Sign in with FacebookPeter Hiller's Reviews > The Grand Conjunction
The Grand Conjunction (Astropolis, #3)
by Sean Williams (Goodreads Author)
by Sean Williams (Goodreads Author)
** spoiler alert **
My final review on the series...first thing I noticed was that I gave all 3 stars. Enjoyable but not especially great.
Ok. This series is interesting, but never really grabbed me. The first book seemed to have a lot of ideas and moved fast and I was enjoying it's pushing forward. Otherwise though, I'm sad to say that as a whole the series felt very very flat to me.
The series seemed to be pushing scale for scales sake. We were pushed via light not being breeched into all sorts of period where people go away for 100,000 years and then they get back aaaanndd.....nothing has changed. Maybe the guy in charge is different, but other than that absolutely nothing. No sudden revolutions(and in galactic timescale constant), not major changes at the top. No back and forths that would actually appear in any hundred year timescale. I felt that the entire plot could have worked just as well if carried out over 100 years with FTL and the line is simply on account of FTL communcations needing boosters. This would have lent the story some level of immediacy and lost none of the tension or feel of scale.
Anyway, yeah render is a total nutcase. I thought he was talking in poetry until I met sean williams and he explained the song thing. It's altogether rather odd, and feel like sean was just bored at his job and wanted to add a joke in a little bit. Render himself seemed like a nothing character, a talking mcguffin that did little in the story that couldn't have been said or done by someone else. He's the readers Mary sue, and I'm sad to say his portrayal of the best of the 20th century to survive seems rather likely to me.
What the hell is with the ending of this series? I know Sean has to keep up a huge output of salable books, but it's like he said "ok, I need to make each one 300 pages in order to sell them, so I'll end each book at 300-330. Oh my, book 3 I'm at page 280. Better summ up enough plot for 3 more books in the last few pages" I know you can do long sweep endings, but this one just made me feel cheated. I kept wanting to see those books.
The gender bender reveal was interesting, but I didn't really see it's relevance to the plot.
All up, a decent attempt at vastness in a space oepra series that didn't work. Sorry Sean
Ok. This series is interesting, but never really grabbed me. The first book seemed to have a lot of ideas and moved fast and I was enjoying it's pushing forward. Otherwise though, I'm sad to say that as a whole the series felt very very flat to me.
The series seemed to be pushing scale for scales sake. We were pushed via light not being breeched into all sorts of period where people go away for 100,000 years and then they get back aaaanndd.....nothing has changed. Maybe the guy in charge is different, but other than that absolutely nothing. No sudden revolutions(and in galactic timescale constant), not major changes at the top. No back and forths that would actually appear in any hundred year timescale. I felt that the entire plot could have worked just as well if carried out over 100 years with FTL and the line is simply on account of FTL communcations needing boosters. This would have lent the story some level of immediacy and lost none of the tension or feel of scale.
Anyway, yeah render is a total nutcase. I thought he was talking in poetry until I met sean williams and he explained the song thing. It's altogether rather odd, and feel like sean was just bored at his job and wanted to add a joke in a little bit. Render himself seemed like a nothing character, a talking mcguffin that did little in the story that couldn't have been said or done by someone else. He's the readers Mary sue, and I'm sad to say his portrayal of the best of the 20th century to survive seems rather likely to me.
What the hell is with the ending of this series? I know Sean has to keep up a huge output of salable books, but it's like he said "ok, I need to make each one 300 pages in order to sell them, so I'll end each book at 300-330. Oh my, book 3 I'm at page 280. Better summ up enough plot for 3 more books in the last few pages" I know you can do long sweep endings, but this one just made me feel cheated. I kept wanting to see those books.
The gender bender reveal was interesting, but I didn't really see it's relevance to the plot.
All up, a decent attempt at vastness in a space oepra series that didn't work. Sorry Sean
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read The Grand Conjunction.
sign in »
