Monday, August 31, 2009

Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder (review)



Title: Sun of Suns
Author: Karl Schroeder
Illustrator: N/A
Length: 11 hours, 21 minutes
Genre: Fiction
Dewey Decimal: F Sch
ISBN:
Cost: $0

Karl Schroeder is labeled by many to be a master. But he is one that I do not follow.

This book would fall into another one of those that I just don't "get." And while Schroeder does a good job in presenting the world and the characters, I think it's the sub-genre of steam punk or slip stream or sci-fi that I don't really enjoy. I honestly think I have been spoiled by the many years of reading Star Wars novels.

Aside from my obvious dislike for this book is my appreciation for the science behind it. Schroeder did great research on this book in keeping the science feeling real or at least possible in the near future. The characters, especially Hayden Griffin and Venera Fanning, come off the page as real people.

In the end, I gave up before the end. About three hours into the eleven hour novel, I called it quits. The concept of slip stream slipped form my hands and steam punk lost steam.

2 comments:

1979 semi-finalist said...

The cover on this is fantastic though - I'll give it that at least.

Neil Richard said...

The artwork I've been seeing lately has been great, which really sucks for me since I often judge a book by its cover. And the sci-fi books have been especially great, lots of gritty, cool, realistic looking stuff.