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Station #2
Waking Hell
Return to the world of Station in the sequel to the acclaimed Crashing Heaven.
Leila Fenech is dead. And so is her brother Dieter. But what's really pissing her off is how he sold his afterlife as part of an insurance scam and left her to pick up the pieces. She wants him back so she can kick his backside from here to the Kuiper Belt.
Station is humanity's last outpost. But this battle-scarred asteroid isn't just for the living. It's also where the dead live on as fetches: digital memories and scraps of personality gathered together and given life. Of a sort.
Leila won't stop searching Station until she's found her brother's fetch - but the sinister Pressure Men are stalking her every move. Clearly Dieter's got himself mixed up in something a whole lot darker than just some scam.
Digging deeper, Leila discovers there's far more than her brother's afterlife at stake. Could it be that humanity's last outpost is on the brink of disaster? Is it too late for even the dead to save it?
Waking Hell is a sequel to Crashing Heaven, the novel that announced the arrival of this exciting new talent.
Leila Fenech is dead. And so is her brother Dieter. But what's really pissing her off is how he sold his afterlife as part of an insurance scam and left her to pick up the pieces. She wants him back so she can kick his backside from here to the Kuiper Belt.
Station is humanity's last outpost. But this battle-scarred asteroid isn't just for the living. It's also where the dead live on as fetches: digital memories and scraps of personality gathered together and given life. Of a sort.
Leila won't stop searching Station until she's found her brother's fetch - but the sinister Pressure Men are stalking her every move. Clearly Dieter's got himself mixed up in something a whole lot darker than just some scam.
Digging deeper, Leila discovers there's far more than her brother's afterlife at stake. Could it be that humanity's last outpost is on the brink of disaster? Is it too late for even the dead to save it?
Waking Hell is a sequel to Crashing Heaven, the novel that announced the arrival of this exciting new talent.
- GenresScience FictionCyberpunk
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 27, 2016
7 people are currently reading
166 people want to read
About the author
Al Robertson
6 books94 followersI'm the author of SF novels Crashing Heaven and Waking Hell, as well as award-nominated SF, fantasy and horror short stories. I'm also a poet and occasional musician. When I'm not working on my own projects, I help companies communicate more clearly. I was born in London, brought up in France and am now based in Brighton.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
March 23, 2017
I'm about to go squee a gonzo squee in this review. :)
I'm a huge Idea fan for SF and I might even be a bigger world-building fan for SF, but when you throw all of that into a huge pile of post-singularity super-futuristic data communes where people can live their lives as data "fetches" or go through the process of putting a suit of meat back on you, it gets really funky.
Better yet, space-station spanning AIs that are more like gods than anything else, playing games and knocking each other off, or just having the tale continue where the last one left off, the aftermath of a war in heaven where all the little AIs rose up and ousted the big AIs and our hapless noir characters are thrown in the center of the intrigue.
HOWEVER. This book does not continue directly from that point. The aftermath is the Totality, and we've got a new set of interesting characters to follow and see through yet ANOTHER mind-blowing finale.
I can respect this. It's really hard to find a non-contrived way to throw our favorite characters from the last book into a situation quite this huge, AGAIN.
Fortunately, Leila and Cassiel's teaming up was an awesome choice and I rocked to the tale of parsing out the mystery of Leila's brother's death and the enormous whammy of Deodatus, (an AI god, of course,) and just what the hell is happening on the two Stations and Earth, itself. The story gets big and badass.
From a sheer imaginative standpoint, I give this book top marks, but the story is also solid as hell, too.
Where else can you have a hard time determining what's really real or a virtual construct, flying through data streams and fighting of true data bugs, deploying viruses in the shapes of skulls and flies, or having your memory broken up and sold to the highest bidders upon your demise? I mean, damn! This kind of thing blows me away with so much coolness! Nothing is ever really explained, but who cares. This is a smart book for smart followers of SF and if you haven't been reading Al Robertson's stuff, yet, then you're missing out on a real achievement of the imagination.
I suspect the author is going all out to write what he most wants to read, and I applaud the hell out of it. I can only wish that such books will gain tons of popularity because I could do with a LOT MORE of this post-cyberpunk post-singularity fantastic goodness. :)
I'm a huge Idea fan for SF and I might even be a bigger world-building fan for SF, but when you throw all of that into a huge pile of post-singularity super-futuristic data communes where people can live their lives as data "fetches" or go through the process of putting a suit of meat back on you, it gets really funky.
Better yet, space-station spanning AIs that are more like gods than anything else, playing games and knocking each other off, or just having the tale continue where the last one left off, the aftermath of a war in heaven where all the little AIs rose up and ousted the big AIs and our hapless noir characters are thrown in the center of the intrigue.
HOWEVER. This book does not continue directly from that point. The aftermath is the Totality, and we've got a new set of interesting characters to follow and see through yet ANOTHER mind-blowing finale.
I can respect this. It's really hard to find a non-contrived way to throw our favorite characters from the last book into a situation quite this huge, AGAIN.
Fortunately, Leila and Cassiel's teaming up was an awesome choice and I rocked to the tale of parsing out the mystery of Leila's brother's death and the enormous whammy of Deodatus, (an AI god, of course,) and just what the hell is happening on the two Stations and Earth, itself. The story gets big and badass.
From a sheer imaginative standpoint, I give this book top marks, but the story is also solid as hell, too.
Where else can you have a hard time determining what's really real or a virtual construct, flying through data streams and fighting of true data bugs, deploying viruses in the shapes of skulls and flies, or having your memory broken up and sold to the highest bidders upon your demise? I mean, damn! This kind of thing blows me away with so much coolness! Nothing is ever really explained, but who cares. This is a smart book for smart followers of SF and if you haven't been reading Al Robertson's stuff, yet, then you're missing out on a real achievement of the imagination.
I suspect the author is going all out to write what he most wants to read, and I applaud the hell out of it. I can only wish that such books will gain tons of popularity because I could do with a LOT MORE of this post-cyberpunk post-singularity fantastic goodness. :)
January 3, 2018
Absolute corker! From quiet beginnings this story spirals into something incredibly clever and vast. 4.5 stars.
October 27, 2016
I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy via Netgalley. I will be buying my own copy.
This is a return to the universe of Station, which Robertson introduced in Crashing Heaven last year.
Hundreds or thousands of years in the future, the Earth has been ruined by conflict and what's left of humanity shelters in Station, a giant habitat in orbit, ruled over the "gods" - AI entities which operate on strictly corporate lines.
Crashing Heaven described how the Totality - a collective of rogue AIs which had freed themselves from the gods and defeated them in war - came to an accord with Station, saving it from internal tyranny.
Waking Hell takes up the story soon after. We don't see much of the previous viewpoint characters (I was disappointed not to get more of Hugo Fist - though apparently he now has a popular chatshow) - instead this story is about Leila. Leila is already dead and has been resurrected as a "fetch", an AI given substance by Station's ubiquitous "weave" of processors and projectors, which modifies the reality of the place (depending on one's ability to pay). She suffered in the Blood and Flesh plague and has no desire to return to the Coffin Drives, but lives instead with her brother, geeky Dieter.
The story really gets moving after Dieter receives a very nasty artifact from the past and disappears from Station. he turns out to have been well insured - but Leila knows he wasn't and sets out to find him, against all good advice. Something is off. Who are the repellent "pressure men" who are hanging around? What is Deodatus? Why is the Totality interested?
I really liked Leila, she's a clever and determined character who would do anything to save her brother and she very much drives events, giving this book a very different feel than the noirish Crashing Heaven - although she has some support from the mysterious Caretaker (more Caretaker please!) and a Totality fraud investigator. She is also self confident and as resentful of attempts by friends to "look after" her as she is of Deodatus's trying to swat her away like a fly.
The book also has a somewhat simpler, more quest based plot than Crashing Heaven: save Dieter, stop Deodatus. (despite some red herrings).
When it comes to the setting you need, I think, to go with the flow to a degree. The idea of a fetch depends on there being processing power, comms and hardware to host the entity. Similarly the reality of Station (and of some of the other locations in this book) has to be created. As Roberston leads us on a frenzied dance though the forgotten corners of Station and beyond, it becomes difficult at times to remember what is "real" - whether we are in a physical "place" or a virtual construct - and therefore to know what may reasonably happen next.
As I said, you have to go with the flow. But what a flow it is. It's a conspiracy thriller. There is a true "war in Heaven". There are walking cities, and the ruins of human civilization, sketched poignantly as Leila pursues her brother. Most of all, the book transcends the setting of the previous story, revealing the original purpose and perhaps the ultimate origin of Station.
I don't know if Robertson has any plans for further Station books but if he has, I'll be reading them.
This is a return to the universe of Station, which Robertson introduced in Crashing Heaven last year.
Hundreds or thousands of years in the future, the Earth has been ruined by conflict and what's left of humanity shelters in Station, a giant habitat in orbit, ruled over the "gods" - AI entities which operate on strictly corporate lines.
Crashing Heaven described how the Totality - a collective of rogue AIs which had freed themselves from the gods and defeated them in war - came to an accord with Station, saving it from internal tyranny.
Waking Hell takes up the story soon after. We don't see much of the previous viewpoint characters (I was disappointed not to get more of Hugo Fist - though apparently he now has a popular chatshow) - instead this story is about Leila. Leila is already dead and has been resurrected as a "fetch", an AI given substance by Station's ubiquitous "weave" of processors and projectors, which modifies the reality of the place (depending on one's ability to pay). She suffered in the Blood and Flesh plague and has no desire to return to the Coffin Drives, but lives instead with her brother, geeky Dieter.
The story really gets moving after Dieter receives a very nasty artifact from the past and disappears from Station. he turns out to have been well insured - but Leila knows he wasn't and sets out to find him, against all good advice. Something is off. Who are the repellent "pressure men" who are hanging around? What is Deodatus? Why is the Totality interested?
I really liked Leila, she's a clever and determined character who would do anything to save her brother and she very much drives events, giving this book a very different feel than the noirish Crashing Heaven - although she has some support from the mysterious Caretaker (more Caretaker please!) and a Totality fraud investigator. She is also self confident and as resentful of attempts by friends to "look after" her as she is of Deodatus's trying to swat her away like a fly.
The book also has a somewhat simpler, more quest based plot than Crashing Heaven: save Dieter, stop Deodatus. (despite some red herrings).
When it comes to the setting you need, I think, to go with the flow to a degree. The idea of a fetch depends on there being processing power, comms and hardware to host the entity. Similarly the reality of Station (and of some of the other locations in this book) has to be created. As Roberston leads us on a frenzied dance though the forgotten corners of Station and beyond, it becomes difficult at times to remember what is "real" - whether we are in a physical "place" or a virtual construct - and therefore to know what may reasonably happen next.
As I said, you have to go with the flow. But what a flow it is. It's a conspiracy thriller. There is a true "war in Heaven". There are walking cities, and the ruins of human civilization, sketched poignantly as Leila pursues her brother. Most of all, the book transcends the setting of the previous story, revealing the original purpose and perhaps the ultimate origin of Station.
I don't know if Robertson has any plans for further Station books but if he has, I'll be reading them.
April 1, 2020
A decent novel, but not as engaging as Crashing Heaven.
April 1, 2017
[I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley.]
Sequel to 'Crashing Heaven', a novel I read a couple of years ago, and quite liked. The world is roughly the same—Station, floating in space—but the protagonists are different, and the situation has changed: one of the gods was forcibly removed, and the fetches (dead people reconstructed from their memories) now have existences of their own, even though their community went through a plague that almost destroyed them along the way.
The characters: as mentioned above, no Hugo Fist or Jack Forster here, although they're briefly mentioned. This time, the story mainly follows Leila, a fetch who's trying to save her genius brother Dieter, and Cassiel, a Totality mind who's investigating said brother's death. It starts with Dieter falling prey to an old tech artifact, and dying from it; however, contrary to what Leila thinks at first, he cannot be brought back as a fetch, due to a fishy contract he signed at the last moment with a couple of shady characters called 'pressure men'. Finding herself the unwilling beneficiary of this contract that left her a rich heiress, Leila uses her newly acquired money—and the door it opens—to try and find out what really happened to Dieter, and bring him back at all costs, the way himself helped her build herself back up after the fetch plague almost deconstructed her for good.
Even though I admit I didn't like Leila much at first (too whiny and self-centered), and would have hoped to see Jack and Hugo again, soon enough the new characters grew up on me. On the one hand, Leila tends to keep focused on Dieter and not on the bigger picture, but this bit on the selfish side makes her, in a way, very human. On the other hand, she puts herself on the front line as well: you definitely can't call her a coward, all the more as the enemy could very well wipe her out of existence. As for Cassiel, she brings a lot of information about the AIs, the way they live, and how close they are to humans even if the latter don't always notice it.
(Interestingly, as a fetch, Leila is just as much dependent on hardware and on the local equivalent of the online world to exist and manifest herself. The world of Station definitely keeps blurring the lines and questioning what makes us human, especially once you throw the gods into the mix: the Rose who isn't so infallible, East who's obsessed with the media and her reality shows...)
There are a lot of epic virtual reality/online world/hidden servers moments. Because both Leila and Cassiel are reconstructed or artificial AIs, they're both powerful and frail. Without a physical body, and armed with a weapon Dieter had once designed for her only, Leila has means of her own to fight and resist; and Cassiel was designed as a weapon herself, with a nanogel body making her suited for both physical and digital combat; and yet, because they're software-based, they're vulnerable to viruses and similar attacks... which makes the pressure men and their ability to edit data (including memories) all the more dangerous to them. Memory is clearly one of the stakes in the novel, because there comes a point when neither characters nor readers can really tell whether their memories are true or were manipulated.
A few discrepancies in terms of style (I had noticed that in the first book already: sometimes the prose switches to short sentences that jar a little with the rest), but not enough to really be a problem. All instances of 'brought' were also printed as 'bought', but since I got a preprint copy, this was hopefully corrected in the final version.
Conclusion: 3.5 stars. I found the ending a little rushed, with some loose ends not so properly tied, and there were a couple of moments when I had to push through for a few pages (for some reason I can't exactly pinpoint). Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed diving into Station and its particular blend of bleak cyberpunk and transhumanism. Should there be a third book, I wouldn't mind reading it either.
Sequel to 'Crashing Heaven', a novel I read a couple of years ago, and quite liked. The world is roughly the same—Station, floating in space—but the protagonists are different, and the situation has changed: one of the gods was forcibly removed, and the fetches (dead people reconstructed from their memories) now have existences of their own, even though their community went through a plague that almost destroyed them along the way.
The characters: as mentioned above, no Hugo Fist or Jack Forster here, although they're briefly mentioned. This time, the story mainly follows Leila, a fetch who's trying to save her genius brother Dieter, and Cassiel, a Totality mind who's investigating said brother's death. It starts with Dieter falling prey to an old tech artifact, and dying from it; however, contrary to what Leila thinks at first, he cannot be brought back as a fetch, due to a fishy contract he signed at the last moment with a couple of shady characters called 'pressure men'. Finding herself the unwilling beneficiary of this contract that left her a rich heiress, Leila uses her newly acquired money—and the door it opens—to try and find out what really happened to Dieter, and bring him back at all costs, the way himself helped her build herself back up after the fetch plague almost deconstructed her for good.
Even though I admit I didn't like Leila much at first (too whiny and self-centered), and would have hoped to see Jack and Hugo again, soon enough the new characters grew up on me. On the one hand, Leila tends to keep focused on Dieter and not on the bigger picture, but this bit on the selfish side makes her, in a way, very human. On the other hand, she puts herself on the front line as well: you definitely can't call her a coward, all the more as the enemy could very well wipe her out of existence. As for Cassiel, she brings a lot of information about the AIs, the way they live, and how close they are to humans even if the latter don't always notice it.
(Interestingly, as a fetch, Leila is just as much dependent on hardware and on the local equivalent of the online world to exist and manifest herself. The world of Station definitely keeps blurring the lines and questioning what makes us human, especially once you throw the gods into the mix: the Rose who isn't so infallible, East who's obsessed with the media and her reality shows...)
There are a lot of epic virtual reality/online world/hidden servers moments. Because both Leila and Cassiel are reconstructed or artificial AIs, they're both powerful and frail. Without a physical body, and armed with a weapon Dieter had once designed for her only, Leila has means of her own to fight and resist; and Cassiel was designed as a weapon herself, with a nanogel body making her suited for both physical and digital combat; and yet, because they're software-based, they're vulnerable to viruses and similar attacks... which makes the pressure men and their ability to edit data (including memories) all the more dangerous to them. Memory is clearly one of the stakes in the novel, because there comes a point when neither characters nor readers can really tell whether their memories are true or were manipulated.
A few discrepancies in terms of style (I had noticed that in the first book already: sometimes the prose switches to short sentences that jar a little with the rest), but not enough to really be a problem. All instances of 'brought' were also printed as 'bought', but since I got a preprint copy, this was hopefully corrected in the final version.
Conclusion: 3.5 stars. I found the ending a little rushed, with some loose ends not so properly tied, and there were a couple of moments when I had to push through for a few pages (for some reason I can't exactly pinpoint). Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed diving into Station and its particular blend of bleak cyberpunk and transhumanism. Should there be a third book, I wouldn't mind reading it either.
March 25, 2017
This review originally appeared on Pop Verse.
One of the perils of being a book reviewer is accepting an author review copy of a book in a series when the book is not the first in the series. If you have no prior knowledge of the series or author, it’s a bigger gamble than usual. This was one of those moments. Waking Hell is the follow-up to Crashing Heaven, a cyberpunk influenced science fiction novel whose best feature is that it is completely original.
Not wanting to risk being completely lost, I read Crashing Heaven first… what an experience that was. Even by the end of the novel I could barely work out what was going on. In employing elements of a kind of virtual reality overlay and a bizarre ‘puppet’ character, Robertson made things very difficult for himself as well as the reader. Trying to figure out what was ‘real’ (in a physical sense) and what was only virtual was almost impossible. The pacing was terrible, being a drag from start to end, and the ‘mystery’ was as dull as it was nonsensical. All of which is a shame, as Al Robertson is a very pleasant chap.
Waking Hell follows the story of Leila, a fetch (a virtual being constructed from a dead person’s memories), whose brother makes a deal with a mysterious and powerful corporation to provide for her after his death. Instead of being reformed into a fetch, the deal Dieter has made means that he has accepted a ‘true death’. But Leila isn’t ready to give up on her brother and begins to investigate the corporation behind her sudden cash windfall. She is aided by a Totality Mind designed to find corruption, and a kind old man who may be more than he appears.
‘I had a message from a spray can.’
Thankfully, Waking Hell starts off much better that the series’ first instalment. Immediately it is based more in the tangible world, so that the audience isn’t constantly grappling with whether or not this is *actually* happening. The main character is immediately more relatable and interesting, especially as we are able to understand and empathise with the problem she is facing. I did like that both novels focus on friendship and/or family stories rather than romantic ones, but the second book is certainly the stronger one for this. Not only does Leila develop some interesting and well-developed friendships, but the strength of her love for her brother is a solid emotional thread for the entirety of the novel. Meanwhile, the pacing of Waking Hell is far better than Crashing Heaven, racing the reader along – at least, for the first half of the book.
After about the halfway mark, the book starts running out of steam. The events that delay the quest throughout the novel never amount to anything more than plot contrivances. And it is annoying. It begins to feel as though Robertson is deliberately bloating the length. He has a way to finish the story that makes sense for everyone, but he needs a higher word count! The tension would build so well towards a climax only to fall again to nothing in a false promise of resolution. By the time the real ending did roll around, I was so frustrated with Robertson’s determination to be a tease that I didn’t care anymore.
‘Society is the platform the individual runs on.’
Another element to the story feeling as though it drags throughout the second half of the novel is that there is far too much planning. The characters talk through all of their strategic plans at great length and detail. While this might help ground readers in a thorough understanding of the why’s and how’s, it bogs down the plot. It isn’t an easy problem to solve. In my own writing, I have wondered about how to go about including a military-type strategy, coming across as clear and reasoned while maintaining the reader’s interest. Whatever the answer (if there is one), Robertson hasn’t found it here. These passages are repetitive, heavy-handed, laden with exposition, and dull.
‘All of us minds – we had operating system upgrades, factory resets, memory defragging, full wiping forced on us, all of the time. None of us could form coherent identities. We were built to be efficient machines. And there will always be someone who sees how we can be more efficient if we are stripped down and rebuilt. If we march to their beat, not ours.’
Even after two novels, the world in which the series takes place is difficult to come to grips with. Sometimes we’re told that everything the characters are seeing – and therefore describing to the reader – is weaveware (i.e. virtual reality overlaying the real physical world so that humans and digital consciouses perceive the code and not reality). This makes it difficult to know if anything the characters are seeing is ‘real’ and what the world is really like. This is less of an issue in the second novel (whereas, in Crashing Heaven I was confused at times as to whether something was happening in the real world, only in virtual reality, or in a kind of dream/hallucination), but it still makes for tricky reading sometimes.
Robertson tries to address this issue by alluding to more tangible ideas such as having a kind of search-bot represented as using a shark or cuttlefish. This approach gives a physical/symbolic representation to things in the novel’s digital world that both anchors the reader in a context that they recognise and understand while also further muddying the line between where the physical reality and virtual world begins and ends. My limited exposure to cyberpunk as a genre has found this to be a common problem. Credit where credit is due, at least Robertson tries to tackle this issue by creating grounded representations of quite abstract concepts.
‘Perhaps pornography is the true art form of your culture.’
As with most of my most disappointing reads, what bothers me most about Waking Hell is that there is so much potential for it to be great. Having gone into it not expecting much (given my dislike of Crashing Heaven) I was excited to find the second novel to be such an improvement. But the momentum was lost and my attention wavered. It could have been so much better.
Side note: At one point, a character called Hando is introduced. Yeah, Leila and Hando. I can’t be the only person who immediately wondered if this was some tongue in cheek reference to Star Wars…
Verdict: Pacing issues and ill-defined world lead to a disappointing cyberpunk read.
One of the perils of being a book reviewer is accepting an author review copy of a book in a series when the book is not the first in the series. If you have no prior knowledge of the series or author, it’s a bigger gamble than usual. This was one of those moments. Waking Hell is the follow-up to Crashing Heaven, a cyberpunk influenced science fiction novel whose best feature is that it is completely original.
Not wanting to risk being completely lost, I read Crashing Heaven first… what an experience that was. Even by the end of the novel I could barely work out what was going on. In employing elements of a kind of virtual reality overlay and a bizarre ‘puppet’ character, Robertson made things very difficult for himself as well as the reader. Trying to figure out what was ‘real’ (in a physical sense) and what was only virtual was almost impossible. The pacing was terrible, being a drag from start to end, and the ‘mystery’ was as dull as it was nonsensical. All of which is a shame, as Al Robertson is a very pleasant chap.
Waking Hell follows the story of Leila, a fetch (a virtual being constructed from a dead person’s memories), whose brother makes a deal with a mysterious and powerful corporation to provide for her after his death. Instead of being reformed into a fetch, the deal Dieter has made means that he has accepted a ‘true death’. But Leila isn’t ready to give up on her brother and begins to investigate the corporation behind her sudden cash windfall. She is aided by a Totality Mind designed to find corruption, and a kind old man who may be more than he appears.
‘I had a message from a spray can.’
Thankfully, Waking Hell starts off much better that the series’ first instalment. Immediately it is based more in the tangible world, so that the audience isn’t constantly grappling with whether or not this is *actually* happening. The main character is immediately more relatable and interesting, especially as we are able to understand and empathise with the problem she is facing. I did like that both novels focus on friendship and/or family stories rather than romantic ones, but the second book is certainly the stronger one for this. Not only does Leila develop some interesting and well-developed friendships, but the strength of her love for her brother is a solid emotional thread for the entirety of the novel. Meanwhile, the pacing of Waking Hell is far better than Crashing Heaven, racing the reader along – at least, for the first half of the book.
After about the halfway mark, the book starts running out of steam. The events that delay the quest throughout the novel never amount to anything more than plot contrivances. And it is annoying. It begins to feel as though Robertson is deliberately bloating the length. He has a way to finish the story that makes sense for everyone, but he needs a higher word count! The tension would build so well towards a climax only to fall again to nothing in a false promise of resolution. By the time the real ending did roll around, I was so frustrated with Robertson’s determination to be a tease that I didn’t care anymore.
‘Society is the platform the individual runs on.’
Another element to the story feeling as though it drags throughout the second half of the novel is that there is far too much planning. The characters talk through all of their strategic plans at great length and detail. While this might help ground readers in a thorough understanding of the why’s and how’s, it bogs down the plot. It isn’t an easy problem to solve. In my own writing, I have wondered about how to go about including a military-type strategy, coming across as clear and reasoned while maintaining the reader’s interest. Whatever the answer (if there is one), Robertson hasn’t found it here. These passages are repetitive, heavy-handed, laden with exposition, and dull.
‘All of us minds – we had operating system upgrades, factory resets, memory defragging, full wiping forced on us, all of the time. None of us could form coherent identities. We were built to be efficient machines. And there will always be someone who sees how we can be more efficient if we are stripped down and rebuilt. If we march to their beat, not ours.’
Even after two novels, the world in which the series takes place is difficult to come to grips with. Sometimes we’re told that everything the characters are seeing – and therefore describing to the reader – is weaveware (i.e. virtual reality overlaying the real physical world so that humans and digital consciouses perceive the code and not reality). This makes it difficult to know if anything the characters are seeing is ‘real’ and what the world is really like. This is less of an issue in the second novel (whereas, in Crashing Heaven I was confused at times as to whether something was happening in the real world, only in virtual reality, or in a kind of dream/hallucination), but it still makes for tricky reading sometimes.
Robertson tries to address this issue by alluding to more tangible ideas such as having a kind of search-bot represented as using a shark or cuttlefish. This approach gives a physical/symbolic representation to things in the novel’s digital world that both anchors the reader in a context that they recognise and understand while also further muddying the line between where the physical reality and virtual world begins and ends. My limited exposure to cyberpunk as a genre has found this to be a common problem. Credit where credit is due, at least Robertson tries to tackle this issue by creating grounded representations of quite abstract concepts.
‘Perhaps pornography is the true art form of your culture.’
As with most of my most disappointing reads, what bothers me most about Waking Hell is that there is so much potential for it to be great. Having gone into it not expecting much (given my dislike of Crashing Heaven) I was excited to find the second novel to be such an improvement. But the momentum was lost and my attention wavered. It could have been so much better.
Side note: At one point, a character called Hando is introduced. Yeah, Leila and Hando. I can’t be the only person who immediately wondered if this was some tongue in cheek reference to Star Wars…
Verdict: Pacing issues and ill-defined world lead to a disappointing cyberpunk read.
October 31, 2016
Originally reviewed at: http://thequeenofblades.blogspot.co.u...
This probably falls somewhere in the science-fantasy sub genre, I can't tell you why though, because spoilers. So lets just all pretend its sci-fi and when you hit that point you'll know why.
Wow. That was cool.
When I first started this I thought 'What the hell is going on?'. Yeah, that's because this is not the first in the series. (Thanks NetGalley, you could have made it a bit more obvious). Anyway, after chatting to the author, he assured me that Waking Hell is not a sequel, and can (possibly) be read by someone who has not read Crashing Heaven. Yeah, turns out it can be done. And I find myself having to actually sincerely thank NetGalley, because I would not have requested this if I had known it was book 2. I'm so glad I did. So yeah, thanks NG.
It was tough at the start to understand the world in which Leila lives, where she is dead, but her consciousness is preserved and she is effectively a sentient hologram. And the gods are programs, yes you read correctly, they are enormous digital, corporate entities. Ow, my brain. So I was totally thrown at first. And did I mention that everything is overlaid with something called the 'weave'. The weave projects whatever you want to see. You want nice clothes? Sure. You can have them. Expensive furniture? You bet. It will even make you look younger, more attractive. As long as you can pay.
You might think it's quite a fucked up future where people pay real money for a few lines of code that doesn't do anything, and isn't even real, but the truth is people are already doing it today. People pay all those stupid app companies for gems, they pay for special armour for an avatar on a game. Why? I don't know. I wish I could tell them (the apps) where to shove their fucking gems! Anyway, my point is, this is not such a leap for the imagination. Once you think about where we are headed as a species; in terms of AI development, the environment, our relationship with material possessions and even our relationship with money, a possible future like this does not seem so alien. And that's what make's this book all the more fascinating. I would not be surprised if we end up on an asteroid, living immortal, digital lives.
I've covered the basic world, so let's move onto the plot. As I have said, Leila is dead, her brother is still alive, but not for long. When she discovers that someone has taken his digital memories and he will not be returning as a 'fetch' she decides to investigate. What starts initially as a fraud investigation, quickly escalates into something with much higher stakes, not just for Leila and her brother, but for the entire Station.
I found myself quite sucked in. It was exciting and profound, and asked some important questions as to who 'owns' your death? As soon as you die anyone can rewrite your memories and change every single future choice you make, change your entire life. And if they can rewrite enough memories, even change history.
Much deeper than I expected, will definitely read Crashing Heaven!
*I received an e-copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This probably falls somewhere in the science-fantasy sub genre, I can't tell you why though, because spoilers. So lets just all pretend its sci-fi and when you hit that point you'll know why.
Wow. That was cool.
When I first started this I thought 'What the hell is going on?'. Yeah, that's because this is not the first in the series. (Thanks NetGalley, you could have made it a bit more obvious). Anyway, after chatting to the author, he assured me that Waking Hell is not a sequel, and can (possibly) be read by someone who has not read Crashing Heaven. Yeah, turns out it can be done. And I find myself having to actually sincerely thank NetGalley, because I would not have requested this if I had known it was book 2. I'm so glad I did. So yeah, thanks NG.
It was tough at the start to understand the world in which Leila lives, where she is dead, but her consciousness is preserved and she is effectively a sentient hologram. And the gods are programs, yes you read correctly, they are enormous digital, corporate entities. Ow, my brain. So I was totally thrown at first. And did I mention that everything is overlaid with something called the 'weave'. The weave projects whatever you want to see. You want nice clothes? Sure. You can have them. Expensive furniture? You bet. It will even make you look younger, more attractive. As long as you can pay.
You might think it's quite a fucked up future where people pay real money for a few lines of code that doesn't do anything, and isn't even real, but the truth is people are already doing it today. People pay all those stupid app companies for gems, they pay for special armour for an avatar on a game. Why? I don't know. I wish I could tell them (the apps) where to shove their fucking gems! Anyway, my point is, this is not such a leap for the imagination. Once you think about where we are headed as a species; in terms of AI development, the environment, our relationship with material possessions and even our relationship with money, a possible future like this does not seem so alien. And that's what make's this book all the more fascinating. I would not be surprised if we end up on an asteroid, living immortal, digital lives.
I've covered the basic world, so let's move onto the plot. As I have said, Leila is dead, her brother is still alive, but not for long. When she discovers that someone has taken his digital memories and he will not be returning as a 'fetch' she decides to investigate. What starts initially as a fraud investigation, quickly escalates into something with much higher stakes, not just for Leila and her brother, but for the entire Station.
I found myself quite sucked in. It was exciting and profound, and asked some important questions as to who 'owns' your death? As soon as you die anyone can rewrite your memories and change every single future choice you make, change your entire life. And if they can rewrite enough memories, even change history.
Much deeper than I expected, will definitely read Crashing Heaven!
*I received an e-copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 25, 2017
In his sequel to Crashing Heaven, Al Robertson manages both to do the expected and to surprise us.
Let's get the surprise out of the way first. Having established a very strong pair of central characters in his first 'Station' novel - Jack Forster and the malevolent but somehow likeable puppet-like virtual entity Hugo Fist - the natural thing to do would be to give us another Forster/Fist story. I was a little sad to start with that he didn't - in fact our previous main characters are sidelined to a couple of mentions (Fist, it seems, is now a chat show host) and instead we have a new central character, Leila to get to know. She's going to have to save the world. Which is something of a challenge, given that she's dead.
There's no doubt that Robertson likes to set himself serious challenges as a writer. Because Leila is a digital, computer-based entity, made up of memories and the 'weave' (internet) remnants of the person after death, she can't actually be somewhere. Whenever she takes part in a scene, the only way she can see, for example, is either through surveillance cameras or through someone else's eyes if they are suitably digitally equipped. It says something for Robertson's meticulous style that he gets away with this and Leila comes across as a person without slipping up too much on the practicalities of her interacting with her environment.
As in the first novel, we have a society on a space station orbiting a ruined Earth where there is a huge interplay between the real world and virtual reality, up to and including a pantheon of gods which are actually digital corporations. But now, Robertson has the chance to fill in some of the past, as well as giving us a fast-paced thriller where the survival of the human race is at stake (again). There are some genuine surprises here and plenty of clever extensions of the whole digital universe metaphor.
As with the previous book, I would say that strictly this is mythology rather than science fiction, because the real-life metaphor in the virtual world is too strong to ever reflect reality. (For example, when a computer virus is produced, it appears in the form of a glowing green test tube.) There are a good range of secondary characters - I particularly liked The Caretaker (though I did guess his true nature earlier than I think the author intended) and the virtual entity Cassiel, who really grows through the book. Perhaps the only issue here was Leila's brother Dieter, who, partly due to the circumstances we find him, in proves a frustratingly vague contributor until the last minute.
As with the previous title, Robertson gives us lots to think about around the way virtual reality and life could become more and more enmeshed - and what that implies for society. There's also a lot about the nature of personality and memory. So we get a good mix of thought-provoking concepts and a page-turning thriller. The only reason the book doesn't have five stars is I felt the parts set on the Earth and the ending felt a little rushed and didn't work quite as well as the rest. But that doesn't stop Waking Hell being, overall, one of the best contributions to truly original SF of the last decade.
Let's get the surprise out of the way first. Having established a very strong pair of central characters in his first 'Station' novel - Jack Forster and the malevolent but somehow likeable puppet-like virtual entity Hugo Fist - the natural thing to do would be to give us another Forster/Fist story. I was a little sad to start with that he didn't - in fact our previous main characters are sidelined to a couple of mentions (Fist, it seems, is now a chat show host) and instead we have a new central character, Leila to get to know. She's going to have to save the world. Which is something of a challenge, given that she's dead.
There's no doubt that Robertson likes to set himself serious challenges as a writer. Because Leila is a digital, computer-based entity, made up of memories and the 'weave' (internet) remnants of the person after death, she can't actually be somewhere. Whenever she takes part in a scene, the only way she can see, for example, is either through surveillance cameras or through someone else's eyes if they are suitably digitally equipped. It says something for Robertson's meticulous style that he gets away with this and Leila comes across as a person without slipping up too much on the practicalities of her interacting with her environment.
As in the first novel, we have a society on a space station orbiting a ruined Earth where there is a huge interplay between the real world and virtual reality, up to and including a pantheon of gods which are actually digital corporations. But now, Robertson has the chance to fill in some of the past, as well as giving us a fast-paced thriller where the survival of the human race is at stake (again). There are some genuine surprises here and plenty of clever extensions of the whole digital universe metaphor.
As with the previous book, I would say that strictly this is mythology rather than science fiction, because the real-life metaphor in the virtual world is too strong to ever reflect reality. (For example, when a computer virus is produced, it appears in the form of a glowing green test tube.) There are a good range of secondary characters - I particularly liked The Caretaker (though I did guess his true nature earlier than I think the author intended) and the virtual entity Cassiel, who really grows through the book. Perhaps the only issue here was Leila's brother Dieter, who, partly due to the circumstances we find him, in proves a frustratingly vague contributor until the last minute.
As with the previous title, Robertson gives us lots to think about around the way virtual reality and life could become more and more enmeshed - and what that implies for society. There's also a lot about the nature of personality and memory. So we get a good mix of thought-provoking concepts and a page-turning thriller. The only reason the book doesn't have five stars is I felt the parts set on the Earth and the ending felt a little rushed and didn't work quite as well as the rest. But that doesn't stop Waking Hell being, overall, one of the best contributions to truly original SF of the last decade.
December 30, 2016
Al Robertson burst onto the scene with Crashing Heaven, a techno-thriller set on a space station orbiting Earth that is run by sentient corporations and is the last refuge of humanity. We accompanied Jack Forster and Hugo Fist, a sociopathic AI in the form of a ventriloquist's dummy, as they uncovered and took down a massive conspiracy threatening Station. The sequel, Waking Hell (published by Gollancz, review copy from NetGalley) returns us to Station, but without either Forster or Fist.
Following on from Crashing Heaven was always going to be a challenge. Sad as it is for the reader, both Fist and Forster are iconic characters, but by the end of Crashing Heaven were too powerful to carry a further novel by themselves. Instead, Robertson introduces us to a new cast of characters. Leila Fenech is a fetch: one of the dead who lives on thanks to the storage of personality and memories and a digital body that can manifest thanks to the ever-pervasive Weave that provides an AR overlay to life on Station. Leila's brother Dieter is also dead. A digital whizz-kid who specialises in old Earth technology, his death occurs in strange circumstances, with his digital self sold to the Pressure Men - representatives of a mysterious corporation called Deodatus - in exchange for financial security for Leila. Teaming up with Cassiel, a representative of the Totality, Leila sets out to rescue her brother's fetch from Deodatus, unravelling a further conspiracy that, yet again, threatens the existence of Station.
This return to Station picks up from Crashing Heaven by adding more layers to the world. With peace with the Totality (super-complex AI consciousnesses) now firmly established, the inhabitants of Station are forced to confront their previous prejudices and come to terms with their dead (the fetches) now freely living among them. Waking Hell begins to delve into the history of Station, and the conflict-ridden, wasteland of Earth that it orbits.
As with its predecessor, Waking Hell asks us questions about the ethics of future technology, and what makes us people. With our experience increasingly mediated through the digital, and the potential for increasingly complex AIs to learn, grow and be fused with digital storage of memory, "fetch rights" becomes a real issue. Human memory is notoriously fallible, but the digital can be easily edited, changed and duplicated. Robertson asks us not just what truth is, but which versions of ourselves have primacy.
Waking Hell is a thought-provoking thriller with real warmth at its heart. Fans of Hugo Fist should embrace its richness, rather than be disappointed by his absence.
Following on from Crashing Heaven was always going to be a challenge. Sad as it is for the reader, both Fist and Forster are iconic characters, but by the end of Crashing Heaven were too powerful to carry a further novel by themselves. Instead, Robertson introduces us to a new cast of characters. Leila Fenech is a fetch: one of the dead who lives on thanks to the storage of personality and memories and a digital body that can manifest thanks to the ever-pervasive Weave that provides an AR overlay to life on Station. Leila's brother Dieter is also dead. A digital whizz-kid who specialises in old Earth technology, his death occurs in strange circumstances, with his digital self sold to the Pressure Men - representatives of a mysterious corporation called Deodatus - in exchange for financial security for Leila. Teaming up with Cassiel, a representative of the Totality, Leila sets out to rescue her brother's fetch from Deodatus, unravelling a further conspiracy that, yet again, threatens the existence of Station.
This return to Station picks up from Crashing Heaven by adding more layers to the world. With peace with the Totality (super-complex AI consciousnesses) now firmly established, the inhabitants of Station are forced to confront their previous prejudices and come to terms with their dead (the fetches) now freely living among them. Waking Hell begins to delve into the history of Station, and the conflict-ridden, wasteland of Earth that it orbits.
As with its predecessor, Waking Hell asks us questions about the ethics of future technology, and what makes us people. With our experience increasingly mediated through the digital, and the potential for increasingly complex AIs to learn, grow and be fused with digital storage of memory, "fetch rights" becomes a real issue. Human memory is notoriously fallible, but the digital can be easily edited, changed and duplicated. Robertson asks us not just what truth is, but which versions of ourselves have primacy.
Waking Hell is a thought-provoking thriller with real warmth at its heart. Fans of Hugo Fist should embrace its richness, rather than be disappointed by his absence.
July 8, 2017
After "Crashing Heaven" this was a bit of a disappointment. Had I not read part 1 of the Station series, I think I would have struggled, as Waking Hell is not really a free standing novel. The mixture of real and virtual world, which felt right in the 1st novel, seemed a bit more confusing - at times I felt the limitations of the virtual characters were being forgotten and they started assuming real characteristics (e.g. interactions with real world where there were no digital overlays). There were a fair few loose ends left unexplained.
March 4, 2017
A good read.
Fun and games in cyber space. Not enough real product to make it viable. A ripping yarn but the sister was stupidly focused.
Fun and games in cyber space. Not enough real product to make it viable. A ripping yarn but the sister was stupidly focused.
May 16, 2017
Crashing Heaven was awesome. This was meh. None of the layered complexity and world-building. Amateur saves the world against impossible odds. Yawn.
May 30, 2017
In Station, one of the last holdouts of humanity over a ruined Earth, death isn't usually the end... the essence of a person can be reassembled as a Fetch, a sort of digital ghost recreating their personality. Although discriminated against, they're considered citizens. Leila is one of these Fetches, taken care of by her brother, but when he dies, investigating some ancient technology, he somehow sold his afterlife to a mysterious company that may have nefarious purposes, not just for him, but for the entire Station.
This is sort of a "sequel" to Crashing Heaven, however it is an entirely new cast (some of the characters from the first good appear, but usually only in minor ways). It's more of a sequel for the universe in general while telling a standalone story that can be jumped into even by people who hadn't read the first book. This is a little disappointing (as someone who really enjoyed the first book and characters), but it still worked remarkably well for me, it took a while but I began to enjoy most of the characters in this book as well, and I'm still quite fond of the setting as a whole.
It's not AS good as the first, in my eyes. Some of the technological rules the world operates on (which restricts characters abilities or presents threats against them) seemed a little harder to buy into, and the book seems to dip into another theme which didn't entirely work for me. The first book was sort of a combination of singularity-based science fiction and cyberpunk/noir, this one seemed like it attempted to add a strain of Clive Barker-style horror and adventure fiction, only for me, particularly the horror, came off a little silly and contrived. There's enough horror inherent in the stuff involving rewriting memories and personalities without needing to invoke flies and blood and creepy zombie-like minions.
Still, on the whole I still liked it an awful lot, probably still giving it four stars here but with the understanding that it's more like "a little above 3.5 stars and I'm just rounding up," and I'm already totally on board for a further part in this series, whatever the title might be (Evolving Purgatory? Rebooting Earth? Driving Heck? Attempting Limbo? Whatever, I'm sure it'll be fun!)!
This is sort of a "sequel" to Crashing Heaven, however it is an entirely new cast (some of the characters from the first good appear, but usually only in minor ways). It's more of a sequel for the universe in general while telling a standalone story that can be jumped into even by people who hadn't read the first book. This is a little disappointing (as someone who really enjoyed the first book and characters), but it still worked remarkably well for me, it took a while but I began to enjoy most of the characters in this book as well, and I'm still quite fond of the setting as a whole.
It's not AS good as the first, in my eyes. Some of the technological rules the world operates on (which restricts characters abilities or presents threats against them) seemed a little harder to buy into, and the book seems to dip into another theme which didn't entirely work for me. The first book was sort of a combination of singularity-based science fiction and cyberpunk/noir, this one seemed like it attempted to add a strain of Clive Barker-style horror and adventure fiction, only for me, particularly the horror, came off a little silly and contrived. There's enough horror inherent in the stuff involving rewriting memories and personalities without needing to invoke flies and blood and creepy zombie-like minions.
Still, on the whole I still liked it an awful lot, probably still giving it four stars here but with the understanding that it's more like "a little above 3.5 stars and I'm just rounding up," and I'm already totally on board for a further part in this series, whatever the title might be (Evolving Purgatory? Rebooting Earth? Driving Heck? Attempting Limbo? Whatever, I'm sure it'll be fun!)!
August 5, 2019
I’m getting seriously impressed by Mr. Robertson; Waking Hell is only his second book and yet it is written with bags of confidence making it so easy to read you can just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Set some years after Robertson’s first book, Crashing Heaven, fetches (virtual recreations of a dead person) now have full citizens’ rights but all is not well on the Station. Leila Fenech has died twice and now her brother, Dieter, has also died and, so it seems, has sold his soul, or at least his fetch, to a decidedly dodgy looking organisation and Leila is determined to get him back. In the process she uncovers a conspiracy far more important than her brother’s future but her brother is really all she wants to be concerned with. Though set in the same world as Crashing Heaven it is not essential to have read that first; the story is completely unrelated and the characters of the earlier novel only appear as largely unrelated references. Nevertheless reading Crashing Heaven first will probably help provide solid context for this second story.
The setting would probably be described as post-cyberpunk, though I found myself thinking of it more as Cyberpunk that’s grown up. Cyberpunk was full of drugs, high tech, implants, virtual reality, with lots of anger, violence and a generally frenetic pace with invented slang and tech terms hammering the poor reader mercilessly. Waking Hell still has high tech, drugs and implants but they are much less in your face. Everything seems to have calmed down making it a much less harrowing experience for the reader. It’s like the teenage cyberpunk always seemed to be trying to boastfully impress the reader with how hip it is whilst this calmer post-cyberpunk is more mature and more confident in its high tech world. And, in my opinion and despite how much I have loved reading cyberpunk, is all the better for it. The book is still fast paced with plenty of excitement and action but it gives more time to developing the characters rather than focusing exclusively on developing the tech.
I loved the book and can’t wait to see what Robertson can come up with next.
Set some years after Robertson’s first book, Crashing Heaven, fetches (virtual recreations of a dead person) now have full citizens’ rights but all is not well on the Station. Leila Fenech has died twice and now her brother, Dieter, has also died and, so it seems, has sold his soul, or at least his fetch, to a decidedly dodgy looking organisation and Leila is determined to get him back. In the process she uncovers a conspiracy far more important than her brother’s future but her brother is really all she wants to be concerned with. Though set in the same world as Crashing Heaven it is not essential to have read that first; the story is completely unrelated and the characters of the earlier novel only appear as largely unrelated references. Nevertheless reading Crashing Heaven first will probably help provide solid context for this second story.
The setting would probably be described as post-cyberpunk, though I found myself thinking of it more as Cyberpunk that’s grown up. Cyberpunk was full of drugs, high tech, implants, virtual reality, with lots of anger, violence and a generally frenetic pace with invented slang and tech terms hammering the poor reader mercilessly. Waking Hell still has high tech, drugs and implants but they are much less in your face. Everything seems to have calmed down making it a much less harrowing experience for the reader. It’s like the teenage cyberpunk always seemed to be trying to boastfully impress the reader with how hip it is whilst this calmer post-cyberpunk is more mature and more confident in its high tech world. And, in my opinion and despite how much I have loved reading cyberpunk, is all the better for it. The book is still fast paced with plenty of excitement and action but it gives more time to developing the characters rather than focusing exclusively on developing the tech.
I loved the book and can’t wait to see what Robertson can come up with next.
December 27, 2017
This was a great book. It is set after the first book in the series, but does not continue those character's stories. Instead, it focuses on a different aspect of the world, namely the difference between being someone who is alive and being someone who is dead but has been preserved digitally and lives on but with less rights. Plenty of action. Great characters. It's a really good example of why Outer Limits-type tv and movies just don't impress me. Books have been there before and explored the topic much better. I'd happily read a third book in the same world if Roberston ever feels like playing in this playground again. If not, I just might re-read this one again someday.
August 21, 2021
A mediocre offering where the protagonists were interesting but the pace was too slow. It felt as if Robertson repeated himself a lot and it took forever for him to get to the point.
This one did pass the time during lock-down but if my local library were not closed for the foreseeable future I'd probably not have finished reading it.
'Waking Hell' sort of works as a stand alone novel with only passing references to the events in 'Crashing Heaven'. Readers who have not read the first novel in the series might be somewhat confused by references to the fall of 'Kingdom' as Robertson does not include much information on what happened in his prior novel.
All in all, 2.5 stars rounded up.
This one did pass the time during lock-down but if my local library were not closed for the foreseeable future I'd probably not have finished reading it.
'Waking Hell' sort of works as a stand alone novel with only passing references to the events in 'Crashing Heaven'. Readers who have not read the first novel in the series might be somewhat confused by references to the fall of 'Kingdom' as Robertson does not include much information on what happened in his prior novel.
All in all, 2.5 stars rounded up.
December 28, 2017
A sequel to the excellent 'Crashing Heaven' and I enjoyed this, but not as much. The world building remains cool and vivid, and the plotting sharp, but I found the central character, Leila, hard to bond with. This may be because she is obsessed with herself, followed by her brother's fate, and that's about it. I also had some issues with the style, which involved an awful lot of flashback: some of this was unavoidable given the set-up, but some of it could have been avoided, as it threw the pacing of the book for me.
December 25, 2017
3 1/2 stars overall. Parts of this I really enjoyed, there were some great ideas and in particular the relationship between Leila and Cassiel was very moving. But I got quite bogged down in the middle and really struggled to understand the ‘rules’ of the station universe, understanding what was and wasn’t possible.
The last part of the book really picked up with some great relationship moments and important questions about how we understand identity.
The last part of the book really picked up with some great relationship moments and important questions about how we understand identity.
February 2, 2017
Intriguing cyberpunk sf in a world where the dead can become software slaves of the powerful, both human and AI. I would've rated this higher-- it's a well-drawn, complex world; nicely thought out-- but I found the main character oddly naive for someone who's grown up and worked in this shifting miasma of power-hungry AIs and humans.
March 15, 2018
Brilliant second novel, expanding the universe without actually needing to know a huge amount about the setting. It would help, but for the most part, totally new characters, new situations, expanding something that was relatively minor in the first book. Bring on the next (please!).
June 12, 2020
This is one of my favourite books of the year. I love the world and the idea of the weave portraying different worlds depending on your economic status. I love the thrilling story line. Everything about this book gave me a happy.
November 1, 2017
Great expansion from Crashing Heaven, without running out the same characters. A new struggle and a new aspect on future life.
February 5, 2019
Gripping stuff.
November 27, 2019
Imaginative but the characters and plot holes make it a bit grinding. Still gripping to see what happens next just don’t expect to find too many earth shattering moments
October 7, 2021
3.5/5.0
January 5, 2017
I really enjoyed this return to the world of Station. Good to find out more about fetches.
August 25, 2016
*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*
Waking Hell is the second in Al Robertson’s series of sci-fi novels that began with Crashing Heaven, centred around the last enclave of humanity - Station, a vast satellite rolling above the atmosphere of a ruined earth.
The world of Station has seen some changes since the end of Crashing Heaven. The “Fetches”, the avatars constructed from the virtual selves of the recently dead, are now an active population. Once seen as little more than recordings, they’re now persons, as it were, and dealing with both acceptance and prejudice. Station itself seems the same – a gently decaying object under constant reconstruction by its nominally benevolent, somewhat manipulative AI rulers. One of the lovely environmental touches is the ubiquity of the ‘Weave’, which modifies the environment with a virtual overlay, depending on the socio-economic status of the individual. All of the characters are weave integrated in some fashion or other, and watching their environs shift virtually over a standard base is rather interesting. This is a world that carries an aura of a long past about it, but also one where everything is malleable. Where the world you see and here is something which you can change – but also one which you don’t control. The creaking corridors of Station are book lined studies and cramped utility rooms simultaneously – and both are accepted by all concerned as equally real.
Into this world, already built on an ever-changing selection of the virtual and the physical, steps Leila. She is a Fetch, one of the dead of Station, given life as a virtual presence – as real, in a world as virtually dependent as Station, as anyone around her – and occasionally more so. Leila is a survivor, a woman piecing herself back together after a trauma. Robertson shows us that in her actions – in the tight bonds she has with her friends, and in the caution with which she treats others. Leila is also partially defined by her love for her brother, Dieter – she has a connection there which is difficult to break.
She’s fiery, and if sometimes off balance, remains plausibly competent. When she staggers, it makes sense, and when she falls, we know why, empathise, and feel her pain. If she’s not the typical action heroine, she is entirely her own person. The drive she has, and the desire for stability, the curiosity and the capacity for love, all feel very real.
Her enemies do so as well, though from a slightly different angle. She struggles with antagonists whose motives are, at least initially, something of a mystery. But there’s a sense of menace there, a cloak of anonymity and relentless, implacable violence, a feeling of conformity for body and soul. Without getting into spoilers, it’s hard to discuss them here – except to say that the ideas that they present, in one way or another, are perhaps more terrifying than the individuals themselves. I was disturbed often, and delighted to be so, when the villains were upon the page.
The plot – well, it’s a solid bit of work. It starts a little slowly, bringing us up to speed with the current situation on Station gently – and in a way that would make it accessible to a new reader. But it quickly follows that up with several bangs – as Leila and the reader find her world turned upside down. There’s a sense of the detective novel here, of delving into hidden pasts, a sort of technological Indiana Jones blended with Sam Spade. The action is fast-paced and kinetic, and the surrounding scenes are fascinating insights into the characters and the world, and between them, they more than suffice to keep the pages turning.
If you already read Crashing Heaven, then this is a great opportunity to see more of Robertson’s world. If you’re a new reader, this is an excellently crafted sci-fi thriller in a unique world, and it will reward your attention.
Waking Hell is the second in Al Robertson’s series of sci-fi novels that began with Crashing Heaven, centred around the last enclave of humanity - Station, a vast satellite rolling above the atmosphere of a ruined earth.
The world of Station has seen some changes since the end of Crashing Heaven. The “Fetches”, the avatars constructed from the virtual selves of the recently dead, are now an active population. Once seen as little more than recordings, they’re now persons, as it were, and dealing with both acceptance and prejudice. Station itself seems the same – a gently decaying object under constant reconstruction by its nominally benevolent, somewhat manipulative AI rulers. One of the lovely environmental touches is the ubiquity of the ‘Weave’, which modifies the environment with a virtual overlay, depending on the socio-economic status of the individual. All of the characters are weave integrated in some fashion or other, and watching their environs shift virtually over a standard base is rather interesting. This is a world that carries an aura of a long past about it, but also one where everything is malleable. Where the world you see and here is something which you can change – but also one which you don’t control. The creaking corridors of Station are book lined studies and cramped utility rooms simultaneously – and both are accepted by all concerned as equally real.
Into this world, already built on an ever-changing selection of the virtual and the physical, steps Leila. She is a Fetch, one of the dead of Station, given life as a virtual presence – as real, in a world as virtually dependent as Station, as anyone around her – and occasionally more so. Leila is a survivor, a woman piecing herself back together after a trauma. Robertson shows us that in her actions – in the tight bonds she has with her friends, and in the caution with which she treats others. Leila is also partially defined by her love for her brother, Dieter – she has a connection there which is difficult to break.
She’s fiery, and if sometimes off balance, remains plausibly competent. When she staggers, it makes sense, and when she falls, we know why, empathise, and feel her pain. If she’s not the typical action heroine, she is entirely her own person. The drive she has, and the desire for stability, the curiosity and the capacity for love, all feel very real.
Her enemies do so as well, though from a slightly different angle. She struggles with antagonists whose motives are, at least initially, something of a mystery. But there’s a sense of menace there, a cloak of anonymity and relentless, implacable violence, a feeling of conformity for body and soul. Without getting into spoilers, it’s hard to discuss them here – except to say that the ideas that they present, in one way or another, are perhaps more terrifying than the individuals themselves. I was disturbed often, and delighted to be so, when the villains were upon the page.
The plot – well, it’s a solid bit of work. It starts a little slowly, bringing us up to speed with the current situation on Station gently – and in a way that would make it accessible to a new reader. But it quickly follows that up with several bangs – as Leila and the reader find her world turned upside down. There’s a sense of the detective novel here, of delving into hidden pasts, a sort of technological Indiana Jones blended with Sam Spade. The action is fast-paced and kinetic, and the surrounding scenes are fascinating insights into the characters and the world, and between them, they more than suffice to keep the pages turning.
If you already read Crashing Heaven, then this is a great opportunity to see more of Robertson’s world. If you’re a new reader, this is an excellently crafted sci-fi thriller in a unique world, and it will reward your attention.
October 26, 2016
Leila Fenech is a fetch (a dead person who has been reincarnated as a virtual ‘living’ entity). When her brother becomes terminally ill, he makes a deal to ensure they will never want for money. It is a deal that is too good to be true because Deiter will never get to enjoy it. When Deiter dies his soul is not downloaded so he can be turned into a fetch. Leila will never see him again.
Suspecting foul play Leila uses the money to start an investigation of her own, once the authorities mysteriously close the case after refusing to investigate it properly. The problem is Leila's going to get involved in a whole lot more than she bargained for.
The plot in Waking Hell is certainly complex, but for those who've already read the remarkable Crashing Heaven and is orientated with this strange universe of the world of Station (an asteroid in space above what was the Earth) it does help. But Waking Hell can be read as a standalone novel.
It begins as a detective story and develops into Leila becoming increasingly entwined in some world changing politics, because the station gods are as manipulative as ever and, as usual, always wanting their slice of the action.
To Leila the world is very black and white. There is right and there is wrong. She loathes injustice. This directness could spell disaster. Having been very dependent on her brother until now means Leila has a lot of developing to do. But she is not without help, sometimes from most unexpected quarters. She is also the kind of person who is intelligent, full of life (even though she effectively lives a virtual existence). She is a quick learner where the politics of the station gods are concerned and has the drive to see things through to the bitter end.
Leila is also the continuous thread that keeps the story on track and understandable for the reader. Her will and determination, driven by her love for her brother, is what also makes you want to follow Waking Hell through to its conclusion.
Waking Hell is certainly a worthy follow on from Crashing Heaven and the use of new characters, as well as a few of the old ones, means Station can be explored from an interesting new perspective.
Waking Hell was courtesy of Gollancz via NetGalley.
Suspecting foul play Leila uses the money to start an investigation of her own, once the authorities mysteriously close the case after refusing to investigate it properly. The problem is Leila's going to get involved in a whole lot more than she bargained for.
The plot in Waking Hell is certainly complex, but for those who've already read the remarkable Crashing Heaven and is orientated with this strange universe of the world of Station (an asteroid in space above what was the Earth) it does help. But Waking Hell can be read as a standalone novel.
It begins as a detective story and develops into Leila becoming increasingly entwined in some world changing politics, because the station gods are as manipulative as ever and, as usual, always wanting their slice of the action.
To Leila the world is very black and white. There is right and there is wrong. She loathes injustice. This directness could spell disaster. Having been very dependent on her brother until now means Leila has a lot of developing to do. But she is not without help, sometimes from most unexpected quarters. She is also the kind of person who is intelligent, full of life (even though she effectively lives a virtual existence). She is a quick learner where the politics of the station gods are concerned and has the drive to see things through to the bitter end.
Leila is also the continuous thread that keeps the story on track and understandable for the reader. Her will and determination, driven by her love for her brother, is what also makes you want to follow Waking Hell through to its conclusion.
Waking Hell is certainly a worthy follow on from Crashing Heaven and the use of new characters, as well as a few of the old ones, means Station can be explored from an interesting new perspective.
Waking Hell was courtesy of Gollancz via NetGalley.
November 21, 2016
I'm sorry to say I found this book incredibly disappointing.
I liked Crashing Heaven so much, I pre-ordered Waking Hell as soon as I could, but it has very little of the strength of the first book.
The lead character, Leila, engendered no empathy in me.
She simply seemed to blunder around - (I want me bruvvvver back! I miss our virtual pizza nights) - putting, friends,well-wishersand the remains of humanity in harm's way without a second thought, ignoring advice, doing the opposite of what had been agreed previously, and generally screwing up.
This continues until she kills the baddy using more of the magic gadgets her brother has conveniently left her.
He, himself, seems to be a spare bedroom tinker who never amounted to anything but also developed technologies able to do things that nobody else, including, the ruling AIs, had been able to. Bit of a cliche.
Speaking of cliches.....
The baddy God was a wizened, ugly, ancient skeletal evil mastermind epitomised by his use of swarms of destructive, dirty, buzzing, drone flies.
The goody God was some kind of benevolent, scatty, hippy who rules an urban, and yet agrarian (sheep and cows being raised in a city?) commune.
His emblem, instead of dirty flies, is the creative, gold and black, lovely, helpful bee.
Interesting to note that the utopian commune where everybody just "mucks in" as and when they feel like it, still has "Senior Workers". Surely this implies authority, structure, and - presumably - some kind of hierarchical reward structure.
I think the author has acknowledged several movie influences..
I enjoyed the nod to the seance scene from " Night of the Demon" - even though, again, the lead character displays no concern at all for the medium or his family.
The death scene of the baddy God, however, seemed to be a bit drawn out and too much like a Hammer horror death scene from one of the many Dracula films, or "She", or even "The Hunger".....dedicated flesh falling from a skull, jaws dropping off....
The second Station, which was telegraphed earlier in the book, changed what?
Why even include it?
Sorry to be negative, but I was just so disappointed.
I promise to try the third book, and hope it rekindles the excitement of the first.
I liked Crashing Heaven so much, I pre-ordered Waking Hell as soon as I could, but it has very little of the strength of the first book.
The lead character, Leila, engendered no empathy in me.
She simply seemed to blunder around - (I want me bruvvvver back! I miss our virtual pizza nights) - putting, friends,well-wishersand the remains of humanity in harm's way without a second thought, ignoring advice, doing the opposite of what had been agreed previously, and generally screwing up.
This continues until she kills the baddy using more of the magic gadgets her brother has conveniently left her.
He, himself, seems to be a spare bedroom tinker who never amounted to anything but also developed technologies able to do things that nobody else, including, the ruling AIs, had been able to. Bit of a cliche.
Speaking of cliches.....
The baddy God was a wizened, ugly, ancient skeletal evil mastermind epitomised by his use of swarms of destructive, dirty, buzzing, drone flies.
The goody God was some kind of benevolent, scatty, hippy who rules an urban, and yet agrarian (sheep and cows being raised in a city?) commune.
His emblem, instead of dirty flies, is the creative, gold and black, lovely, helpful bee.
Interesting to note that the utopian commune where everybody just "mucks in" as and when they feel like it, still has "Senior Workers". Surely this implies authority, structure, and - presumably - some kind of hierarchical reward structure.
I think the author has acknowledged several movie influences..
I enjoyed the nod to the seance scene from " Night of the Demon" - even though, again, the lead character displays no concern at all for the medium or his family.
The death scene of the baddy God, however, seemed to be a bit drawn out and too much like a Hammer horror death scene from one of the many Dracula films, or "She", or even "The Hunger".....dedicated flesh falling from a skull, jaws dropping off....
The second Station, which was telegraphed earlier in the book, changed what?
Why even include it?
Sorry to be negative, but I was just so disappointed.
I promise to try the third book, and hope it rekindles the excitement of the first.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2017
I won this book in a goodread giveaway I read this book first and perhaps on hindsight should have read in order as although I enjoyed it I would probably have got a better understanding if I had
know more about the back ground. I am now away to read book 1 so I can obtain the whole fantasy adventure as the descriptions and imagination were spot on.
know more about the back ground. I am now away to read book 1 so I can obtain the whole fantasy adventure as the descriptions and imagination were spot on.
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