347th out of 439 books
—
514 voters
Undertow
by
Elizabeth Bear (Goodreads Author)
A frontier world on the back end of nowhere is the sort of place people go to get lost. And some of those people have secrets worth hiding, secrets that can change the future–assuming there is one. . . .
André Deschênes is a hired assassin, but he wants to be so much more. If only he can find a teacher who will forgive his murderous past–and train him to manipulate odds and...more
André Deschênes is a hired assassin, but he wants to be so much more. If only he can find a teacher who will forgive his murderous past–and train him to manipulate odds and...more
Paperback, 368 pages
Published
July 31st 2007
by Spectra
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
517)
Disclaimer: This isnt as much a review of the book as it is a report on my enjoyment of the book, and its probably more useful as a way to check on my tastes and quirks than to decide whether to read the book[return][return]It's terribly hard to write a book and I am conscious I couldn't even write something half as good as an awful book. And this book is not awful at all! [return]But this is just to say I hate to criticise someone's hard work, but when I try to write a review books I often end...more
http://idearefinery.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/holiday-reading-four-reviews.html
I have read three of Elizabeth Bear's science fiction novels -- the Jacob's Ladder series -- and I loved them very much. They were complex, fast-paced, and hugely inventive. I want to describe her prose as jagged; it's sometimes a bit challenging, but I really like it. I feel like I need to concentrate when I read her books, to keep track of everything, and that's a feeling I enjoy.
In many ways, Undertow was no differen...more
I have read three of Elizabeth Bear's science fiction novels -- the Jacob's Ladder series -- and I loved them very much. They were complex, fast-paced, and hugely inventive. I want to describe her prose as jagged; it's sometimes a bit challenging, but I really like it. I feel like I need to concentrate when I read her books, to keep track of everything, and that's a feeling I enjoy.
In many ways, Undertow was no differen...more
Crunchy SF about the mining exploitation of a planet with a population of amphibious aliens, and corporate wrongdoing, and people who can alter probability with their minds, and redemption, and time forks.
To be fair, this book had the misfortune to intersect my life during a deeply frustrating snowed-in interlude, some bad travel, and today a – let’s just call it the aftermath of New Year’s and leave it at that. So not good context.
But still, meh. There’s a lot of stunt writing here – completely...more
To be fair, this book had the misfortune to intersect my life during a deeply frustrating snowed-in interlude, some bad travel, and today a – let’s just call it the aftermath of New Year’s and leave it at that. So not good context.
But still, meh. There’s a lot of stunt writing here – completely...more
Undertow was a tepid read for me. I'll start with the good. The aliens are frogs that evolved into civilization forming beings. Some reviewers had issue with this choice of animal, but I found the alien behavior and society convincing. The idea of probability engineering is also intriguing. The only other book I have read that touches upon this idea is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the Improbability Drive.
Now here's the bad. Probability engineering in Undertow doesn't live up to the...more
Now here's the bad. Probability engineering in Undertow doesn't live up to the...more
Good solid SF. The concept of "conjuring", or altering probability by an extrapolation of Schrodinger's observer principle is very interesting. If you aren't familiar with Schrodinger's thought experiment, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%.... It is interesting that Bear takes the thought experiment not as orginally intended (as showing how absurd applying quantum observations to our reality is). Instead, she takes the concept and runs with it. The idea is that an observer can actu...more
I've previously read Carnival and Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. I've also sampled short stories by the author. I really enjoy her writing style - and even though the plot of Carnival failed to move me, I kept reading because of the characters, culture and story-telling.
Undertow is somewhat similar to Carnival. It has the world-building and in depth characters I've come to expect from this author, but this time I enjoyed the story more. As I have found is typical with an Elizabeth Bear novel, the t...more
Undertow is somewhat similar to Carnival. It has the world-building and in depth characters I've come to expect from this author, but this time I enjoyed the story more. As I have found is typical with an Elizabeth Bear novel, the t...more
I had a hard time focusing on the first 1/3 of this book...either because the author's writing style takes some getting used to or because of the sinus infection I was fighting off. Once things got going, I really enjoyed it, though at times I had to backtrack to figure out what was going on. Some of the dialogue was confusing, since the author has a habit of having a character begin a statement, interrupting it with a description or action of some sort, and then finishing the statement a paragr...more
I'm finding myself having to revise my opinion of Elizabeth Bear. I read her "Blood and Iron" for my book club in 2006, and really didn't like it very much. But I was told, "Her sf is much better than this venture into fantasy" - (I should mention here that I have this vague feeling that I then read 'Carnival', I think around June 2007, but I appear to have neglected to review it and I can't remember it, which is really not good. Although I have another vague feeling that I liked it.) Anyway, so...more
One sentence: Solid writing, nicely foreign future, good speculative use of the human impact of quantum physics, oddly un-foreign aliens.
I liked that the aliens, "ranids" or froggies in the vernacular, didn't have a species name. They call themselves "people" as most people do. Only the humans called them ranids. They were genderless, and this was done so well that at one point in the book there was what I assume was a spell-checker error and the neutral pronoun 'se' was suddenly 'she' which was...more
I liked that the aliens, "ranids" or froggies in the vernacular, didn't have a species name. They call themselves "people" as most people do. Only the humans called them ranids. They were genderless, and this was done so well that at one point in the book there was what I assume was a spell-checker error and the neutral pronoun 'se' was suddenly 'she' which was...more
Nov 12, 2012
Scott
added it
I have reluctantly adopted the policy of not giving star ratings to books written by the woman I'm dating. ;)
Undertow is not without its weaknesses and suffers a bit from the cramming of several major concepts each worthy of a full novel-length exploration into one brisk book. Even so, the world is richly built, the ideas flow fast and furious, and the proceedings are limned with Bear's trademark intelligence and precision.
This novel makes an interesting triptych with H. Beam Piper's earlier Li...more
Undertow is not without its weaknesses and suffers a bit from the cramming of several major concepts each worthy of a full novel-length exploration into one brisk book. Even so, the world is richly built, the ideas flow fast and furious, and the proceedings are limned with Bear's trademark intelligence and precision.
This novel makes an interesting triptych with H. Beam Piper's earlier Li...more
Oct 21, 2008
Tatjana
rated it
1 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Die hard Science fiction fans.
Recommended to Tatjana by:
Random Pick.
Shelves:
fiction
I clearly am not well suited to this flavour of sci-fi. I try... I really do... but it kind of leaves me empty.
Usually I can finish the books, but not this one. Of the fiction I was reading (Anansi Boys, Gunslinger, Nothing but the Dog, etc.), this book was incredibly flat. Usually I hear the voices and see the sites like a movie. There was no humour, no depth, no *life*.I thought I'd try to wake it up with the audio CD. That was much worse. The reader was definitely not my style... and it seeme...more
Usually I can finish the books, but not this one. Of the fiction I was reading (Anansi Boys, Gunslinger, Nothing but the Dog, etc.), this book was incredibly flat. Usually I hear the voices and see the sites like a movie. There was no humour, no depth, no *life*.I thought I'd try to wake it up with the audio CD. That was much worse. The reader was definitely not my style... and it seeme...more
On a planet called Greene's World, run by the Charter Trade Company, a civil war may be brewing between the frog-like natives and the humans. An assassin, a probability conjurer, a data miner, a revolutionary, and a native have big parts to play in the coming storm. The mining operations may be more than they seem, and probability manipulation is out of control...
Conjuring = manipulation of probabilities to ensure the desired outcome.
Awesome idea. But aside from using that as an explanation of intersteller transportation (which was actually pretty awesome), the potential was squandered. All conjuring was mentioned secondhand when showing it could have been amazing.
Overall, I think there was a lot that could have happened, but in the end I just felt disappointed.
Awesome idea. But aside from using that as an explanation of intersteller transportation (which was actually pretty awesome), the potential was squandered. All conjuring was mentioned secondhand when showing it could have been amazing.
Overall, I think there was a lot that could have happened, but in the end I just felt disappointed.
This was a solidly mediocre read, the characters had some good moments but were largely kind of flat. The plot development was reasonable but not wildly exciting; there were a couple of interesting twists in the tech but nothing really memorable. Check out Dust by this author, however, it kicks the crap out of this one.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. This, coupled with a childhood tendency to read the dictionary for fun, led her inevitably to penury, intransigence, the mispronunciation of common English words, and the writing of speculative fiction.
She lives in Massachusetts with a Giant Ridiculous Dog. Her partner, acclaimed fantasy author Scott Lynch...more
More about Elizabeth Bear...
She lives in Massachusetts with a Giant Ridiculous Dog. Her partner, acclaimed fantasy author Scott Lynch...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Loading...




































That's very, very nice of you, Lynch. T...more
May 06, 2013 12:24pm