The city of Silk hangs in the sky 200 miles above the planet Deception Well, a planet full of biological complexity believed to be fatal to anybody who descends the space elevator. And yet the citizens of Silk can't got anywhere else, stranded there for generations. Lot is the son of a charismatic prophet who went down to Deception Well, hoping to find communion there rather than death, and many of his followers still believe he's down there and will return. Lot doesn't know what he believes... but he does know that he has the same ability to influence minds and that something needs to be done.This is set in the same universe as The Bohr Maker, although a significant amount of time later, and you can read it alone if you wish to, although it may help to understand a few of the concepts, and the ending has a little more resonance having read the earlier book. I also didn't like this as much as The Bohr Maker, so maybe it'd be a good idea to start there for that reason alone.That's not to say this is a bad book. I liked it, and there's a dizzying array of ideas and concepts here, some which again seem ahead of their time, with more recent books dealing with a few of the same themes and getting more recognition for it. It's a dense and complex book. Unfortunately, I think that complexity does come at the expense of plot, it's just not as entertaining as it might be... in fact, for much of the book there wasn't anybody or group I was rooting for, they all seemed to be in the wrong. Which isn't a flaw itself, good books can exist with no characters you want to win, but it needs to be that much better to pull it off, and here, it doesn't quite reach that level, the characters are a little too flat and their ethically troubling decisions never seem adequately addressed, nor does the story build to any kind of particularly satisfying conclusion. It reads like a book where the author got so caught up in the ideas the story was based on that they lost sight of the story itself in trying to explore them. I will be continuing to the next book in the series, Vast, eventually, which I've heard is much better.
Yes. Linda Nagata's "Deception Well" is weird, slow, and filled with contradictions. But, the biggest problem is the whole family of logic elephants in the room. From almost the very start of the book until its very end, you're annoyed with structural issues. But, you've also got to contend with the constant nagging question in the back of your head related to the core plot: why didn't/don't the powers that be (TPTB) just let those people go down to the surface of the planet? Those people are nothing to TPTB. In fact, they're worse than nothing: they're invaders. Why not just let them go down to what TPTB are sure is certain doom? That decision leads to a whole lot of baby elephants that keep nagging at you:- if TPTB want to avoid deaths, why do things that lead directly to the death of most of them?- if TPTB want to save them, why keep them as permanent refugees?- if TPTB are worried about what the main character will do, why not just let him go down to the planet?- if TPTB believe absolutely that they can be re-born from their own metadata (to an extent one main character will let his body be killed so he can transmit said metadata to a different location and only have one instantiation), why don't they just record the main character (to salve their consciousness) and toss him out an airlock?- if TPTB are afraid of reactions from whatever's down on the planet, why fire weapons down there?- if TPTB want the main character to come back once he's out of reach, why ask him when there's not anything he can do about it?- if TPTB want the main character's help, why do they beat him about the head and shoulders and otherwise torment him?It would have been nice to have all those elephants removed (as well as the structural problems (especially the slow pacing)) since Nagata might have been able to focus some attention on her weird universe and explain it better. But, the way this is written, I'll have to rate it at a Pretty Bad 2 stars out of 5.
