Friday, November 2, 2012
Spotlight on "The Sigil Trilogy" by Henry Gee (with comments by Liviu Suciu)
As I do not have enough books to read, two days ago I have heard about a new sf trilogy that looks cool, The Sigil Trilogy by Henry Gee
who seems to be a Nature editor, writer of popular science book as
well as a Tolkien expert.
The novels are published by small press ReAnimus in primarily in e form with print on demand (available at Amazon,
directly, BN etc) and are blurbed by a ton of genre and science
luminaries (M Moorcock, KSR, E Brown, I Whates, N Kress among the sff people, J Gribbin, Ian Stewart among the pop science) and of course there is the inevitable PFH comparison.
I could not resist buying the omnibus, though it is true that I took advantage of a Halloween only coupon to get it at half-price from the 15.99$ cover and I read some 100+ pages so far. The book moves very well and it has a feel of a mixture of old and new style space opera, with a few characters that seem to reappear through space and time.
The main strands so far take place on Earth some 55 million years ago when the planet is the capital of a human led, multi-species galactic polity with very advanced technology and weaponry - planet scale warships and fleets of million of spaceships - but things seem to go wrong at the space-time level so presumably nothing can be done to prevent destruction and barbarism, and in 2024, when an archaeology graduate student with a mysterious girlfriend that appeared seemingly out of nowhere finds evidence that most of England and France have been terraformed millions of year ago.
A bit wish fulfillment, a bit pulpy but entertaining and keeping one turning the pages to find out what happens next.
" From Nature Editor Henry Gee comes a story of breathtaking scope and beloved characters. Spanning millions of years and the breadth of the universe, The Sigil Trilogy is an epic tale that explores the nature of humanity, belief, and love.
The Universe is dying from within. No one knows how to save it, so the Elders give a young Drover a last ditch chance to stop the rot. If only she knew where to begin.
Unaware of the threat to the universe, Ruxhana Fengen Kraa, Admiral of the 17th Rigel Fleet, is about to be cashiered for a stupendous tactical error. But Special Ops has an important and most bizarre job or him.
Eons away in time, Jack Corstophine is an archaeologist on Earth with an intuition about the land that he can't put into words—until the beautiful and brilliant Jadis Markham comes into his life. Together, they discover that the landscape of Europe is far from natural. The Earth bears the scars of an ancient civilization that goes back millions of years — and has terrible implications for the future of mankind.
The Sigil Trilogy traces the lives of compelling characters — people... entities... and... species... — through time and space. It's magnificent in background, beautifully written, and with the most memorable characters. The Sigil Trilogy is spellbinding, funny, thoughtful, and touching all at the same time. Complete with complex mysteries, massive battles, romance, hot aliens, steampunk cities, good scotch, armageddon, it's all here — you won't be able to put it down."
3:21 PM | 
Posted by
Liviu |
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2 comments:
Looks interesting but the price is ridiculous. I'm not going to pay $13,95 a piece for ~300 pages of Kindle edition, ever.
The original books are 9.99 as Kindle editions - and that is way too much - but the whole trilogy is priced as 15.99 and it contains all 3 books; now it is true that even that is too much for casual reading and something only fans will pay, while I got the book with the Haloween coupon for $8 only, but it is more realistic
However I agree that an author with no sff credentials (those blurbs are like academic letters and they attract attention but do not really count) and releasing through a very small press should price the ebooks reasonably at 2.99 each and 7.99 the whole trilogy to have the smallest chance for a large readership; maybe an extension of that 50% coupon will work