ali ipak na neki način brine za kćer i sina koji ne pokazuju nimalo simpatije prema njemu. Za razliku od ostalih, čini se kao vrlo opušten tip.
Njegova djeca, Andrea i Darcy su mi išli jako na živce, pogotovo kad su tako razmaženi, ali me je Darcy iznenadio kad se pokušao žrtvovati za sestru.
El Sharid mi se činio previše psiho, muslimani su prikazani previše krvoločni i nasilni, kao da ih se podcjenjuje, iako ni kršćani nisu stavljeni na visok položaj (kao ni ateisti, budući da je velik dio stanovništva nenormalan, a većina su ateisti).
Jan mi je počela ići na živce. Pokazana je previše savršena, ali bila je previše nadrkana i obvezno je bila u pravu u svakom trenutku. Ovaj put su se četvorica zaljubila u nju; Milo, Robin, Lamont i Kish, koji je jako prebrzo pretvoren u jadnika kojem duplo ili troduplo mlađe dijete slomije vrat. Moja draga Ashel je također pošla k vragu jer se počela kvariti, pa je samo bila štetnik u ovoj priči.
Zanimljivo je što se pojavio opet Milo u Janinom sinu Simonu i bilo je zanimljivo čitati kako malo dijete naređuje, prijeti i govori ono što dječja usta nikad ne bi izgovorila. Ipak mi je drago da se misteriozni Milo vratio, iako nije imao veliku ulogu kao u prvoj knjizi.
Najviše mi je diglo živce što su dva moja najdraža lika tako brzo postala beskorisna. Ceri je na samom početku knjige umrla, a imala sam najviše simpatije prema njoj. Mislim da je zaslužila mnogo bolji kraj ako je trebala umrijeti.
Također je Robin bio odličan lik, vrlo tajanstven, neovisan i vrlo lukav, a kasnije ga Kish udari u glavu, što ga učini invalidom, i Andrea ga kastrira, što nije nimalo zaslužio. Također bih voljela da smo upoznali Eloe kad se o njima toliko govorilo.
Profile Image for Blue.
76 reviews
August 15, 2018
Look this was not a good book. I'm slightly ashamed to have read it, although that feeling is a learning opportunity. Refer to my review of part 1 for more on the setting if you must.

Rather I want to explain myself. I read and LOVED this trilogy when I was around 12. This was around the time I enjoying books like Heinlein's 'Number of the Beast' and Philip José Farmer's 'Riverworld' series. Loved them all at the time, but I would not recommend these books to a 12 year old now I'm 40+! There's a fare bit of graphic violence, and a hell of a lot of 'adult themes' (sex).

The thing I see now is that a lot (most, but not *quite* all) the 'sex' in these books is really really rapey. And the 'cool antihero' character that runs through the series in various incarnations (through some seriously hand-wavey cloning bullshit) is not only ridiculous, but the source of much of that rapiness. He *is* presented as a psycho, selfish, and part of the cause of the apocalypse the world is set after, but in that 'cool psycho' way that shit male authors are enamoured of. This one top of the constant 'point proving' about gender roles and the evils of feminism that Brosnan likes to trot out.

It's a long time ago, so I don't remember if I was aware of the awfulness of these elements, and willing to look past them for the swashbuckling setting. Or whether I was sucked in by the patriarchal crap this is papered over with. Worse, most of that swashbuckling is deux ex machina and racism.

Sadly I will be reading the third book, they're a couple of quid each and you can read them when you're half asleep without missing anything. But more... I'm morbidly curious. Is the third book this bad? Will the cool, interesting ending I remember be actually kind of hacky? (Probably!)

Profile Image for Vivone Os.
740 reviews26 followers
September 23, 2017
Puno lošija od prvog dijela. Nekako sam je brzinski pročitala i uopće ne osjećam kao da sam ju čitala. Nijedan događaj mi se nije urezao u pamćenje, nijedan lik mi se ne sviđa. Jan, koja bi trebala biti pozitivan glavni lik je opet pala u drugi plan zbog svih ostalih koji spletkare oko nje i upliću se u njene planove. I opet ona nekako trči za radnjom umjesto da je njen glavni protagonist. Zapravo je u potpunosti bespomoćna. Milo je ljigav. Ryna/Robina uopće ne kužim, mislim da ni on sam ne zna što hoće. Ashley jedina ima neke prave planove pa makar se oni stvarali iz njenog ludila. Brosnan je utrpao svašta u knjigu, i musilmane, i Južnoamerikance, i bespolce, i čudovišnu ruku koja sama jurca okolo po uništenom svijetu i proždire sve pred sobom, klona te poludjeli brodski kompjuter sa svojim kopijama... istina, je to znanstvena fantastika, ali što jest, jest, malo je pretjerao.
Profile Image for vorbore.
146 reviews26 followers
December 19, 2009
Now I'm beginning to think this is only a macho book about how a
woman is incapable of existing without a man. Let's see what happens in the third book...
Profile Image for Veselin Nikolov.
753 reviews87 followers
August 13, 2012
Джан се бори с луди компютри върху опустошената от генномодифицирани печурки земя.

Забавно е колко адекватна е фантастиката, въпреки че е писана в предкомпютърната ера.
Profile Image for Pacyfa.
288 reviews7 followers
March 22, 2013
Not really my type of sci-fi..
It was a light read but that's about it, a bit of light fun - few laughs but the problem is that the day after I finished it, my brain has no recollection of the plot
Profile Image for Vladislav Stoilov.
54 reviews8 followers
July 2, 2015
Не е фантастиката, която аз обичам да чета, но краят на книгата беше много добър! :D
Profile Image for Ежко Таралежко.
218 reviews5 followers
May 14, 2016
Не, не, не и не.

Не знам автора дрогата ли е сменил, кучето му ли е починало, друга ли драма е преживял, но втората част от трилогията е толкова по-ниско от първата че.... ужас.

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