Have you ever read a book and been so in love with the setting that you wish you could spend more time there and didn't care about characters or plot or anything else? After finishing Marrow, I was somewhat underwhelmed by the actual story, but was quite in love with the planet sized spaceship and its passengers. I considered myself acutely lucky, then, to have run across this book, which I didn't even know existed, while reading its predecessor. I was able to set down the one and begin immediately on this.Some sequels could be read out of order and still make sense, but this one begins exactly where the last one leaves off, and relies almost entirely on events and characters from the first book. The characters finish mopping up the messes from the first volume and begin slowly to realize that they have a new problem even larger than the first, but really there isn't much in the way of plot for the first half of the book. I cannot recall having read a book that was so slow to develop and been so unconcerned about it. It takes easily the first 300 pages before anything starts to happen - characters are introduced, situations are hinted at, but everything happens at a slow, even languorous pace. But as I've mentioned already, I was quite willing to wallow further in this world and didn't really care if they ever had a crisis to solve. And once the book starts moving, it really churns out action befitting the tale of a planet sized spaceship.One warning is that it is left open for a sequel at the end, but although the author has apparently set various short stories in this universe, there is not yet a new novel.
I read Robert Reed mostly for his ideas and concepts, not because of his superior storytelling or character development. This sequel to Marrow didn't even have the novelty of introducing the Great Ship and Marrow itself, something both the novella and book used to keep the reader engaged. Here, high concept physics is flying all over the place, which though certainly inventive, doesn't serve as a hook to keep you turning the page (except to get through it faster). The characters are paper thin, and you don't really care what happens to any of them; I found myself caring more about the Great Ship. Nonetheless, any and all personal drama is swept aside to deal with the galaxy-crossing, eon-spanning confrontation between the enormous Great Ship and the even larger 'thing' that lives in the darker-than-dark Inkwell.The antagonists' motivations are unclear, or so simple that it's difficult to imagine all the time, energy, matter and effort that is wasted on such simple goals. The protagonists always have a solution or counterattack in the wings, so you never get a sense of them being in any real danger.Overall, it felt like a weak attempt to emulate the cosmos spanning stories of Stephen Baxter.
What do You think about The Well Of Stars (2007)?
Ce roman est la suite de le grand vaisseau. Et si dans le premier tome le big dumb object était le vaisseau lui-même, il s'agit cette fois-ci d'une nébuleuse ... Et je ne vois pas comment on peut faire plus énorme comme objet bizarre.Il y a donc des trous noirs par milliers, des créatures encore plus étranges que dans les tomes précédents, des humains quasi-immortels aux pouvoirs quasi-divins, et tant d'autres choses superlatives.Je trouve étonnant que chacun des tomes de cette histoire arrive à m'étonner à ce point, alors que la nature hyperbolique de ces histoires devrait me lasser. Mais pourtant, non : je reste ébahi comme un gamin par le gigantisme des choses.Et j'en veux encore !
—Nicolas
As I read this book, I realized that the closest comparison I could make was to Doc Smith. There's the same epic sense of scale, both in the events that occur and in the sheer size, distance, and lengths of time involved, and also the same steely resolve of the characters as they manufacture superweapons and battle in some awesome, over-the-top war against completely bizarre invaders. Strangely, the most interesting characters are not the transhuman Captains, those hundred-millenia-old superhumans whose personalities are burnished smooth by endless duty. In this case, I was drawn to the person set up as a polar opposite: O'Layle, the traitor, whose character is an endless ouroboros of recursively self-believing lies and venality. He and the emissary Mere, a person whose crucible existence has left her the barest reduction of a human being, are the most engaging characters to read about and I found myself wanting to skip the intervening chapters to get back to their story.Reed manages to step up from the awesomeness of the Great Ship itself by introducing the Inkwell, an engineered nebula where powerful, unknowable things lurk and build mysteries in the darkness, and who even push the cold dust around to prevent them from condensing into prestellar material. The resolution of their mystery didn't quite satisfy, but I found the weaving of their philosophy to be very unsettling.The story fortunately remains with the Great Ship for the vast amount of it, and I think this strengthens the experience, as opposed to the previous book. We also see more of the intriguing Remoras and amusingly crusty harum-scarums.
—Derek
