InterZone review of BANNER

[lizwilliams]

A very positive one, too.

I've noticed a real polarisation on this novel - it's had on the most part some excellent reviews, but some very different points of view.

Publisher's Weekly thinks I've gone too far and too weird. IZ thinks it isn't weird enough, harks back to Simak, and I need to be more original. SFX said that the future world was lacking in that sense of melancholy that characterises a lot of far future fiction, IZ thinks it has it in spades.

They all think I might write something amazing one day. Hmmmm. I do try.

Comments

[dys7topia.livejournal.com]

Pfffft, critics. What do they know?

You're doing magnificently, m'dear. Keep it up.

Kealan

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Aww! Thank you! :-)

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Did you see the nice review in Mslexia? The review began, "Banner of Souls is the most strikingly alien of the three novels..." and ended, "A book of vigour and beauty." I haven't read it yet myself, but it's on my To Read pile. *g*

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, no, I didn't. Must chase that up. Thank you!

[autopope.livejournal.com]

It's a good book -- not necessarily a classic of the genre that will be remembered many decades hence, but certainly satisfying and interesting. It struck me as being just slightly too narrow-focus -- the universe didn't feel as expansive as it could have. I'm reaching for terms here, but what I'm thinking about is The Book of the New Sun, or perhaps Paul McAuley's River of Stars trilogy. It's not fair to compare Banner of Souls directly to those (for starters, it's a fraction the size) but to me it hinted at a move into that kind of far-future post-Vancian texture-driven format, and I've got a strong feeling that if you can find a theme of mythic scope to bolt underneath it you will create a classic.

(Am I making sense, or merely wibbling in a hung-over way? You decide.)

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

No, you're not wibbling - makes a lot of sense.

I don't know that I'm that into mythic scope, though...I seem to explore odd narrow little side paths. Still, you write what you write.