Sister Alice
Apr. 28th, 2006 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylI've just finished reading Sister Alice by Robert Reed and, to be honest, it's left me slightly perplexed; perplexed to the point where I'm not at all sure whether I liked it or not.
Tens of millions of years ago, during the founding of the Great Peace, a thousand people were selected to become the seeds of vast post-human dynasties, with each new family member cloned from the first. Of all the families, the Chamberlains are the greatest, the most creative, the builders of new worlds, and Ord, number 24,411, is the current baby. His long, slow childhood, passed in childish games and violent snowball wars, is shattered by the arrival of Alice 12, a sister almost as old as the founding. After meeting an older brother, nicknamed Perfect, Ord acquires many of Alice's talents — her post-human mechanical and magic enhancements — and heads off across the galaxy in an attempt to work out what Alice wants him to do.
It seems to me that the problems with the novel are very much bound up in it's strengths: the vast scale of the events and characters make them very hard to identify with. The great Families are more like Greek or Norse gods than ordinary people, with their astonishing abilities, strong rivalries, apparent alliances and the willingness of the strong to turn on the weak, but they lack the humanity of characters from the ancient myths. Likewise the plot, for all it's apparent sprawling vastness, actually felt more like a slow, ritual retelling of a primal ice trekking story, rather than a twisting turning gripping quest.
On the other hand, there are some nice moments, even if they are rather spread out. The way that Alice is treated after her return to Earth is particularly interesting, with all her great achievements written off and the petty vindictive spite with which she's treated by the other families showing that maybe humanity hasn't actually moved all that far in ten million years. There was also the iconic snowfare fight at the very start which, in a nice touch, seemed to set the tone for the characters' behaviour later on in the novel.
So, conclusions? Rather ambivalent really. If you're determined to read a Robert Reed novel, go for Marrow instead — although it has weaknesses of its own, the Great Ship makes a fabulous backdrop and the characters are rather more identifiably human than the Chamberlains and their fellows. On the other hand, Sister Alice does have some nice moments, just not enough of them to kindle real enthusiasm on my part.
Sorry about that.
Tens of millions of years ago, during the founding of the Great Peace, a thousand people were selected to become the seeds of vast post-human dynasties, with each new family member cloned from the first. Of all the families, the Chamberlains are the greatest, the most creative, the builders of new worlds, and Ord, number 24,411, is the current baby. His long, slow childhood, passed in childish games and violent snowball wars, is shattered by the arrival of Alice 12, a sister almost as old as the founding. After meeting an older brother, nicknamed Perfect, Ord acquires many of Alice's talents — her post-human mechanical and magic enhancements — and heads off across the galaxy in an attempt to work out what Alice wants him to do.
It seems to me that the problems with the novel are very much bound up in it's strengths: the vast scale of the events and characters make them very hard to identify with. The great Families are more like Greek or Norse gods than ordinary people, with their astonishing abilities, strong rivalries, apparent alliances and the willingness of the strong to turn on the weak, but they lack the humanity of characters from the ancient myths. Likewise the plot, for all it's apparent sprawling vastness, actually felt more like a slow, ritual retelling of a primal ice trekking story, rather than a twisting turning gripping quest.
On the other hand, there are some nice moments, even if they are rather spread out. The way that Alice is treated after her return to Earth is particularly interesting, with all her great achievements written off and the petty vindictive spite with which she's treated by the other families showing that maybe humanity hasn't actually moved all that far in ten million years. There was also the iconic snowfare fight at the very start which, in a nice touch, seemed to set the tone for the characters' behaviour later on in the novel.
So, conclusions? Rather ambivalent really. If you're determined to read a Robert Reed novel, go for Marrow instead — although it has weaknesses of its own, the Great Ship makes a fabulous backdrop and the characters are rather more identifiably human than the Chamberlains and their fellows. On the other hand, Sister Alice does have some nice moments, just not enough of them to kindle real enthusiasm on my part.
Sorry about that.
