{"id":138,"date":"2007-07-03T13:36:30","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T18:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/?p=138"},"modified":"2007-07-03T13:51:37","modified_gmt":"2007-07-03T18:51:37","slug":"quick-review-crystal-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/2007\/07\/03\/quick-review-crystal-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Review: Crystal Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t remember how I stumbled across  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tobiasbuckell.com\/weblog\">Tobias Buckell&#8217;s<\/a> website, the web&#8217;s funny that way, but I&#8217;m glad I started to post on his comments &#8212; he&#8217;s kind and likes to engage with his readers.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m really glad I liked his first novel, <em>Crystal Rain<\/em>.<br \/>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=lstrblg-20&amp;o=1&amp;p=8&amp;l=as1&amp;asins=0765312271&amp;fc1=000000&amp;IS1=1&amp;lt1=_blank&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;bc1=FFFFFF&amp;bg1=D7D3D3&amp;f=ifr\" style=\"width: 120px; height: 240px\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" align=\"right\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I read the first third of it on his website before cracking upon the hardcover I found earlier this year. It was another book that had been on my must read list, although I can&#8217;t remember why. I found the hard cover during those few months of scarcity before the paperback came out.<\/p>\n<p>So, did I mention it would be a quick review? Because I didn&#8217;t think yesterday&#8217;s review of <em>Red Thunder <\/em>turned out to be all that quick.<\/p>\n<p>Buckell writes a nice tight book that&#8217;s well plotted and full of two-fisted (well, one fist, one hook) pulp action. The characterization also works very well and he really knows how to drive a reader&#8217;s curiosity &#8212; you want to read more about this rich, rich world he&#8217;s built.<\/p>\n<p>And what a world he&#8217;s made. Like the amnesiac protaganist, John DeBrun we&#8217;re a bit lost and confused, at first, trying to piece this world together, but it only makes the journey that much better. What led to a lost post-apocolyptic planet full of Carribean refugees, bloody-minded neo-Aztec warriors and strange squishy gods? It&#8217;s an intriguing  world where nanotech, biotech and steamtech all collide in with satisfying logic.  Aside from my fever dreams, where else can we see an immortal with a hook for a hand fight Aztec(a)s in airships high above the jungle?<\/p>\n<p>These reviews can be all cheerleading, though (apologies in advance if Toby actually stumbles across this review). The subplots tended to meander. I didn&#8217;t really end up caring as much about the protaganist&#8217;s son&#8217;s journey as Buckell wanted me to and the politics of Capitol City could have either been more crucial to the overall plot or dropped entirely, by my account.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m mixed about one character, Pepper, a figure from the DeBrun&#8217;s past. Amoral killing machines are fun, really, but do they all need trenchcoats? (To be fair, I don&#8217;t have the book in front of me, but I managed to picture Pepper as a bit of the long-coated asskicking type.)<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t complain about the science too much, since the plot depends on fantastic technology and wormholes. The planet itself seemed plausible, but I wonder if Buckell glided over the fact that there seems to be only two types of climate: cold and tropical.<\/p>\n<p>But when Buckell stretched, he succeeded. His universe is brilliantly conceived, and I look forward to reading the sequel, <em>Ragamuffin<\/em>. And I thought I would get annoyed or distracted by the Carribean dialect in which the characters speak, but I really didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>The verdict: Read it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t remember how I stumbled across Tobias Buckell&#8217;s website, the web&#8217;s funny that way, but I&#8217;m glad I started to post on his comments &#8212; he&#8217;s kind and likes to engage with his readers. So I&#8217;m really glad I liked his first novel, Crystal Rain. I read the first third of it on his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant-andor-rave","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V2xo-2e","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}