What do you think?
Rate this book
Confluence #1-3
Confluence
Near fine in very good dust jacket (some edgewear to the dj) Hardcover first edition - New SFBC / Science Fiction Book Club Edition., (2000). Hardcover first edition -. Near fine in very good dust jacket (some edgewear to the dj). First edition. First omnibus edition containing three complete novels - Child of the River, Ancients of Days and Shrine of Stars - set in the world of Confluence, half fertile valley, half crater strewn desert. 878 pp. Wraparound dust jacket art by Jim Burns.
878 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
30 people are currently reading
260 people want to read
About the author
Paul McAuley
228 books424 followersSince about 2000, book jackets have given his name as just Paul McAuley.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
A biologist by training, UK science fiction author McAuley writes mostly hard science fiction, dealing with themes such as biotechnology, alternate history/alternate reality, and space travel.
McAuley has also used biotechnology and nanotechnology themes in near-future settings.
Since 2001, he has produced several SF-based techno-thrillers such as The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, and White Devils.
Four Hundred Billion Stars, his first novel, won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988. Fairyland won the 1996 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 1997 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best SF Novel.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 7, 2019
This is a wholly remarkable book: sort of Paul McAuley simultaneously channelling both the late great Gene Wolfe and the slightly later but equally great Jack Vance.
It is a true epic, in parts of Stapledonian scale, but also very long and very involved. It's the sort of book from which I had to take occasional breaks to read shorter novels, including the entirety McAuley's own Quiet War sequence. Nonetheless I knew I would be back for more, hungry to know how Yamamanama's story would play out.
Yes, it's long. Yes, it lags in places. But the richness is almost unsurpassed, the imagination astonishing. It has McAuley's slightly jaded, even jaundiced view of humanity, our distance from godhead even as we near transcendence; but it also has some of the most sophisticated worldbuilding this side of Dune.
A stunning book, if not a light or easy read. Definitely worth devoting a month or two to, if you have the patience, or half a year to if you don't. A remarkable, career-capping masterpiece.
It is a true epic, in parts of Stapledonian scale, but also very long and very involved. It's the sort of book from which I had to take occasional breaks to read shorter novels, including the entirety McAuley's own Quiet War sequence. Nonetheless I knew I would be back for more, hungry to know how Yamamanama's story would play out.
Yes, it's long. Yes, it lags in places. But the richness is almost unsurpassed, the imagination astonishing. It has McAuley's slightly jaded, even jaundiced view of humanity, our distance from godhead even as we near transcendence; but it also has some of the most sophisticated worldbuilding this side of Dune.
A stunning book, if not a light or easy read. Definitely worth devoting a month or two to, if you have the patience, or half a year to if you don't. A remarkable, career-capping masterpiece.
December 9, 2007
I read this several years ago and was blown away by the concept of an artificially created world, long abandoned by its creators, and maintained by machines some of which are understood and controlled by the world's current inhabitants. When an orphan child appears who can control the world's machines, he becomes sought after by differing sides in a protracted religious war.
The author creates a rich, believable world that is both ancient and technological, and a political structure ruled by competing departments that will ring true with anyone whose ever been within ten feet of a bureaucracy.
This edition is a trilogy book, containing all three books, Child of the River, Ancient of Days, and Shrine of Stars. I picked this up to read again and am halfway through Child of the River. I'll have more when I finish reading this.
The author creates a rich, believable world that is both ancient and technological, and a political structure ruled by competing departments that will ring true with anyone whose ever been within ten feet of a bureaucracy.
This edition is a trilogy book, containing all three books, Child of the River, Ancient of Days, and Shrine of Stars. I picked this up to read again and am halfway through Child of the River. I'll have more when I finish reading this.
March 6, 2013
The first novel in the trilogy was intriguing and inspired me to move on to the second. But I'm afraid the story bogged down in a morass of useless detail. World-building is one thing, but soporific minutiae is (are) another. The characters (two-dimensional, it is revealed) get bogged down in endless factions and the resultant palace intrigue. I kept expecting the Lollipop Guild to rear its ugly head and join the fray. I stopped before the end of book two and will not take it up again. Too many other good reading choices out there.
January 8, 2017
This is a big book - well a trilogy in one book - though with a simple, possibly slightly over-used, central driver for the plot - an orphan with strange powers seeks out his mysterious destiny. Much of the book involves journeying through the world of Confluence, and a rich and peculiar world it is; sometimes a little too rich and peculiar, or perhaps I was so busy looking at the scenery I failed to spot how it fitted together. [*mild spoiler alert*] Having said that, this is also proper science fantasy, something we don't see enough of these days IMHO, complete with (for the time) up to the minute cosmology and a side-order of temporal paradox.
February 7, 2015
First book is interesting. Second less so. Third book a slog, and then the resolution is a big cheat. All along he's been chased and tortured cyclically by Dr Dismas then Prefect Corin then Dr Dismas then Prefect Corin etc. You just want to scream out "For gods sake Yama put an end to it." And then it turns out the protagonist was the prime mover all along? Bah. Time loops suddenly account for everything and the protagonist can sing "I'm my own grandpa".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 21, 2017
A trilogy, comprising of the novels Child of the River, Ancient of Days, and Shrine of Stars.
It’s one of McAuley’s first novels and even if it’s cleaned up in this re-release I still think it’s a very good effort. The atmospherics of this far-future world are well-rendered. It reminds me of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, in a good way. Recommended.
It’s one of McAuley’s first novels and even if it’s cleaned up in this re-release I still think it’s a very good effort. The atmospherics of this far-future world are well-rendered. It reminds me of Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, in a good way. Recommended.
September 23, 2014
An excellent world-building first book of a SciFi trilogy with a believable story and great characters! Teenager Yama is endearing and grows up under our eyes to a bitter and vengeful young man and eventually to a wisdom beyond his years (at the end of the trilogy). The professor McAuley's background in biology shows at every page, as the details of the fauna and the flora of the man-made 'world' are described in astonishing and sometimes extremely boring detail.
July 7, 2016
A rather convoluted book that took some time to get into. The physical context also took a little bit of effort to imagine. But I did get hooked and came to enjoy the book a lot. I suspect this book will be one that one will put aside after a few pages, or will stick with it and come to enjoy as it progresses.
February 19, 2020
People often say they like dope AF far-future SF but if they haven't read this series then they haven't and are also drunk. Fight me, you know I'm right.
September 29, 2021
Three novels that really are just one are combined here (with two closely associated short stories at the very end).
A fully imagined and fascinating world is created here! The characters and well-defined and compelling for the most part. The story is mostly gripping, mostly. The enigmatic ending is either brilliant or just a muddle that attempts to bring meaning to a long journey...I lean toward muddle at this point.
It is interesting to note that, although I did discover one Easter egg that made me smile, there are no other smiles in the book. It is relentlessly humor-free. Not a quip. Not a moment of irony. Nothing.
It does give a certain tone and texture to the story, but...
But...I am still intrigued by Mr. McAuley.
A fully imagined and fascinating world is created here! The characters and well-defined and compelling for the most part. The story is mostly gripping, mostly. The enigmatic ending is either brilliant or just a muddle that attempts to bring meaning to a long journey...I lean toward muddle at this point.
It is interesting to note that, although I did discover one Easter egg that made me smile, there are no other smiles in the book. It is relentlessly humor-free. Not a quip. Not a moment of irony. Nothing.
It does give a certain tone and texture to the story, but...
But...I am still intrigued by Mr. McAuley.
April 29, 2017
This is a good book if you love the Dying Earth aesthetic.
It suffers from rather weak characters, but is otherwise great. The second book is a bit of a slog, and I admit I found myself putting this book down for months at a time, but the world was always enough to get me to pick it back up and resume plugging away.
I'd recommend it if you like sci-fi, and are willing to forgive imperfection in something as ambitious as this is.
It suffers from rather weak characters, but is otherwise great. The second book is a bit of a slog, and I admit I found myself putting this book down for months at a time, but the world was always enough to get me to pick it back up and resume plugging away.
I'd recommend it if you like sci-fi, and are willing to forgive imperfection in something as ambitious as this is.
December 16, 2018
Rather more palatable ruminations on the Wolfe's Book of the New Sun tetralogy rather than the original book itself. It poses the same questions, albeit in a more direct fashion, has similar structure and physics, but it arrives to the same answers (or disagrees with the Severian's tale) in a very different fashion. It'd be worth reading only because of that, but it also has a lot of very interesting and on-point observations.
Current political turmoil regarding identity, stagnation, progress, collective vs individual were reflected here almost 10-15 years before they went mainstream. Also, where would you find extremist Ayn Rand / Thatcher-like individualists, which impose their principles with the iron fist of Khmer Rouge/Maoist-like regime, and basically late-Soviet communists (with all supplementary inefficiency, tardiness and mindless rituals no one really understands and values anymore included) that actually respect individual choice and try to be more humane than their rivals.
And you have to respect the author for the courage to look at the dark side of nu-age "atheism+" - it's no longer an act of freedom, but mindless oppression and exploitation. Also, he strikes at the crux of the trap that various forms of anti-scientific and anti-reason postmodernist ideas present to humanity. Here's why - my favourite excerpt:
"After that came the long hours of argument in which the pedagogues set out some trivial truth and used it as a wedge to open a door onto a bewildering landscape. It seemed to Pandaras that everything was allowed except for that which was forbidden, but it was difficult to know which was which because there were no rules. The other prisoners had the same problem, and all their objections and expressions of bafflement were met by the same answer.
"You do not see," the pedagogue would say in its sweet, high-pitched voice, "because you cannot see. You cannot see because you have not been allowed to see. You have not been taught to see. You are all blind men, and I will open your eyes for the first time."
At the heart of the heretics' philosophy, like the black hole at the center of the Eye of the Preservers, was a single negation. It was so simple and so utterly against the self-evident truth of the world that many of the prisoners simply laughed in amazement every time the pedagogues repeated it. It was that the Puranas were not the thoughts of the Preservers, set down to reveal the history of the Universe and to determine the actions of right-thinking men, but were instead a fabrication, a collection of self-justifying lies spewed forth by the victors of a great and ancient war that was not yet over. There would be no resurrection into eternal life at the end of all time
and space, because the Preservers had fled from the Universe and could not return. They had created Confluence, but they had abandoned it. The fate of each man did not lie within the purlieu of the infinite mercy and power of the Preservers, but in his own hands. Because the Preservers could not return from the Eye, they no longer existed in the Universe, and so each man must be responsible for his own fate. There was no hope but that which could be imagined; no destiny but that which could be forged.
The pedagogues were more fervent in their unbelief than any of the pillar saints or praise chanters who had devoted their lives to exaltation of the glories of the Preservers. They would allow no argument. This negation was the central fact that could not be denied; from it, all else followed. From the first, Pandaras was quite clear on what the heretics did not believe, but it took him a long time to understand what they did believe, and once he had it, it was so simple that he was amazed that he had failed to grasp it at once. Like the woman in the pictures in his master's copy of the Puranas, the heretics wanted to live forever.
Current political turmoil regarding identity, stagnation, progress, collective vs individual were reflected here almost 10-15 years before they went mainstream. Also, where would you find extremist Ayn Rand / Thatcher-like individualists, which impose their principles with the iron fist of Khmer Rouge/Maoist-like regime, and basically late-Soviet communists (with all supplementary inefficiency, tardiness and mindless rituals no one really understands and values anymore included) that actually respect individual choice and try to be more humane than their rivals.
And you have to respect the author for the courage to look at the dark side of nu-age "atheism+" - it's no longer an act of freedom, but mindless oppression and exploitation. Also, he strikes at the crux of the trap that various forms of anti-scientific and anti-reason postmodernist ideas present to humanity. Here's why - my favourite excerpt:
"After that came the long hours of argument in which the pedagogues set out some trivial truth and used it as a wedge to open a door onto a bewildering landscape. It seemed to Pandaras that everything was allowed except for that which was forbidden, but it was difficult to know which was which because there were no rules. The other prisoners had the same problem, and all their objections and expressions of bafflement were met by the same answer.
"You do not see," the pedagogue would say in its sweet, high-pitched voice, "because you cannot see. You cannot see because you have not been allowed to see. You have not been taught to see. You are all blind men, and I will open your eyes for the first time."
At the heart of the heretics' philosophy, like the black hole at the center of the Eye of the Preservers, was a single negation. It was so simple and so utterly against the self-evident truth of the world that many of the prisoners simply laughed in amazement every time the pedagogues repeated it. It was that the Puranas were not the thoughts of the Preservers, set down to reveal the history of the Universe and to determine the actions of right-thinking men, but were instead a fabrication, a collection of self-justifying lies spewed forth by the victors of a great and ancient war that was not yet over. There would be no resurrection into eternal life at the end of all time
and space, because the Preservers had fled from the Universe and could not return. They had created Confluence, but they had abandoned it. The fate of each man did not lie within the purlieu of the infinite mercy and power of the Preservers, but in his own hands. Because the Preservers could not return from the Eye, they no longer existed in the Universe, and so each man must be responsible for his own fate. There was no hope but that which could be imagined; no destiny but that which could be forged.
The pedagogues were more fervent in their unbelief than any of the pillar saints or praise chanters who had devoted their lives to exaltation of the glories of the Preservers. They would allow no argument. This negation was the central fact that could not be denied; from it, all else followed. From the first, Pandaras was quite clear on what the heretics did not believe, but it took him a long time to understand what they did believe, and once he had it, it was so simple that he was amazed that he had failed to grasp it at once. Like the woman in the pictures in his master's copy of the Puranas, the heretics wanted to live forever.
April 1, 2014
(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
This did take me a little while to read, but that was because the book was so long, rather than being hard to read.
The idea behind this book was particularly intriguing and I felt myself pulled in almost from the start, though I did find it somewhat difficult to picture the particular characters at first. The bloodlines thing made sense as I read more, but it was hard to picture exactly what type of creature had been introduced to begin with.
I did like Yama at first, but kind of went off him a bit as the story progressed and he grew up. By the end of the trilogy, I was finding it somewhat difficult to follow him. I also still have little idea of what exactly was going on in the end - there just seemed to be a very circular thing to it and I think the ending could have been modified to make it a bit more satisfactory.
I particularly liked Pandaras' character in this book. He grew up in the book as well, but still kept to his true personality. One thing in particular he says really struck a chord with me - and I think it's something I should keep in mind when thinking of certain plots. I won't say exactly what he says, but it's in response to a comment made about dying to save the world.
I think my favourite part of this book was Pandaras' friendship and utter loyalty towards Yama. I've always liked books where a true friendship forms and it endeared Pandaras to me even more.
I believed more in Yama's relationship with Tamora than with Derev. I just couldn't really picture the emotions he had for Derev being all that real.
The idea of all of the bloodlines descending from animals was a pretty intriguing one. I could recognise some of the species' ancestors, but not all of them. The science fiction aspect worked particularly well, though there was quite a bit that I had trouble understanding.
The two stories at the end were interesting, but I didn't feel that the second one added a great deal. If it was meant to reveal something new, I didn't see it.
I would look at other books by this author in the future. I did find this one an entertaining read and there was an awful lot of world-building that clearly went on with this, even if I did feel it got a bit bogged down with detail at time.
(This review may contain spoilers).
This did take me a little while to read, but that was because the book was so long, rather than being hard to read.
The idea behind this book was particularly intriguing and I felt myself pulled in almost from the start, though I did find it somewhat difficult to picture the particular characters at first. The bloodlines thing made sense as I read more, but it was hard to picture exactly what type of creature had been introduced to begin with.
I did like Yama at first, but kind of went off him a bit as the story progressed and he grew up. By the end of the trilogy, I was finding it somewhat difficult to follow him. I also still have little idea of what exactly was going on in the end - there just seemed to be a very circular thing to it and I think the ending could have been modified to make it a bit more satisfactory.
I particularly liked Pandaras' character in this book. He grew up in the book as well, but still kept to his true personality. One thing in particular he says really struck a chord with me - and I think it's something I should keep in mind when thinking of certain plots. I won't say exactly what he says, but it's in response to a comment made about dying to save the world.
I think my favourite part of this book was Pandaras' friendship and utter loyalty towards Yama. I've always liked books where a true friendship forms and it endeared Pandaras to me even more.
I believed more in Yama's relationship with Tamora than with Derev. I just couldn't really picture the emotions he had for Derev being all that real.
The idea of all of the bloodlines descending from animals was a pretty intriguing one. I could recognise some of the species' ancestors, but not all of them. The science fiction aspect worked particularly well, though there was quite a bit that I had trouble understanding.
The two stories at the end were interesting, but I didn't feel that the second one added a great deal. If it was meant to reveal something new, I didn't see it.
I would look at other books by this author in the future. I did find this one an entertaining read and there was an awful lot of world-building that clearly went on with this, even if I did feel it got a bit bogged down with detail at time.
September 12, 2015
Picked this up because I had heard it has a lot of similarities to Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. It does, but sadly lacks the depth of characterization and reflection of Wolfe's masterwork. The protagonist is not terribly sympathetic, and the primary antagonist is mainly a cypher in terms of motivation and abilities. It's not a bad book, but it misses the mark in trying to convey the scale of time and space that it encompasses.
November 9, 2014
A somewhat disappointing read. It starts strongly and remains fairly gripping but the conclusion feels very frayed. The world building and sense of place and culture do make up for the shortcomings of polite and character though.
September 11, 2014
Awesome I really liked this. It's an interesting take on post humanism and reading it all in one go allowed me to experience the authors vision better.
This is one to read!
Highly recommended
This is one to read!
Highly recommended
March 8, 2016
I found these books heavy going. I was close to putting it down several times but persevered. I think he has written far better.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews