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Galactic Center #5
Furious Gulf
Containing the remnants of humanity from the planet Snowglade, the spaceship Argo hurtles toward its uncertain destiny, the bold and brilliant Captain Killeen at its helm. But he has grown increasingly isolated and anguished in command. The ship’s gardens are failing, its voyagers face starvation, and there are dark whispers within, talk of mutiny. Killeen’s will, however, remains as strong as ever, his determination to reach the True Center of the galaxy bordering on obsession.
Amid a mad swirl of incandescent suns and ghostly blue clouds of galactic dust, beset by hostile worlds controlled by the mechs—a vast and violent artificial intelligence whose only meaning, only mission, is the complete extermination of the human race—Killeen pursues his desperate search, convinced his people’s one hope of survival lies in the True Center. The crew has followed him this far on faith, a faith now being tested to the limit. Even his own son Toby, groomed for leadership, is beginning to question his father’s command.
As the Argo undertakes a perilous quest into the unknown, Toby faces his own journey into the mysteries of adulthood. Like the others in this Family of voyagers, Toby’s spine contains microchip implants holding the memories—the legacy—of his race. But just as the technology designed to save his people may tear Toby himself apart, so his father’s desperate gamble to save the Argo may plunge the ship and its inhabitants into a cosmic pit of all-consuming fire.
Amid a mad swirl of incandescent suns and ghostly blue clouds of galactic dust, beset by hostile worlds controlled by the mechs—a vast and violent artificial intelligence whose only meaning, only mission, is the complete extermination of the human race—Killeen pursues his desperate search, convinced his people’s one hope of survival lies in the True Center. The crew has followed him this far on faith, a faith now being tested to the limit. Even his own son Toby, groomed for leadership, is beginning to question his father’s command.
As the Argo undertakes a perilous quest into the unknown, Toby faces his own journey into the mysteries of adulthood. Like the others in this Family of voyagers, Toby’s spine contains microchip implants holding the memories—the legacy—of his race. But just as the technology designed to save his people may tear Toby himself apart, so his father’s desperate gamble to save the Argo may plunge the ship and its inhabitants into a cosmic pit of all-consuming fire.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
37 people are currently reading
616 people want to read
About the author
Gregory Benford
565 books615 followersGregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
October 15, 2010
Book 5 in the Galactic Centre Saga continues the journey of the Family Bishop, now allied with the alien Myriapodia, as they pilot their way to the True Centre of the galaxy. Here they encounter a strange and enigmatic structure called the Esty (ST), the last safe refuge of Humanity.
Benford changes tack here, focusing on Tobey, Killeen's son, rather than Killeen himself, and succeeds magnificently. Benford tells a coming of age story that is true to life; Tobey's understanding of and realtionship with his father questioned as all sons and fathers must. In addition to the pressures of a son becoming a man, Tobey must also grapple with the consequences of carrying the personality of Killeen's dead lover, who herself is exerting increasing control over Tobey's own sense of self. This very personal story is told against the background of increasing complexity and wonderous sights that Tobey only begins to comprehend.
Escaping from the bizarre and heavy-handed actions of his father, Tobey becomes lost within the strange structure of the Esty where compressed space and time mimics matter and can be shaped into uncounted pocket universes. Here he discovers his new emerging identity as he desparately flees a new intrusion of the Mechs, who, surprisingly, seem to be searching for Tobey himself.
Benford once again deftly doles out servings of mystery and answers. The plot deepens as we follow Tobey's adventures and the reader is given new clues as to the ultimate nature of the Bishop Family, Tobey, Killeen and the future of mankind.
What sets this particular installment above the proceeding volumes is the believable telling of Tobey's transition into adulthood. Any son will recognize the particular issues of this period of life and the inherent conflicts it causes in their relationship with their fathers. Benford's prose is evocative and heartfelt, and realistic. This is storytelling of the highest calibre.
Benford's weird construct, the Esty, which cicles the massive black hole at the galaxy's centre, is one of the most intriguing in all of S/F. Here time, space and matter are interchangable, leading to bizarre vistas and tiny universes where mankind seeks refuge from the Mechanical Civilization bent on their extinction. Time itself becomes so compressed that it becomes matter, Time Stone, which can be manipulated into all manner of physical phenomena. It is strange and wonderful.
Furious Gulf is, so far, the highlight of the series. It almost makes up for the hefty reading that should be done beforehand, and it would be a better novel if it could stand alone. Sadly, it cannot. The conflicts detailed in it cannot be separated from the characters and their history. More than any of the other books, this one requires that the whole series be read previously.
It remains, however, one of the best S/F novels of its era. If you have already slogged through the rest of the series, do not miss this installment. Furious Gulf is a touching and rousing adventure of a young man becoming an adult set in a future of incomparable strangeness.
[author's note: Since Good Reads doesn't allow half ratings I have given this one a 4. Really, it is a 4.5 out of 5.]
Benford changes tack here, focusing on Tobey, Killeen's son, rather than Killeen himself, and succeeds magnificently. Benford tells a coming of age story that is true to life; Tobey's understanding of and realtionship with his father questioned as all sons and fathers must. In addition to the pressures of a son becoming a man, Tobey must also grapple with the consequences of carrying the personality of Killeen's dead lover, who herself is exerting increasing control over Tobey's own sense of self. This very personal story is told against the background of increasing complexity and wonderous sights that Tobey only begins to comprehend.
Escaping from the bizarre and heavy-handed actions of his father, Tobey becomes lost within the strange structure of the Esty where compressed space and time mimics matter and can be shaped into uncounted pocket universes. Here he discovers his new emerging identity as he desparately flees a new intrusion of the Mechs, who, surprisingly, seem to be searching for Tobey himself.
Benford once again deftly doles out servings of mystery and answers. The plot deepens as we follow Tobey's adventures and the reader is given new clues as to the ultimate nature of the Bishop Family, Tobey, Killeen and the future of mankind.
What sets this particular installment above the proceeding volumes is the believable telling of Tobey's transition into adulthood. Any son will recognize the particular issues of this period of life and the inherent conflicts it causes in their relationship with their fathers. Benford's prose is evocative and heartfelt, and realistic. This is storytelling of the highest calibre.
Benford's weird construct, the Esty, which cicles the massive black hole at the galaxy's centre, is one of the most intriguing in all of S/F. Here time, space and matter are interchangable, leading to bizarre vistas and tiny universes where mankind seeks refuge from the Mechanical Civilization bent on their extinction. Time itself becomes so compressed that it becomes matter, Time Stone, which can be manipulated into all manner of physical phenomena. It is strange and wonderful.
Furious Gulf is, so far, the highlight of the series. It almost makes up for the hefty reading that should be done beforehand, and it would be a better novel if it could stand alone. Sadly, it cannot. The conflicts detailed in it cannot be separated from the characters and their history. More than any of the other books, this one requires that the whole series be read previously.
It remains, however, one of the best S/F novels of its era. If you have already slogged through the rest of the series, do not miss this installment. Furious Gulf is a touching and rousing adventure of a young man becoming an adult set in a future of incomparable strangeness.
[author's note: Since Good Reads doesn't allow half ratings I have given this one a 4. Really, it is a 4.5 out of 5.]
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2024
So this chapter in the Galactic Center saga is told from Toby's POV. Life isn't easy for the son of a captain. He wants to talk son-to-father, but too often it's in front of the crew, so it winds up sounding like an out-of-line ensign sowing discord. And when it seems like they're talking father-to-son, Killeen reverts back to captain-to-crew. The reason for that is Toby is carrying around the personality of his father's dead girlfriend, Shibo, on a chip mounted into his internal computer system. Killeen claims that it's because she was an important member of the crew with valuable skills, but Toby thinks Dad just can't let go. They're both right.
In the hierarchy of dead people stored on computer chips, personalities are at the top. They take up a lot of memory and, given enough time, can override their host. And that's what Shibo starts to do.
After a hellish trip through the high energy physics equivalent of Scylla and Charibdis, the Argo arrives at an odd oasis in some kind of balanced region within the maelstrom, a bit like a Lagrange Point but with space-time at work instead of gravity. Interacting with the people there is odd, and there is much confusion between the two parties with the locals using home field to their advantage rather than trying to help their distant cousins.
In the midst of negotiations, Toby has an outburst which complicates matters. Killeen tosses him into the brig. When Toby gets word of what transpired in his absence, he feels like he was setup. Toby runs away with Quath, who acts as a guard/guide. They sneak behind the proverbial curtain only to fall into what I think were pocket universes of space and time. Things get a bit strange as Benford plays around with physics at a level I can't pretend to understand. Toby finds himself on his own, struggling to deal with Shibo's needy disembodied personality, the weirdness of the landscape he finds himself in, coming of age as an adult, and being pursued by malevolent entities.
At my age, I'm not really into coming of age stories, but when Benford doesn't make the story all about Toby, it holds up. The exploration of around the galactic center made for some entertaining reading. I wouldn't have minded more of that. But I struggled with the physics involved getting near the core and Toby's explorations at the oasis. The conflicts are kind of resolved, but not really, and the ending is something of a cliffhanger. Still, if you've made it this far into the series, you have to go all the way.
3.75 stars rounded up to 4.
In the hierarchy of dead people stored on computer chips, personalities are at the top. They take up a lot of memory and, given enough time, can override their host. And that's what Shibo starts to do.
After a hellish trip through the high energy physics equivalent of Scylla and Charibdis, the Argo arrives at an odd oasis in some kind of balanced region within the maelstrom, a bit like a Lagrange Point but with space-time at work instead of gravity. Interacting with the people there is odd, and there is much confusion between the two parties with the locals using home field to their advantage rather than trying to help their distant cousins.
In the midst of negotiations, Toby has an outburst which complicates matters. Killeen tosses him into the brig. When Toby gets word of what transpired in his absence, he feels like he was setup. Toby runs away with Quath, who acts as a guard/guide. They sneak behind the proverbial curtain only to fall into what I think were pocket universes of space and time. Things get a bit strange as Benford plays around with physics at a level I can't pretend to understand. Toby finds himself on his own, struggling to deal with Shibo's needy disembodied personality, the weirdness of the landscape he finds himself in, coming of age as an adult, and being pursued by malevolent entities.
At my age, I'm not really into coming of age stories, but when Benford doesn't make the story all about Toby, it holds up. The exploration of around the galactic center made for some entertaining reading. I wouldn't have minded more of that. But I struggled with the physics involved getting near the core and Toby's explorations at the oasis. The conflicts are kind of resolved, but not really, and the ending is something of a cliffhanger. Still, if you've made it this far into the series, you have to go all the way.
3.75 stars rounded up to 4.
November 8, 2024
Within Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series, the first two volumes are hard-sf in a near-future Earth setting featuring astronaut/scientist Nigel Walmsley. However, with Great Sky River (#3), the story jumped forward some 35,000 years, to an initially unrecognizable story universe. Furious Gulf (#5) is continuous from Great Sky River, in which Family Bishop travels towards the central black hole of our Galaxy in an ancient human spaceship they discovered. They flee from enemy Mechs, and are strangely allied with a race of cyborg Myriapods. I’m now in a re-read of the entire series, because it is mentioned in Lecture 4 “Evolution and Deep Time in Science Fiction” of Gary Wolfe’s video lecture series How Great Science Fiction Works.
In this novel, the perspective character shifts from Killeen to his son Toby. Benford seems to be making a sincere effort to support this as a new entry point into the series, restating a lot of world building detail and backstory. But I feel there is just too much material back there in the first four books - this is still a mid-series novel. Toby is now an older teen, with a lot of those feels, shut out of affection by his father who has assumed very heavy responsibility as leader of Family Bishop. The style of the novel, surprisingly, takes on a YA feel for the first half. But in the second half, after Family Bishop reaches the galactic center, it probably doesn’t matter much who the lead character is, as they become mostly a device for Benford’s cosmic speculations. My hard-sf sensibilities rate the second half more highly than the first.
Toby’s life, like our own, takes place with assumptions of the space and time that humans evolved within. But fundamentally, this is a consequence of our biology. Physics gives us models for predicting the behaviors of particles and fields, and of waveforms, that take place on a much smaller level. But such models do not necessarily describe the reality. In fact, for example, both particle theories and wave theories are known to be incomplete alone. Imagine that the underlying truth also describes a realm in which life can develop and intelligence evolve – beings who exist in perturbations of electromagnetic and gravitational fields. Just above the event horizon of the super black hole at the center of the galaxy, rotating at extreme relativistic velocities, there exists a constructed realm that appears somewhat coherent within its own frame of reference. When Toby enters The Wedge, his familiar spacetime-based perceptions make a bizarre experience out of everything. Eventually, as he grows into it, the distinctions become less clear. But through it all, his sense of human will seems preserved.
“It would never have happened this way if he had been with the Family or even with Quath. Family kept the sharp edges away. Family was a fiction, he knew that now. A fiction defending against the furious gulf that yawned in all directions. But a truthful fiction, too, because the story Families told by their example made it possible to go on. The gulf was always there and you would see it again, certainly for one last time, but there was no special haste in getting that moment. After you had seen the gulf you spent the rest of your time knowing that it was there waiting and would come again. In knowing this he was now free.”
The end of the novel leads directly into the next – Sailing Bright Eternity (#6)
In this novel, the perspective character shifts from Killeen to his son Toby. Benford seems to be making a sincere effort to support this as a new entry point into the series, restating a lot of world building detail and backstory. But I feel there is just too much material back there in the first four books - this is still a mid-series novel. Toby is now an older teen, with a lot of those feels, shut out of affection by his father who has assumed very heavy responsibility as leader of Family Bishop. The style of the novel, surprisingly, takes on a YA feel for the first half. But in the second half, after Family Bishop reaches the galactic center, it probably doesn’t matter much who the lead character is, as they become mostly a device for Benford’s cosmic speculations. My hard-sf sensibilities rate the second half more highly than the first.
Toby’s life, like our own, takes place with assumptions of the space and time that humans evolved within. But fundamentally, this is a consequence of our biology. Physics gives us models for predicting the behaviors of particles and fields, and of waveforms, that take place on a much smaller level. But such models do not necessarily describe the reality. In fact, for example, both particle theories and wave theories are known to be incomplete alone. Imagine that the underlying truth also describes a realm in which life can develop and intelligence evolve – beings who exist in perturbations of electromagnetic and gravitational fields. Just above the event horizon of the super black hole at the center of the galaxy, rotating at extreme relativistic velocities, there exists a constructed realm that appears somewhat coherent within its own frame of reference. When Toby enters The Wedge, his familiar spacetime-based perceptions make a bizarre experience out of everything. Eventually, as he grows into it, the distinctions become less clear. But through it all, his sense of human will seems preserved.
“It would never have happened this way if he had been with the Family or even with Quath. Family kept the sharp edges away. Family was a fiction, he knew that now. A fiction defending against the furious gulf that yawned in all directions. But a truthful fiction, too, because the story Families told by their example made it possible to go on. The gulf was always there and you would see it again, certainly for one last time, but there was no special haste in getting that moment. After you had seen the gulf you spent the rest of your time knowing that it was there waiting and would come again. In knowing this he was now free.”
The end of the novel leads directly into the next – Sailing Bright Eternity (#6)
December 18, 2015
Gregory Benford seems to have gotten back on track with this book, restoring a sense of direction and destiny to the series.
The story does get pretty trippy towards the end (something I suspect is hard to avoid when projecting normal human perception of reality into the theorized physics and environment in-and-around a black hole), but this is not a bad thing in my view.
The story does get pretty trippy towards the end (something I suspect is hard to avoid when projecting normal human perception of reality into the theorized physics and environment in-and-around a black hole), but this is not a bad thing in my view.
November 1, 2020
This is the fifth book in the author's Galactic Center series. I picked up the book in a used book section years ago and just got around to reading it. While it can somewhat stand on its own as a novel (it took awhile to figure out what was going on) reading the other four would have greatly enhanced the reading experience. In the afterwards the author indicated that there is one more novel to the series.
June 20, 2022
A harried remnant of humanity continues its voyage to the black hole at the Galactic center with no clear idea of what they expect to find there. After many perils, they arrive and find that relativistic effects and the engineering of long-prior civilizations have created a vast shifting maze of landscapes out of the twisted space-time continuum. (It's written by a genuine physicist who assures us that all these shenanigans are consistent with the known laws of physics, but you could have fooled me.) Our young hero then becomes separated from the rest of his Family and starts moving through this surreal, ever-changing, sometimes hellish, sometimes, dreamlike, sometimes inhabited landscape, looking for it's not clear what. It turns out he's on a journey of self-discovery because of course he is. The writing is sometimes luminous and lyrical, but as it goes on the story loses logic and coherence.
April 30, 2019
I find myself with not much to say about this book, it being, overall, mostly average. I can say that I had higher expectations of this being much more science-y (to use a technical term), but that was largely unmet as what I suppose what was supposed to be the hard SF portion of the book was more akin to Alice down the rabbit-hole fantasy. I can say that the ending very much piqued my interest for the next (and I believe last?) installment in the series, so there is that.
If you're reading the series, you'd read this, and the next, but otherwise it certainly doesn't stand on it's own in any way.
If you're reading the series, you'd read this, and the next, but otherwise it certainly doesn't stand on it's own in any way.
February 22, 2020
Okay escapism. Kept me reading, but... It played fast and loose with cosmology, and therefore I found myself not even bothering worrying about making sense of the fictional world being created. I did not really like it's underlying philosophy. Also it is part of a series, and so ends in the middle, so it was not even a satisfying finish after getting through the almost 300 pages, and not good enough to make me want to read the others in the series.
December 25, 2018
3.5 Stars.
Family Bishop and a few others hurtle towards the galactic center. Benford juggles a lot characters, concerns, and concepts in this penultimate book, and any hopes for a conventional conclusion ends as they arrive at some sort of pocket dimension where the differing plots, characters, and time all fracture into even more of a mess.
Family Bishop and a few others hurtle towards the galactic center. Benford juggles a lot characters, concerns, and concepts in this penultimate book, and any hopes for a conventional conclusion ends as they arrive at some sort of pocket dimension where the differing plots, characters, and time all fracture into even more of a mess.
Read
April 15, 2024I guess I just couldn't get engrossed in the extensive descriptions of completely imaginary landscapes and whatnot. The fact that it took me a month to read is evidence that I was crawling through it at a snail's pace; I kept falling asleep after a page or two, so it was a tough battle.
October 9, 2018
You’ll need to expand your imagination
Not a book to skim through - requires the reader to pay attention and not be shy about re-reading passages to not miss anything!
Not a book to skim through - requires the reader to pay attention and not be shy about re-reading passages to not miss anything!
May 13, 2019
5/10. Media de los 8 libros leídos del autor: 6/10.
Su aclamada saga del “Centro Galáctico” está bien (solo bien, para mí. Los mejores el 3 y el 4). Este quinto me resultó muy muy flojo.
Su aclamada saga del “Centro Galáctico” está bien (solo bien, para mí. Los mejores el 3 y el 4). Este quinto me resultó muy muy flojo.
September 16, 2019
Remnants of humanity pursued by machines find a haven on the cusp of a black hole--or is it a haven? Captivating use of language!!
November 13, 2019
Loved the first four books, but this one became tedious.
January 18, 2021
The Bishops find adventure at the heart of the galaxy, meet some old friends... and enemies
July 12, 2021
Really getting interesting now, and some old characters show up again!
September 29, 2021
Ney say
February 17, 2023
"hard sci-fi" this is not
April 23, 2024
First half was great second half was disjointed
February 24, 2017
Truly the worst book in the series so far.
The vast majority of the book was spent in what felt like one trippy addled world after another.
I get it, the characters are in an alien environment and Mr. Benfold wants to reinforce that the environment that they are in is so alien, but the story was drowned out by the descriptions of how alien the world is.
The plot of the entire series moved along, but it was hidden by the acid trip that most of this book felt like.
The vast majority of the book was spent in what felt like one trippy addled world after another.
I get it, the characters are in an alien environment and Mr. Benfold wants to reinforce that the environment that they are in is so alien, but the story was drowned out by the descriptions of how alien the world is.
The plot of the entire series moved along, but it was hidden by the acid trip that most of this book felt like.
October 9, 2008
Dans la grande épopée galactique de Gregory Benford – Le Centre galactique – voici encore un tome qui nous rapproche de ce fameux centre. En effet, les profondeurs furieuses nous narrent, à travers les yeux de Toby, le fils de Killeen (si, si, Killeen, souvenez-vous, le héros de La grande rivière du ciel), la suite des aventures de ces peuplades humaines déracinées, ballotées dans un univers où la guerre entre les êtres biologiques et mécaniques fait rage. Et celles-ci sont d’un autre tonneau que les précédentes, puisque toute l’aventure (ou presque), se passe cette fois dans un vaisseau spatial poursuivant sa route à la recherche de ce mythique centre galactique. Bien sûr, en chemin ils rencontrent des créatures bizarres (comme celles vivant dans l’espace) et affrontent des dangers peu communs, mais le voyage reste magnifique. Malheureusement, ce voyage magnifgique reste gâché par la plume assez médiocre, il faut bien l’avouer, de l’auteur. En effet, si les merveilles astronomiques sont décrites avec moult détails, il n’en va pas forcément de même avec les personnages, avec lesquels on a beaucoup de mal à avoir une relation normale de lecteur. Ceux-ci, y compris le héros, sont en effet plats et fades à un point rarement atteint. Pire encore, il en va de même pour l’intrigue, qui subit ici les pires traitemments possibles. Elle perd ainsi toute unité, oscillant au début, entre une quête initiatique sous forme d’exploration de l’univers (ce qui, je vous l’accorde, est loin d’être mesquin), avant de devenir une espèce de plongée dans des univers parallèles déchirés par la gravité. Bref, c’est complètement n’importe quoi. Et si les tomes précédents (comme l’assez réussie grande rivière du ciel) pouvaient encore être sauvés, celui-ci touche les limites de ma bonne foi de lecteur, au point de m’en vouloir d’avoir acheté le livre (enfin, presque, je suis quand même content de l’avoir lu, parce que j’ai pu mieux apprécier mmes lectures précédentes et suivantes). Et je trouve ça très malheureux, car je pense que Benford tenait, avec son exploration de l’univers et du centre galactique, un bon thème (quoi qu’également utilisé dans Un feu sur l’abîme, mais d’une manière très différente. Finallement, ce roman confirme la piètre opinion qu’on peut avoir des romans de hard-science : souvent écrits par des scientifiques, leur qualité littéraire est parfois très loin du minimum requis, non ?
February 18, 2014
I enjoyed the story which is focused on Toby, captain Kileen's son. It was nice to see things from a different point of view. There isn't as much action as in the previous two novels, and it seems that this book is more about a personal journey than a space opera. There are more bits of history revealed about humanity's glorious past and the origin of the "families" such as the Bishops.
In this book, family Bishop is still on the Argo running from mech pursuers. Along the Bishops, we have the myriapodia Quath and others who have allied themselves with the humans.
As the Argo gets closer to the galactic center strange things start happening, and this is where the book lost me a bit. Although my education was in the sciences (applied mathematics), I am not a theoretical physicist. Many of the concepts in the latter part of the book are difficult to understand and you probably have to take the author's word that it makes any scientific sense at all.
Of course it sets things up for the final entry in the series, and I will definitely be picking that up soon.
In this book, family Bishop is still on the Argo running from mech pursuers. Along the Bishops, we have the myriapodia Quath and others who have allied themselves with the humans.
As the Argo gets closer to the galactic center strange things start happening, and this is where the book lost me a bit. Although my education was in the sciences (applied mathematics), I am not a theoretical physicist. Many of the concepts in the latter part of the book are difficult to understand and you probably have to take the author's word that it makes any scientific sense at all.
Of course it sets things up for the final entry in the series, and I will definitely be picking that up soon.
January 11, 2017
The fifth book of the series shifts to Toby, the son of the protagonist from books 3 and 4. This one isn't as strong as the fourth book was though it isn't bad. Toby is certainly far less annoying than Nigel from books 1 and 2. But though Quath is present through much of the book, she isn't nearly the focus that she was in the last book and that's a shame. I'd love to know more about her and her species but that isn't explored further.
There are some really fascinating concepts explored here and we get a bit of a glimpse into the mech point of view but nothing that really explains why they are so antagonistic to biological life.
Overall, the book felt transitional, setting up for the climax to come in the final book.
There are some really fascinating concepts explored here and we get a bit of a glimpse into the mech point of view but nothing that really explains why they are so antagonistic to biological life.
Overall, the book felt transitional, setting up for the climax to come in the final book.
November 24, 2008
Number 5 in a series? Dammit! I hate that about SciFi. Nowhere on the cover does it say it's part of a series. And the ending just dumps you off with no real conclusion until the next book. I guess this explains all the useless mentions of past events. Very frustrating. This could have been a good standalone book (even as part of a series) if they had just ripped out some of the extra fluff and put a real ending on it.
April 20, 2010
I agree with Matt and Nathan in the comments below, I only found out it was part of a series near then end, and the last part of the book did melt my face!
There was some awesome futuristic stuff in this book, enzymes in peoples blood that turned alcohol into fuel, magnetic creatures, creatures that eat solar radiation etc
Its pretty out there.
There was some awesome futuristic stuff in this book, enzymes in peoples blood that turned alcohol into fuel, magnetic creatures, creatures that eat solar radiation etc
Its pretty out there.
November 30, 2011
Fantastic read. Benford takes the Galactic Center series on another turn, introducing us to the events at the heart of the galaxy for the final showdown between the remnants of humanity and the indomitable might of the machine intelligences.
March 2, 2021
A ship journeys toward galaxy's center in hopes they may find way to fight and destroy Mechs - artificial intelligences wanting to eradicate humanity - and captain may face mutiny. Weak book in series, ship life explored; book is claustrophobic and out-of-place with series' space diaspora.
February 18, 2013
Started off well but the last part became very surreal with numerous scenes which seemed to contribute nothing to the story.
October 19, 2013
I liked this chapter of the seres but the last third began to fray at the edges. Hoping that next book, the last in the series, will validate the journey.
October 3, 2013
I liked it the most of the last three books I the series, but there was too much acid trip in the last few chapters, and then it just ended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews