|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Icarus by Roger Levy
01/12/2006 . Source: Tomas L. Martin 
pub: Gollancz. 423 page enlarged paperback. Price: £12.99 (UK only). ISBN: 0-575-07860-X. Buy Icarus in the USA - or Buy Icarus in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Following successful first novels 'Reckless Sleep' and 'Dark Heavens', Roger Levy was lauded as a promising new writer of dystopic futures with a great many complimentary comparisons to Phillip K. Dick. In 2005, Levy was seriously wounded in a knife attack but fortunately for readers recovered to produce this, his third novel, 'Icarus'.
This story takes place over three distinct interweaving plot-lines on different planets. One follows Cap, a religious preacher on Earth that develops more and more power in the not too distant future where environmental problems and global warming are increasingly reducing the amount of habitable places on the planet.
Further into the future, two civilisations have developed life on two incredibly different planets. On Haven, the upper atmosphere is irradiated and uninhabitable, the high strength winds ripping apart anything out there for more than a few minutes. The people there have colonised underground, digging tunnels and caverns beneath the surface. A strict government restricts information in the harsh climate whilst digging machines explore the rock for further expansion.
Haze is a near-perfect planet in comparison, full of large forests and temperate weather. As if in direct reaction to this, the society on Haze has become far more vicious and harsh compared to Haven. Children are taken from their parents' villages at early ages and are moulded into violent, cruel beings by the Lords of the Angwat. Villagers are considered to be inferior by the Lords and killing is indiscriminate and a regular occurrence.
As Cap increases his hold over a dying Earth's politics, we are shown the struggles of Mexi - a young girl on Haven and Quill - a surveyor in one of the tunnel-making machines who finds an escape pod from the first landing buried under lava. The dead body and the package it still holds in its mummified hands cause Quill to have to go on the run, chased by the government officials of Fact, who refuse to acknowledge the pod exists and will kill to stop the truth from coming out.
Petey, a woman on Haze, has her son Marten taken from her, to be corrupted by the Lords at the Angwat. Gradually, over the course of the book, all three plotlines intertwine and come together as it becomes clear that each of the three worlds is very much connected to the others.
Like his previous novel, 'Dark Heavens', I felt Roger Levy was a little slow coming out of the blocks to establish his world and characters but, when really got going, 'Icarus' got its claws into me and I really enjoyed it.
With three unique worlds - a future Earth and two new planets - to describe and identify with early on, I felt for the first half the book struggled at times to make any of the three seem real enough. My hold on each world was indistinct and I would have liked to have seen more exploration of each one to make it seem more like a real world. Likewise, although Levy's fondness of the dystopic can create wonders, it often limits the believability of his books, too. I found it hard to suspend my disbelief that things could be as hopeless as things got, especially on Earth.
Barring this lack of vividness, 'Icarus' is a fine novel and the moment when the Earth storyline brings everything into focus is superb - a genuine surprise. From here on. the plotting to the climax is crisp and thrilling, showing every bit of the promise heralded of the author.
With a richer description and a bit less gloom, this could have been a masterpiece. As it is, Roger Levy has constructed a good book worthy of a read. Try it out.
Tomas L. Martin
|
|
