Robert Defrank > Recent Status Updates

Excellent beginning, but a word of warning: there's only one review on Amazon and it's got a spoiler for the ending!

Re-reading this book and just finished the first chapter. Tim Powers is a genius. Damn he's a genius. The sort of genius where you can see how he does it, and you marvel even more at his ambition and ability to pull such a story off.

Even when Powers is off his game he's amazing, and when he's at his best he's a marvel, and this book is one of his best.

I'm in awe of Simmons' worldbuilding, both in terms of the alien environments he describes, and the human cultures that he extrapolates in those worlds. It's detailed to the point of overindulgent and part of me wants to yell at him to get on with the story, but another part luxuriates in the mountains of T'ien Shan, the leviathan squid of the gas giant, the rich ritual of the Pax. I already see myself rereading this

I'm about a third in and my library hold runs out. Now I've got to wait until I can download again. Fortunately, there's no shortage of books to read in the meantime.

Oops, accidently hit 'currently reading' by mistake when I only downloaded it for later. Don't expect to start this one for awhile yet.