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What's New
Review Features
S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
Complete Listing
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Sean Williams |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
Notes: (E) - Evergence Series (with Shane Dix)
Notes: (S) - Stone Mage Series |
Metal Fatigue
Evergence - Part I (E)
Evergence Part II (E) |
Evergence Part III (E)
The Stone Mage & the Sea (S)
The Sky Warden & the Sun (S) |
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Our Ranking Metal Fatigue is the first
work I've read by Sean Williams. While this is his first full length novel, he's
apparently written quite a number of short stories that I'd love to check out
at some point. For his first novel, Metal Fatigue is very impressive and shows
a lot of potential for what will hopefully be some killer novels in the future.
Metal Fatigue is set in a post, somewhat apocalyptic United States. War had broken
out, ravaging most of the country, but it wasn't a complete destruction. While
the political system did collapse, regions survived, forming their own countries.
The book is centered around the city of Kennedy. After the wars, Kennedy walled
itself in from the outside world, preventing all outsiders from coming in and
all insiders from leaving. After 40 years of this absolute isolation, that books
title is coming to light. The city is simply running out of resources to sustain
itself. The infrastructure is more or less dying and they have nothing to replace
or repair it with. Against this backdrop is a fairly interesting plot. The general
of what is hoping to become the new United States is demanding a visit, offering
to reunify Kennedy into its empire to save it. Obviously this meets with a lot
of resistance from the population within the city. Suddenly a very mysterious
string or robberies and murders begin occurring but are they connected in some
way? The plot is filled with some wild twists, that really keep the pages turning.
While some of the twists are a little predictable, for the most part, the story
keeps you on the edge of your toes. The characters are well written but certainly
not the strongest feature of the story. The main character Roads, is the investigator
assigned to solve the robberies. He is fairly well developed, but he has a few
secrets that I thought were a bit too easy to guess at. Williams does do a nice
job getting you into the character. The side characters are a little bit too one
dimensional. Williams doesn't really delve into them too deeply. None of them
are terrible though, so they don't really hurt the book at all, they just don't
really add to it either. For the most part, this is a very plot and setting driven
book and it works. The setting is interesting all on its own, and proves to be
very unique and engaging. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, finishing
it in almost one sitting. (granted it was a long sitting on a flight back from
Europe but it was one sitting none the less.) Any fan of good action, plot driven
science fiction will enjoy this one. |
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Our Ranking This is the first novel in
the 3 part Evergence series by both Sean Williams and Shane Dix. (no slight intended
to Shane Dix, but this is in the Sean Williams category just because I already
reviewed a book by him and had a place to put it) The first one I read by Williams,
Metal Fatigue, was a very good book, pretty much just solid action. I'd always
meant to grab another of his. Unfortunately, his stuff is only available in the
UK, so it was a little tough, hence the big break between books. Well, so far,
Evergence was worth the wait. Much like Metal Fatigue, Evergence is a non-stop
action style book. To be honest, while I was reading this I sort of realized that
not many authors do this kind of style in science fiction anymore. It's sort of
a shame, but it does make the few you read a bit more enjoyable. Literally, from
the opening chapter, right to the very last few pages, this book throws action
scene after action scene at you. There really is no time for you (or the characters
as well) to catch your breath. Along with that, it's good action. Some very good,
nicely detailed battle scenes occur both with hand to hand and even a few space
battles, all of which are very realistic and very involving. Now, along with the
solid action is a nice plot and some well developed characters. The plot itself,
is really not overly complicated but Williams does manage to throw in a few loops
to add to the suspense. Since this novel really focuses on the action, I didn't
mind that the plot was fairly simple. For the most part, this is a space adventure
centering around a group of characters, trying to survive a crash onto a prison
planet. There is a good amount of intergalactic intrigue around the planet, how
they crashed and all, that feels like it will become much more involved in the
next two books, but for this one it really is pretty small in scope. The characters
are interesting enough to keep you involved and on the edge of your seat for the
action. There is a little intrigue about some of the characters, especially Cane
and the AI character, Box. Cane is fairly predictable though, and really reminded
me a lot of Roads, from Metal Fatigue. The AI is actually pretty interesting,
mostly because Williams does a good job masking the AI's intentions and abilities
slowly revealing more and more about it throughout the book. For the most part,
the rest of the characters are good, but nothing really stand out. Overall, I
enjoyed this book and pretty much raced through it a lot quicker than I thought
I would. Just from the non-stop action, I had a hard time finding a place to put
this down. My only real disappointment was the ending which seemed very rushed
and a little too neat (was expecting the bow to be tied at the end of it). Part
of the problem here is that this is a 3 part series, and it seemed Williams felt
he needed to end the first book like a stand alone book. It just seemed a bit
forced. I did enjoy this and intend to read the next two books if I can find them.
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Our Ranking This is the second of the
three book Evergence trilogy by Williams and Shane Dix. The first book was basically
a fun, easy read, so knowing I had a long flight to and from Europe ahead of me,
I grabbed this one, hoping for more of the same. Nothing like a nice action packed
page turner for that 6 hour flight. Unfortunately, on almost all accounts, this
one fell short of its predecessor. To be perfectly honest, the plot and intrigue
was interesting enough from the first book, but it really wasn't enough to carry
the book or make it worth reading the next part of the series. What succeeded
in the first book was the action and the pace. For the second book, the decided
to focus more on the plot, and revealing some of the mysteries from the first
book. The weird thing is, by the end of this book, you really aren't a whole lot
further along in the series. You barely learned anything, and nothing truly significant
happened. Along with this, the action really was almost non-existent and the paces
slowed a great deal. Finally, what was really frustrating about the plot was it
really felt like it was the exact same formula as the first book. The main characters
meet a new group of people, have a big meeting to see if the new group should
help the main characters, and so on. It was basically the exact same plot but
without the action in between. Along with that, I felt the characters took a bit
of a hit as well. Two of the more interesting characters from the first book (Cane
and Maii) were almost totally out of the story in this one. In addition, the new
characters Williams added were pretty boring and of very questionable motivations.
They really added nothing to the story and sort of behaved fairly weird from what
you'd expect. The story focused a lot on Roche, which became tedious, especially
since she was going through the exact same motions as the first book. Finally,
the Box was probably the most interesting character once again, and you actually
learned quite a bit more about it here. However, there was a pretty major twist
at the end of the book around the box which I still don't really think I buy.
Overall, this was quite a disappoint following the first book. Based on this book,
and the fact that the first book, while fun, wasn't anything spectacular, I think
I'm going to pass on the 3rd book of this for a while. Not sure I'll never read
it since I hate leaving series in mid book, but I think it'll be a bit before
I go back to it. |
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