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Ruin's Wake
A moving and powerful science fiction novel with themes of love, revenge and identity on a totalitarian world.
A moving and powerful science fiction novel with themes of love, revenge, and identity. A story about humanity, and the universal search to find salvation in the face of insurmountable odds.
An old soldier in exile embarks on a desperate journey to find his dying son.
A young woman trapped in an abusive marriage with a government official finds hope in an illicit love.
A female scientist uncovers a mysterious technology that reveals that her world is more fragile than she believed.
Unification imagines a world ruled by a totalitarian government, where history has been erased and individual identity is replaced by the machinations of the state. As the characters try to save what they hold most dear - in one case a dying son, in the other secret love - their fates converge to a shared destiny.
A moving and powerful science fiction novel with themes of love, revenge, and identity. A story about humanity, and the universal search to find salvation in the face of insurmountable odds.
An old soldier in exile embarks on a desperate journey to find his dying son.
A young woman trapped in an abusive marriage with a government official finds hope in an illicit love.
A female scientist uncovers a mysterious technology that reveals that her world is more fragile than she believed.
Unification imagines a world ruled by a totalitarian government, where history has been erased and individual identity is replaced by the machinations of the state. As the characters try to save what they hold most dear - in one case a dying son, in the other secret love - their fates converge to a shared destiny.
448 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 12, 2019
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208 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
May 5, 2020
I really loved this – dramatic, pacey, thought-provoking, and just fantastic. Highly recommend!
December 17, 2021
Ruin's Wake is a well-crafted book set in a very interesting universe. Unfortunately, the attention to atmosphere and lore means that next to nothing happens for the first 250-300 pages of the book. All the action and interesting plot is in the final part. Now I love world building, but in this book its just too slow - if it had been sped up a little, making a bit more effort to move things along, Ruin's Wake would have been an easy 4 stars. As it stands, the information density in the world building part is too low and the plot too slow to really grab you. Nonetheless it is a good book and a very solid debut, and I'd love to see another book set in this universe!
March 17, 2019
Gosh, idk why that took forever to read. I think my brain finally needed a break from the speed with which I've been reading lately, and took it out on this novel, which is a quite good dystopian sci-fi jam-packed with ideas that extrapolate quite beautifully from our present-day tech and, to a certain extent, politics, to present us with a nightmarish future that's equal parts Stalinist Russia and turn of the 21st century North Korea.
The action takes place, for the most part, within the Hegemony, a nation-state that's vaguely European but, according to its politicians, spans the known Earth. My brain actually kept stumbling over this sense of place because of my predilection for mapping fictional locales to known areas, and with the chalk cliffs and the relative proximity to permafrost, even after climate change leads to environmental disaster, I kept thinking Europe, close to Britain. Anyway! Three different people are drawn together to, essentially, work for the rebellion: a disillusioned former soldier looking for his son, an abused wife desperate to preserve the illicit love that is one of her only joys, and the imperious researcher who stumbles across technology she'd never dreamed of. There's action and romance and betrayals -- lots of really good, fun stuff, and some really sweet sci-fi tech. But I felt like the pacing could have used more work and that, overall, the book could have used more details when it came to the personal lives of both Kelbee and Sulara. It's hard for me to see how Kelbee's cowed housewife could turn so easily into a confident, purposeful woman. I also felt that the transition of the hilarious (if somewhat hateful) Sulara of her journals to the accommodating resistance ally was a bit too abrupt. There wasn't enough depth to how these women grew through the novel. My personal favorite character was the netick-ally enhanced Syn. Every time he showed up on the page, there was a little more verve to the narrative, and I could have honestly used more of him.
Frankly, and this is something I don't say every often, I could have used more writing. While, on the one hand, I can definitely appreciate a stand-alone sci-fi novel, I also feel that Ruin's Wake would have benefited from more detail, more characterization, more explanation as to the hows of the whys. Cale was written well, as was Syn in his capacity as a supporting character, so it isn't too much of a stretch to think that Patrick Edwards could do the same for Kelbee and Sulara and even Derrin, whose messy motivations were far too tidily presented.
Overall, a fun debut that promises even better to come in the author's future. This is one author I wouldn't mind reading a multi-book series from, so long as it gives me more details to all these otherwise intriguing premises.
The action takes place, for the most part, within the Hegemony, a nation-state that's vaguely European but, according to its politicians, spans the known Earth. My brain actually kept stumbling over this sense of place because of my predilection for mapping fictional locales to known areas, and with the chalk cliffs and the relative proximity to permafrost, even after climate change leads to environmental disaster, I kept thinking Europe, close to Britain. Anyway! Three different people are drawn together to, essentially, work for the rebellion: a disillusioned former soldier looking for his son, an abused wife desperate to preserve the illicit love that is one of her only joys, and the imperious researcher who stumbles across technology she'd never dreamed of. There's action and romance and betrayals -- lots of really good, fun stuff, and some really sweet sci-fi tech. But I felt like the pacing could have used more work and that, overall, the book could have used more details when it came to the personal lives of both Kelbee and Sulara. It's hard for me to see how Kelbee's cowed housewife could turn so easily into a confident, purposeful woman. I also felt that the transition of the hilarious (if somewhat hateful) Sulara of her journals to the accommodating resistance ally was a bit too abrupt. There wasn't enough depth to how these women grew through the novel. My personal favorite character was the netick-ally enhanced Syn. Every time he showed up on the page, there was a little more verve to the narrative, and I could have honestly used more of him.
Frankly, and this is something I don't say every often, I could have used more writing. While, on the one hand, I can definitely appreciate a stand-alone sci-fi novel, I also feel that Ruin's Wake would have benefited from more detail, more characterization, more explanation as to the hows of the whys. Cale was written well, as was Syn in his capacity as a supporting character, so it isn't too much of a stretch to think that Patrick Edwards could do the same for Kelbee and Sulara and even Derrin, whose messy motivations were far too tidily presented.
Overall, a fun debut that promises even better to come in the author's future. This is one author I wouldn't mind reading a multi-book series from, so long as it gives me more details to all these otherwise intriguing premises.
June 17, 2024
A dystopian society, kept in check by the authoritarian Guide to the Seeker and the power of the military for 500 years since the fall, is overthrown by those who want choice, freedom and love.
Blurb:
Ruin's Wake imagines a world ruled by a totalitarian government, where history has been erased and individual identity is replaced by the machinations of the state. As the characters try to save what they hold most dear - in one case, a dying son, in the other, secret love - their fates converge to a shared destiny.
An old soldier in exile embarks on a desperate journey to find his dying son.
A young woman trapped in an abusive marriage with a government official finds hope in an illicit love.
A scientist uncovers a mysterious technology that reveals that her world is more fragile than she believed.
And this blurb does not do the book justice. Thoroughly enjoyed the detailed world building - a world that was at its technological peak before being thrust back into its dark ages with an authoritarian regime. Little rebellions merge together to be the ultimate rebellion (with much pain and sacrifice along the way, of course), leading to the discovery of the AI that once would have helped the world develop still further - and can help with a new Enlightenment.
A great inclusion in my Sci-Fi box from A Box of Stories #ABoS. Not a keeper, as I don't have enough room on my shelves, but it will go on to be read again!
Blurb:
Ruin's Wake imagines a world ruled by a totalitarian government, where history has been erased and individual identity is replaced by the machinations of the state. As the characters try to save what they hold most dear - in one case, a dying son, in the other, secret love - their fates converge to a shared destiny.
An old soldier in exile embarks on a desperate journey to find his dying son.
A young woman trapped in an abusive marriage with a government official finds hope in an illicit love.
A scientist uncovers a mysterious technology that reveals that her world is more fragile than she believed.
And this blurb does not do the book justice. Thoroughly enjoyed the detailed world building - a world that was at its technological peak before being thrust back into its dark ages with an authoritarian regime. Little rebellions merge together to be the ultimate rebellion (with much pain and sacrifice along the way, of course), leading to the discovery of the AI that once would have helped the world develop still further - and can help with a new Enlightenment.
A great inclusion in my Sci-Fi box from A Box of Stories #ABoS. Not a keeper, as I don't have enough room on my shelves, but it will go on to be read again!
March 25, 2019
A wonderful debut novel, Ruin’s Wake by Patrick Edwards draws the reader into the story immediately. The tale is one of love, revenge, discovery, and individuality set in a world dragging itself out of ruin. The story is set on earth sometime in the far future about 500 years after something called The Ruin, a cataclysmic event which wiped out current civilization. Knowledge was lost, but humanity survived. From the ashes a totalitarian government rose. This is the story of three people trying to survive in this world and save the things most dear to them.
The narrative follows three characters with each chapter following a different perspective. Cale is an old soldier living alone in a remote location. But when he receives word that his estranged son has been greviously wounded, Cale immediately sets out on a quest to get his son out of the sanitorium he’s being held in. Kelbee is a young woman in an abusive marriage who falls in love with someone else. Not only is she having an affair, but an affair with an insurrectionist, something doubly dangerous when her husband is a government official. Professor Sulara Song is one of the few people studying the pre-Ruin world. What she finds on a dig could change could change everything.
Early chapters see each of these three characters following their own journey. The point of view changes chapter by chapter. Each character faces high stakes, though certainly of very different kinds. I enjoyed reading from each character’s point view. Their fears, hopes, and dreams all felt real. Unlike other characters of books in similar genres and facing the same sort of government, none of our main characters set out on a quest to save the world, take down the government, or some other grandiose plan. Motivations and goals are much more personal – save a son despite their differences, explore the pre-Ruin world even though no one else seems to care, and find love, comfort, and safety in a life where all of those are in short supply.
This makes Cale, Kelbee, and Sulara very relatable. They feel like real people with real concerns. It’s easy to sympathize with them. I was equally invested in all of their plights, always eager to follow a different character at the end of each chapter.
Eventually, their stories begin to intertwine. Despite being incredibly different tales, this occurs very naturally and believably. Tension and pacing both increase greatly within the last third of the book, propelling readers towards an exciting ending.
The world laid out before us is like our own in some ways, and vastly different in others. Technology has survived, but not all of it. History is largely lost, with everything before a certain date little more than legend. A totalitarian govern rules with an iron fist above it all. Individuality and individual thought is gone – at least as far as the state is concerned. Yet, these prevail, as they always do, hidden behind walls of anxiety and fear.
Ruin’s Wake is an amazing debut novel by Patrick Edwards. I am so happy I had a chance to read this and cannot wait to see what else Edwards may be in store for us in the future.
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This review originally found on the blog Looking Glass Reads.
The narrative follows three characters with each chapter following a different perspective. Cale is an old soldier living alone in a remote location. But when he receives word that his estranged son has been greviously wounded, Cale immediately sets out on a quest to get his son out of the sanitorium he’s being held in. Kelbee is a young woman in an abusive marriage who falls in love with someone else. Not only is she having an affair, but an affair with an insurrectionist, something doubly dangerous when her husband is a government official. Professor Sulara Song is one of the few people studying the pre-Ruin world. What she finds on a dig could change could change everything.
Early chapters see each of these three characters following their own journey. The point of view changes chapter by chapter. Each character faces high stakes, though certainly of very different kinds. I enjoyed reading from each character’s point view. Their fears, hopes, and dreams all felt real. Unlike other characters of books in similar genres and facing the same sort of government, none of our main characters set out on a quest to save the world, take down the government, or some other grandiose plan. Motivations and goals are much more personal – save a son despite their differences, explore the pre-Ruin world even though no one else seems to care, and find love, comfort, and safety in a life where all of those are in short supply.
This makes Cale, Kelbee, and Sulara very relatable. They feel like real people with real concerns. It’s easy to sympathize with them. I was equally invested in all of their plights, always eager to follow a different character at the end of each chapter.
Eventually, their stories begin to intertwine. Despite being incredibly different tales, this occurs very naturally and believably. Tension and pacing both increase greatly within the last third of the book, propelling readers towards an exciting ending.
The world laid out before us is like our own in some ways, and vastly different in others. Technology has survived, but not all of it. History is largely lost, with everything before a certain date little more than legend. A totalitarian govern rules with an iron fist above it all. Individuality and individual thought is gone – at least as far as the state is concerned. Yet, these prevail, as they always do, hidden behind walls of anxiety and fear.
Ruin’s Wake is an amazing debut novel by Patrick Edwards. I am so happy I had a chance to read this and cannot wait to see what else Edwards may be in store for us in the future.
I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This review originally found on the blog Looking Glass Reads.
May 14, 2019
Here is a book that ticks the basic boxes for me to place it on my reading list. Dystopian future, hidden past, archaeology, and subversive undertones. Yep, enough to keep my interest while the plot winds through three distinct groups. There are issues, especially as the last several chapters swerve and felt forced. There is a lot going on behind each of the groups, where that can seem more interesting than what is happening in front of their nose.
It starts out strong. It is also cringe-worthy (as in you really feel just how bad it is for some in this world), some of the situations our characters find themselves in. The Major & the wife, where nether know each other's names, even after living together for years. The total control of information & the focus of the people towards behaving in a set way. The author says he used North Korea as a model & I can believe it. There are a lot of hints of what the world was like before the crash. Bits of technology surface here and there, but this isn't an overall technical society. The people are told they can't have it, while the privileged take what they want.
About 2/3 of the way through it started to bog down and I really didn't care much for any of the characters. The mercenary Syn is the most fun & the one with the most mystery. You could do a series of books of him running around in this world. When everyone gets smashed together, all I wanted to know was what did the scientist really find in the north, under the ice. Not what happens to the individual characters as their plight became dull. The author couldn't bridge the set up and the big swerve, it comes off as a stutter step than a smooth transition.
I do have questions about the world. How does a repressive society exist like this for 500 years? That is a very long time for human leaders to hold onto a human society. I get that it needed to be a long enough time where living memory knows only the homogenized past, something that modern K-12 history already does.
For me, a good start on the literary road, taking a stab at this sub-genre. I'll take a look next year to see if there is anything new by the author.
It starts out strong. It is also cringe-worthy (as in you really feel just how bad it is for some in this world), some of the situations our characters find themselves in. The Major & the wife, where nether know each other's names, even after living together for years. The total control of information & the focus of the people towards behaving in a set way. The author says he used North Korea as a model & I can believe it. There are a lot of hints of what the world was like before the crash. Bits of technology surface here and there, but this isn't an overall technical society. The people are told they can't have it, while the privileged take what they want.
About 2/3 of the way through it started to bog down and I really didn't care much for any of the characters. The mercenary Syn is the most fun & the one with the most mystery. You could do a series of books of him running around in this world. When everyone gets smashed together, all I wanted to know was what did the scientist really find in the north, under the ice. Not what happens to the individual characters as their plight became dull. The author couldn't bridge the set up and the big swerve, it comes off as a stutter step than a smooth transition.
I do have questions about the world. How does a repressive society exist like this for 500 years? That is a very long time for human leaders to hold onto a human society. I get that it needed to be a long enough time where living memory knows only the homogenized past, something that modern K-12 history already does.
For me, a good start on the literary road, taking a stab at this sub-genre. I'll take a look next year to see if there is anything new by the author.
September 10, 2021
It is the year of the Quincentennnial of the Hegemony, an authoritarian state set up by The Seeker after a civilisational collapse known as the Ruin, a society where everyone knows the sun (called Ras) orbits the Earth as the true cosmology of the heavens has been lost even the word ‘planet’ has been lost; but some tech is still left over from the old time.
In the wintry wilds of the north Professor Sulara Song is investigating an archaeological site that may contain an artefact from before the Ruin; at a strip mine on a frozen steppe a man called Cale receives bad news about his son, Bowden; in the city, Kelbee, sold by her father to be the wife of a defender of the Hegemony known to the reader only as the Major (but after a promotion as the Lance-Colonel,) is little but a drudge and sex-slave, allowed outside the house only to work at the lowest grade in a garment factory.
Song’s experiences are given us in the form of journal she writes - and hers is a voice that is wry and compelling - Cale’s and Kelbee’s stories are told in the third person and their personalities therefore come across less sharply. All are actual or potential foes of the Hegemony; Song since the artefact threatens to undermine its foundation myth, Cale as a former comrade of the revolutionary known as Brennev, Kelbee through her growing connection with Nebn who befriends her one day when he comes to the factory to repair a piece of equipment.
The revelation of the underground artefact’s capabilities reads, though, like an interpolation from a different book. (Then again, after regression followed by five hundred years of stagnation any sufficiently advanced technology would seem like magic.) Even knowledge of its facilities represents a threat to the Hegemony’s belief systems and therefore its control of the populace. For unlike the citizens of the Hegemony, kept separate, individualised yet subject to group orthodoxy (as is the ideal for all dictatorships,) “Our ancestors had tinkered with themselves, with the brain itself, back before the Ruin. Every new-born child inherited its parents’ ability to connect with the data corpus, not limited by proximity.”
Perhaps because it was his first novel Edwards is not quite as in control of his prose as he is in his second book, the excellent Echo Cycle, nor is his focus as tight. There is a sense here - especially in the hierarchy of the Hegemony (its head Fulvia arc Borunmer, though the first woman in that post “since… well, ever” is a typical vengeful dictator,) even the existence of the ‘Free City,’ Aspedair, supposedly the only entity on the planet that is not under the Hegemony’s sway, is not an entirely original concept - that he is feeling his way into writing, exploring other people’s scenarios than his own, conforming to a template, that he has not yet found his own voice.
Ruin’s Wake is still very readable though, and Edwards’s portrayal of human relationships and interactions is convincing.
In the wintry wilds of the north Professor Sulara Song is investigating an archaeological site that may contain an artefact from before the Ruin; at a strip mine on a frozen steppe a man called Cale receives bad news about his son, Bowden; in the city, Kelbee, sold by her father to be the wife of a defender of the Hegemony known to the reader only as the Major (but after a promotion as the Lance-Colonel,) is little but a drudge and sex-slave, allowed outside the house only to work at the lowest grade in a garment factory.
Song’s experiences are given us in the form of journal she writes - and hers is a voice that is wry and compelling - Cale’s and Kelbee’s stories are told in the third person and their personalities therefore come across less sharply. All are actual or potential foes of the Hegemony; Song since the artefact threatens to undermine its foundation myth, Cale as a former comrade of the revolutionary known as Brennev, Kelbee through her growing connection with Nebn who befriends her one day when he comes to the factory to repair a piece of equipment.
The revelation of the underground artefact’s capabilities reads, though, like an interpolation from a different book. (Then again, after regression followed by five hundred years of stagnation any sufficiently advanced technology would seem like magic.) Even knowledge of its facilities represents a threat to the Hegemony’s belief systems and therefore its control of the populace. For unlike the citizens of the Hegemony, kept separate, individualised yet subject to group orthodoxy (as is the ideal for all dictatorships,) “Our ancestors had tinkered with themselves, with the brain itself, back before the Ruin. Every new-born child inherited its parents’ ability to connect with the data corpus, not limited by proximity.”
Perhaps because it was his first novel Edwards is not quite as in control of his prose as he is in his second book, the excellent Echo Cycle, nor is his focus as tight. There is a sense here - especially in the hierarchy of the Hegemony (its head Fulvia arc Borunmer, though the first woman in that post “since… well, ever” is a typical vengeful dictator,) even the existence of the ‘Free City,’ Aspedair, supposedly the only entity on the planet that is not under the Hegemony’s sway, is not an entirely original concept - that he is feeling his way into writing, exploring other people’s scenarios than his own, conforming to a template, that he has not yet found his own voice.
Ruin’s Wake is still very readable though, and Edwards’s portrayal of human relationships and interactions is convincing.
August 19, 2021
I am making this a DNF at page 112. But I NEED to review it, because I may one day decide to try it again and I need to remember where my issues with it lay.
First, I hope not to put other people off reading it; this really is a GOOD book. The plot is well laid out, the world building is vivid and the actual writing is extremely competent.
For me though, it just never jelled. I find myself using ANY excuse to not pick it up, I took a break and read another book, thinking maybe I just had sci-fi fatigue from having read too much recently - but I came back to it and am instantly bored.
There are three stories, I liked the irascible academic, but we don't see much of her. I enjoyed the hermit sculptor, Cale, but he kind of faded away a bit. I am not wild about the story of the woman who is the soldiers wife, which seems to be the main focus. Though, to be entirely honest, I can't really feel strong connection to ANY of these characters and I have no real empathy for their feelings, no insight into their motivations. I guess I get the beaten woman getting a lover (despite the ludicrous risk level), but she does not seem like a real person, even so. Maybe she only exists for the purpose of illustrating how controlling, sex slavery oriented, violent and generally bad the society is?
I get it, it is a controlling, totalitarian, abusive society. But at page 112 I really don't know much more about it than that, and that it is probably a society that came after ours. Hence, the archaeology project.
I gather these stories converge, but I can not be bothered hanging around for it. I don't LIKE short stories, I especially don't like short stories that are constantly being interrupted to go of to other short stories or on other, odd tangents for no apparent reason.
A strange thing I noticed today is that I have no idea at all what these women look like, which is a bit odd - males are described with at least some physical characteristics, but the women seem barely real.
It is strong world building though, I give it that. I may come back to it one day.
First, I hope not to put other people off reading it; this really is a GOOD book. The plot is well laid out, the world building is vivid and the actual writing is extremely competent.
For me though, it just never jelled. I find myself using ANY excuse to not pick it up, I took a break and read another book, thinking maybe I just had sci-fi fatigue from having read too much recently - but I came back to it and am instantly bored.
There are three stories, I liked the irascible academic, but we don't see much of her. I enjoyed the hermit sculptor, Cale, but he kind of faded away a bit. I am not wild about the story of the woman who is the soldiers wife, which seems to be the main focus. Though, to be entirely honest, I can't really feel strong connection to ANY of these characters and I have no real empathy for their feelings, no insight into their motivations. I guess I get the beaten woman getting a lover (despite the ludicrous risk level), but she does not seem like a real person, even so. Maybe she only exists for the purpose of illustrating how controlling, sex slavery oriented, violent and generally bad the society is?
I get it, it is a controlling, totalitarian, abusive society. But at page 112 I really don't know much more about it than that, and that it is probably a society that came after ours. Hence, the archaeology project.
I gather these stories converge, but I can not be bothered hanging around for it. I don't LIKE short stories, I especially don't like short stories that are constantly being interrupted to go of to other short stories or on other, odd tangents for no apparent reason.
A strange thing I noticed today is that I have no idea at all what these women look like, which is a bit odd - males are described with at least some physical characteristics, but the women seem barely real.
It is strong world building though, I give it that. I may come back to it one day.
January 13, 2025
Ruin's Wake by Patrick Edwards was in a mystery book box I got as a Christmas present - and I had quite a few issues with it.
It's a sci-fi about a post-apocalyptic world that has devolved into a totalitarian dictatorship, where the world at large knows very little about pre-Ruin history and a lot of the technology of the past has been lost.
We follow two main protagonists - an ex-soldier who is trying to find and rescue his injured son, and an abused military wife who risks everything for an illicit affair. There are also journal entries from a researcher exploring an arctic site that might hold answers about the time before the Ruin.
I found it hard to get a handle on the story or the characters to begin with. I also wasn't sure how I felt about a male author writing the perspective of a woman trapped in an abusive marriage - I don't know quite why it made me uncomfortable, but it did.
The book is also pretty grim in places and all three stories felt quite dreary for most of the first half, in which very little actually happens.
It did pick up quite a bit in the second half but it still took far too long for the stories to inter-connect (pg 300). That said, how the characters came together was very clever, even if the convergence felt abrupt.
Then it all descended into wibbly nonsense that was both enraging and utterly ridiculous and I initially very unhappy about what happened to the female protagonist. Up until the very end, it felt like the presentation and treatment of women in the book was pretty terribly - but then they really came into their own in the last few pages and the emotions hit hard.
So, while I can't say I thought this was a particularly good book overall, it's another one where I thought about giving up on it multiple times, but I ended up being really glad I saw it through because the ultimate conclusion brought it all together quite well.
It's a sci-fi about a post-apocalyptic world that has devolved into a totalitarian dictatorship, where the world at large knows very little about pre-Ruin history and a lot of the technology of the past has been lost.
We follow two main protagonists - an ex-soldier who is trying to find and rescue his injured son, and an abused military wife who risks everything for an illicit affair. There are also journal entries from a researcher exploring an arctic site that might hold answers about the time before the Ruin.
I found it hard to get a handle on the story or the characters to begin with. I also wasn't sure how I felt about a male author writing the perspective of a woman trapped in an abusive marriage - I don't know quite why it made me uncomfortable, but it did.
The book is also pretty grim in places and all three stories felt quite dreary for most of the first half, in which very little actually happens.
It did pick up quite a bit in the second half but it still took far too long for the stories to inter-connect (pg 300). That said, how the characters came together was very clever, even if the convergence felt abrupt.
Then it all descended into wibbly nonsense that was both enraging and utterly ridiculous and I initially very unhappy about what happened to the female protagonist. Up until the very end, it felt like the presentation and treatment of women in the book was pretty terribly - but then they really came into their own in the last few pages and the emotions hit hard.
So, while I can't say I thought this was a particularly good book overall, it's another one where I thought about giving up on it multiple times, but I ended up being really glad I saw it through because the ultimate conclusion brought it all together quite well.
October 4, 2020
Edwards creates three different and effective storylines that are, very satisfyingly, pulled together at the end. The characters have depth, and I found myself completely engaged in their personal trauma and conflict. I enjoyed the themes of ignorance/illumination and the consequential outcomes: making the same mistakes v. trying to find a different path--both on an individual and societal level. And the question remains, if everyone had free and unlimited access to all current knowledge, would that make a difference to our, often destructive behaviour? The book ends on a hopeful note, though, with the acknowledgment that there is always more to learn.
May 13, 2019
I'm turn about my response to this book. On the one hand, there is an interesting array of characters - the archeologist searching for information about the past; the soldier on a journey to rescue his estranged son; a young woman in a Handmaid's Tale type environment/relationship. But on the other, the world felt very predictable and the logic of the journey leading to betrayal made no sense at all. Overall, not as imaginative and original as other sci-fi that I've read.
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November 14, 2019You are tasked with making a film of this book. It will be released Spring 2021. There's no rush but a small budget. Your codices are Exterminator! By Burroughs, Blade Runner, and John Carpenter's the Thing, but mostly as an object lesson. How would you summarize the second section, Bask 9 - 498. How long is the sequence you have in mind? How do you incorporate monologue and voice over, and do you add dialogue?
July 31, 2022
Good book. I wouldn't say it was spectacular but this is also the author's first work so I'll be reading more from him as it comes out. Good story, pretty compelling characters. I wish there had been more there. I think the foundations were great but we could have been given more time to really deliver deeper in the characters and get more connected to the plot. I liked it a lot but didn't love it.
October 20, 2021
An interesting and well written world, I wish I could have enjoyed it more. However I found many of the characters to be flat and and the pacing awkward. It was difficult to stay invested in each of their stories, and I was unsatisfied by the simplicity of the ending. In my opinion, this book would have been significantly better if it were longer.
February 14, 2025
Very slow, which I enjoyed. In fact, found the end very rushed and a little bizarre. Favourite character was definitely side character Syn. Professor was interesting - could have used more depth and made more of; soldier was a pretty standard character, but likable; bit confused by the abused wife story, seemed very contradictory. Overall, pretty good but not my favourite!
May 22, 2022
This book was an enjoyable read with three interesting journeys that converge to a satisfying ending. It takes quite a while (about 280/400 pages) for the story to get to some of the action with interesting world building that is light on detail, but I'm glad I stuck with it.
April 16, 2019
One of my top reads of the year!
May 8, 2019
I just didn't get on well with this book.
May 23, 2019
Fantastic.
April 8, 2020
I was hooked from the first page.
I loved Sulara Song. Looked forward to her journal entries. She reminded me of the Gillian Anderson character in The Fall.
I loved Sulara Song. Looked forward to her journal entries. She reminded me of the Gillian Anderson character in The Fall.
November 29, 2021
A little confusing as the story lines grew but worth it all in the end.
June 24, 2022
What a great first novel! And, anyone who was inspired by Iain M. Banks is OK in my book. I highly recommend this book.
July 31, 2022
A really exciting and well writen book - you would never guess this was the work of a first time author. Edwards knows his onions. Unputdownable.
July 15, 2024
2.5 star read for me. Not a lot of plot, I wish there was more detail on the dystopia society, and the ending was a bit anticlimactic. I did enjoy the characters and their individual journeys though.
June 19, 2023
I'm not much of a sci-fi reader, and tried this debut to see if it would not overwhelm me with fantastic places. I enjoyed the three storylines, even when they melded quickly.
A very good debut, and quite the page-turner. Am surprised it doesn't rate more 4-star, good reviews.
A very good debut, and quite the page-turner. Am surprised it doesn't rate more 4-star, good reviews.
October 23, 2022
It was okay.
This is a mostly-competent but not especially interesting or original escapist science-fiction thriller. It's set in a far-future post-apocalyptic setting, of radically diminished knowledge, population, and standards of living. It's got some problems.
There are no big original ideas here; nothing terribly unfamiliar to anyone who's read much science fiction, especially of the dystopian variety. The world isn't imagined in any great detail, and its problems end up being resolved in a disappointingly pat way. It's escapism.
The biggest problem is structural: in, presumably, a fit of first-novel hubris, the author opted to juggle perspectives and plot strands in a way that's ambitious, but doesn't really work out. Plot strand 1 is about a grizzled veteran-turned-hermit-sculptor, who receives news that his son is dying, and sets out to see him before it's too late. Plot strand 2 is about an intelligence officer's wife in a restrictive, dystopian state, who gets drawn in to an illicit love affair and rebellion. Plot strand 3 is about an academic from the same state, who sets out to research a mysterious archaeological site. Plot strand 3 is the odd one out- unlike 1 and 2, it's in an epistolary style, and it's much shorter than the others. About 3/4ths of the way through the novel, all three strands converge, and the remainder of the book is the culmination and payoff for each of them.
The result of this structuring is sort of a "worst of both worlds" situation. On the one hand, the flitting between plot lines means that each one takes longer to get where it's going- it's over 120 pages in to this 406-page thriller before the first proper action scene. The novel's sense of building tension and rising stakes is undercut by the regular perspective changes, especially because the two main plot strands don't obviously have anything to do with each other until shortly before they converge. On the other hand, forcing these three plotlines to share the same 300 pages of novel means that none of them really has the space to fully develop its characters, setting, or ideas. The final 100 pages or so, then, go by entirely too fast- events and developments pile up without time to breathe, and then the book is suddenly over.
Not unreadable, but it feels like the author bit off more than he could chew.
This is a mostly-competent but not especially interesting or original escapist science-fiction thriller. It's set in a far-future post-apocalyptic setting, of radically diminished knowledge, population, and standards of living. It's got some problems.
There are no big original ideas here; nothing terribly unfamiliar to anyone who's read much science fiction, especially of the dystopian variety. The world isn't imagined in any great detail, and its problems end up being resolved in a disappointingly pat way. It's escapism.
The biggest problem is structural: in, presumably, a fit of first-novel hubris, the author opted to juggle perspectives and plot strands in a way that's ambitious, but doesn't really work out. Plot strand 1 is about a grizzled veteran-turned-hermit-sculptor, who receives news that his son is dying, and sets out to see him before it's too late. Plot strand 2 is about an intelligence officer's wife in a restrictive, dystopian state, who gets drawn in to an illicit love affair and rebellion. Plot strand 3 is about an academic from the same state, who sets out to research a mysterious archaeological site. Plot strand 3 is the odd one out- unlike 1 and 2, it's in an epistolary style, and it's much shorter than the others. About 3/4ths of the way through the novel, all three strands converge, and the remainder of the book is the culmination and payoff for each of them.
The result of this structuring is sort of a "worst of both worlds" situation. On the one hand, the flitting between plot lines means that each one takes longer to get where it's going- it's over 120 pages in to this 406-page thriller before the first proper action scene. The novel's sense of building tension and rising stakes is undercut by the regular perspective changes, especially because the two main plot strands don't obviously have anything to do with each other until shortly before they converge. On the other hand, forcing these three plotlines to share the same 300 pages of novel means that none of them really has the space to fully develop its characters, setting, or ideas. The final 100 pages or so, then, go by entirely too fast- events and developments pile up without time to breathe, and then the book is suddenly over.
Not unreadable, but it feels like the author bit off more than he could chew.
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