Prohpets by Swann Reviewed + Al and George Talk

The Guardian published a follow up interview with Alastair Reynolds after breaking news that he received a £1m deal (just over $1.6M). (via SF Signal)

George breaks the silence. Sort of:

But I am making a small exception now because... well, I'm feeling rather jazzed right now, and for the first time in a very long while, I think I can see a glimmering that might just be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Bouncing back to Science Fiction after last week’s review, comes Prophets by S. Andrew Swann the first book in a new trilogy which itself is set in the same world as his The Hostile Takeover Trilogy and Moreau series. As the review indicates, I enjoyed the book. Below is a snapshot of the review:

Swann throws quite a few SF tropes into this novel – for starters, the novel is a Space Opera set 500 years into the future. You’ve also got genetically engineered humans and demi-humans, high-speed space travel, alien super-intelligences, and artificial intelligences. What’s more impressive is that he makes it work very well, with each element serving the next and the ones before it in a smooth and complimentary fashion.

The far future setting is well-thought out and ingeniously crafted. The sense of depth to the universe and some of the characters (particularly Nickolai and Tjaele Mosasa) further lends weight to the rich history of which Prophets shows just a snapshot. Swann could have easily overloaded the reader with infodump after infodump about his future history. As I’ve said about other writers who do what Swann did here, he filters in the details in a very balanced manner through his character’s conversations and internal thoughts.

Swann’s one of those DAW authors* who seems to churn out books regularly and to whom the publisher seems very loyal. For the trilogies he’s released with them, DAW published omnibus versions of their trilogies/series (The Hostile Takeover Trilogy and The Moreau Omnibus, as well as the forthcoming Dragons and Dwarves: Novels of the Cleveland Portal).



*DAW has done the same thing with authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, C.J. Cherryh, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Jennifer Roberson, and John Zakour to name just a few.

So what am I saying? The fact that DAW is doing this is great for the authors since it keeps their stories in print. It’s great for readers since it makes it easier to ‘catch up’ with authors who have a backlist with whom said reader has recently been acquainted.