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EUROPE'S MOST VISITED SF/F WEB SITE |
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Ares Express by Ian McDonald
It has fantastic and strangely believable characters that you follow with such intensity that they jump straight off the page and into your brain. At its heart (which must beat at 2500bpm, this is such a fast moving book), this novel is a rip-roaring, gut-wrenching good story. It roars along carrying you with it, like the trains that dominate the landscape of Ares Express (ouch, I did try to avoid that cliché, but sorry it's true!). The fact that it is just a story is made clear by McDonald all the way through the text. The heroine - who has the greatest name - only survives calamity after calamity because she is the heroine. McDonald describes incidents in terms of the story eg "but was this the Third Act Last-Minute Reversal of Fortunes, or was this the ultimate Point of No Return" therefore you know the ending almost from the start. This allows McDonald to let his mind and pen run free. It is almost like taking your pen for a walk - hitting certain points, but allowing yourself to explore a whole range of possibilities no matter how surreal. It is magically surreal - from a guest appearance from the Glenn Miller Band to a time traveller who can travel to any point in time but only in the confines of his town. It made me gurgle with laughter at the images he projected into my brain. Sometime the images and ideas can be overpowering and I found that during certain passages I had to take breaks from reading just to assimilate what he was saying. In fact, I would compare this book to getting drunk. It is intoxicating: from the very start. It grabs and doesn't let go showing great flashes of insight about how the world operates. It can make you feel ill if you overdose at one sitting and sometimes you wonder if what is spinning: your head or the world! But like getting drunk as soon as you have finished the book, you forget all the negatives and just remember what a great book it is. If you like the sprawling complexity of ‘Titus Groan’ or the black humour of Michael Marshall Smith, then try this book. If you like a simple read to relax after a hard day's work then I would steer clear. This is a book that you will either like or loathe from the first chapter. If you hate the first chapter then there is no point struggling through the rest but if you love it then sit back and enjoy one of the strangest, weirdest, fantastic reads of your life. Katie McGivern Check out website: www.earthlight.co.uk
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OTHER REVIEWS - March 2002
NEW NOVELS The Encyclopedia Of Cult Children’s TV by Richard Lewis Starlight Man: The Extraordinary Life Of Algernon Blackwood by Mike Ashley Techno-Life 2020: A Day In The World Of Tomorrow by Lois Gresh Knight’s Dawn (The Red Pavillions: Book 1) by Kim Hunter Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
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Imagine
a Mars encased in a diamond greenhouse. Imagine great trains with
an intricate society hurtling across the surface of Mars. Imagine
one girl saving the reality of her world by saving metallic angels
that circle above Mars. If you can imagine all this and a thousand
and one other ideas then you must be insane or reading ‘Ares Express’.
This
book is a huge sprawling colossus of a book that at times will give
you a huge sprawling colossus of a headache. It is packed with ideas
and theories about life and alternative realties.
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