Eternal Light
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"[A] novel that combines exotic descriptions, slam-bang action and a mind-blowing secret history of the universe" - David Langford
"Amazing story written with skill and literary excellence" - Goodreads Reviewer
In the aftermath of an interstellar war an enigmatic star is discovered, travelling towards the Solar System from the galactic core. Its appearance adds a new and dangerous factor in the turbulent politics of the inhabited worlds. Rival factions - the power-holders of the ReUnited Nations, the rebels who secretly oppose their power, and the Religious Witnesses - all see advantages to be gained.
As a psychic, Dorthy Yoshida is tasked with confronting the invisible enemy, unaware of her destined role in humanity's final battle. What does humanity hope to achieve? And why did the star begin its journey to Earth over half a million years ago?
Ambitious ideas-driven space-opera from the stylistic master of British SF
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ambitious but disappointing, this new work by the author of Four Hundred Billion Stars is set centuries in the future after humans have won a war with a race of vicious xenophobic aliens at a distant stellar outpost. Towards the end of these campaigns, Dr. Dorothy Yoshida was implanted by a dying enemy matriarch with immense but difficult-to-tap knowledge of this ancient alien culture. After a five-year ``debriefing'' by the Navy, Yoshida finds tenuous freedom under the wing of the immensely wealthy, near-immortal Talbeck Barlstilkin, who plans to use her in an elaborate revenge scheme involving a renegade star on a collision course with our solar system. Along with veteran combat pilot Suzy Falcon and a schizoid cyborg mechanic and artist called Robot, Yoshida and Barlstilkin eventually become the crucial pawns in the endgame of a multimillion-year contest between eons-old civilizations. McAuley works best on a grandiose scale, creating both awe-inspiring starscapes and grand cosmological theories with impeccable scientific detail. However, much of the book is derivative, a farrago of SF elements done better elsewhere. This dense, difficult work has some great ideas, but the background is more interesting than the plodding plot.
