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The Sphinx
The Sphinx is a Future History, an extrapolation into the next five hundred years of human history, and focuses on the narrative of Greg Summer50, a young Venusian conscripted into the GovSec Symbols Project. Augmented with Psionic ability, The Sphinx is thrust into the Arena of The Sol Senate as an unwitting tool of GovSec Ambition. A stand alone, yet complimentary book to The Estuary Tales. The Sphinx details the ambition of GovSec while the Earth spins closer and closer to the Mass Extinction of it's dominant species, viewed through the naive eyes of a boy from Venus who is destined to become the most feared creature in all of Human History. As The Sphinx slowly devours Greg Summer50 in the course of his duties and tasks for GovSec, the survival of all the Human Race begins to be thrown into stark relief because of his actions.The tormented Sphinx must begin to question who the Enemy he was created to combat, really is. The Sphinx describes a miserable human existence on several of the colonized planetary systems that form The Sol Senate, a dark warning in a post-Apocalyptic scenario, where the human race continues to doom itself against the backdrop of an uncaring Universe.
426 pages, Paperback
First published November 28, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 8, 2015
I quite enjoyed it.a nice read. Thought provoking, light, a bit distracting until I internalized the time jumps.
March 18, 2015
Vivid and Eerie. It is so easy to get lost in this book, to fall into this place that is both familiar and strange. To see this happening to our world and our societies.
This book is a rich and living tapestry woven of tales the tales of a multitude of characters each telling of the science and society that brought the situations that they find themselves in. The links between the characters and their stories don't become apparent until nearly the end yet they all contribute to create powerful picture of what could so easily be the future of mankind.
The theme of water, it's necessity, it's adaptability, and it's power, is cunningly used to cast illustrate human nature and the nature of society and to bring all the separate tales together into a harmonious whole that is a wrench to leave. Ultimately this book is about choices, those of individuals and of groups those of leaders and those of the lead. How the choices they make can have a powerful and often unseen effect on the future and the first choice, is always, choosing to survive.
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, the writing is vivid, weaving clear and detailed images on the mind's eye. The characters are complex, real and "human" and I found myself caring a great deal about most of them. The story is multi-layered and multi-faceted, shaded with numerous connections and symbols all craftily woven into the overall effect. The themes are thought provoking and expertly handled, you are swept gently like a leaf on a lake into looking at the world and people around you a little differently and examining things a little more closely.
This is good hard Science Fiction, a beautifully and expertly wrought series of what-ifs that take you forward so that you can see now a little more clearly. I will definitely Estuary Tales, I'm certain there is much there I missed the first time.
This book is a rich and living tapestry woven of tales the tales of a multitude of characters each telling of the science and society that brought the situations that they find themselves in. The links between the characters and their stories don't become apparent until nearly the end yet they all contribute to create powerful picture of what could so easily be the future of mankind.
The theme of water, it's necessity, it's adaptability, and it's power, is cunningly used to cast illustrate human nature and the nature of society and to bring all the separate tales together into a harmonious whole that is a wrench to leave. Ultimately this book is about choices, those of individuals and of groups those of leaders and those of the lead. How the choices they make can have a powerful and often unseen effect on the future and the first choice, is always, choosing to survive.
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, the writing is vivid, weaving clear and detailed images on the mind's eye. The characters are complex, real and "human" and I found myself caring a great deal about most of them. The story is multi-layered and multi-faceted, shaded with numerous connections and symbols all craftily woven into the overall effect. The themes are thought provoking and expertly handled, you are swept gently like a leaf on a lake into looking at the world and people around you a little differently and examining things a little more closely.
This is good hard Science Fiction, a beautifully and expertly wrought series of what-ifs that take you forward so that you can see now a little more clearly. I will definitely Estuary Tales, I'm certain there is much there I missed the first time.
January 19, 2015
This tale belies its genre. Not that it isn't chockfull very steamy sex scenes, it's that these aren't the point of the book. They are a vehicle, almost a symbol of a damaged, frozen young man beginning to thaw and let the world in. It's a way for those he loves to connect to each other to form the net, that will catch him when the ice breaks and he faces what he has kept locked away all this time.
This is a love story, not a not a wedding bells and happily-ever-afters, not a star-crossed lover tragedy but the story of a man who has is "handing out love like it was oxygen" as he rebuilds his life finally finds the courage to accept himself.
This is not a quick read, it's a journey filled with living, individual characters all learning to live with themselves and find their place in the community. The scenes are so vividly painted that when you finish the book and look at the cover, you know exactly where you are standing in the world you have just left. The symbols are expertly handled and subtly used. This book will move you, if you see beyond the steam it will uplift, it will excite, it will nurture and reassure, and will make you cry. It certainly did me.
I'm familiar with the author's ability to tell a story and so I took a chance on a book in a genre I wouldn't normally read. I am very glad I did, it's a journey well worth taking, definitely more once. It'll change your view of the world maybe a little, maybe a lot. This one will live with me for a long while like good books should.
This is a love story, not a not a wedding bells and happily-ever-afters, not a star-crossed lover tragedy but the story of a man who has is "handing out love like it was oxygen" as he rebuilds his life finally finds the courage to accept himself.
This is not a quick read, it's a journey filled with living, individual characters all learning to live with themselves and find their place in the community. The scenes are so vividly painted that when you finish the book and look at the cover, you know exactly where you are standing in the world you have just left. The symbols are expertly handled and subtly used. This book will move you, if you see beyond the steam it will uplift, it will excite, it will nurture and reassure, and will make you cry. It certainly did me.
I'm familiar with the author's ability to tell a story and so I took a chance on a book in a genre I wouldn't normally read. I am very glad I did, it's a journey well worth taking, definitely more once. It'll change your view of the world maybe a little, maybe a lot. This one will live with me for a long while like good books should.
January 26, 2016
All of Caldon Mulls books push the boundaries of my literary comfort zone, this one is no exception. In genre it feels like coming home yet the blend of mythologies and philosophies, and the staggering tapestry of symbols and metaphors give it an immense and surreal depth. It practically demands to be reread and the vividness of his writing and the interesting and compelling characters make that something to look forward to.
I also find myself wanting to know more, like all the others, the "world" of this book is huge and amazingly well realised. There are so many stories there that I'm loath to leave it. For this reason I'm especially looking forward to Omnipresent Occultation which releases in March. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
I also find myself wanting to know more, like all the others, the "world" of this book is huge and amazingly well realised. There are so many stories there that I'm loath to leave it. For this reason I'm especially looking forward to Omnipresent Occultation which releases in March. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
October 10, 2015
Estuary Tales is a easy flowing river of entwined stories that sweeps you neatly into the rip tide that is Sphinx. This book sucks you down into a story where corruption is inevitably the maker of its own unmaking and it is the power of looking back that washes the future clean. The symbol, the metaphor, of water is not as obvious in this book as the last but still very much a woof thread of the total fabric. It is not until the last third of the book that you realise just how closely the two stories are entwined to create an epic, engrossing and thought-provoking whole. While Estuary Tales and Sphinx could be read as individual stories they are richer and more compelling together.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews