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Archonate Universe
Guth Bandar Esploratore della Noosfera
Per oltre centomila anni l’Istituto di Ricerca Storica della Vecchia Terra aveva tracciato la mappa dell’inconscio collettivo dell’umanità: i Paesaggi, ovvero il ricordo degli ambienti dell’esistenza umana; le Situazioni, che conservavano ogni circostanza che aveva scandito la vita dell’uomo; gli Eventi, che erano i più dettagliati fra tutti, piccoli e grandi punti di svolta attorno ai quali aveva ruotato la storia. Guth Bandar, esploratore della Noosfera, nei suoi viaggi aveva anche incontrato ognuna delle quattro figure archetipali: il Saggio, lo Sciocco, il Distruttore e il Redentore, i “soliti sospetti” che popolavano i miti e le leggende della mente dell’uomo.
Ma improvvisamente, strani fatti che accadono nella Noosfera cominciano a fargli sospettare che l’inconscio collettivo abbia assunto consapevolezza di sé.
Ancor peggio, che abbia un proprio piano di azione. E la cosa può costringere Bandar a discendere nelle più scure foreste della mente, dove l’unica via di scampo dalla pazzia è la morte.
«Se vi piace la science fantasy di Jack Vance vi piacerà Matthew Hughes.» Locus
«Con questo libro Hughes ha creato un universo con prospettive particolarmente fertili per un’attività spettacolare.» Tangent
«Il ritmo frenetico di questo romanzo lo rende simile a un videogame: Guth Bandar deve affrontare livelli di difficoltà crescente e guadagnare esperienza lunga la via fino al confronto finale. Una cavalcata assolutamente divertente.» Quill and Quire
«Mondo intrigante con idee capaci di allargare la mente.» SF Signal
«Il coraggio di Hughes è ammirevole.» The New York Review of Science Fiction
Ma improvvisamente, strani fatti che accadono nella Noosfera cominciano a fargli sospettare che l’inconscio collettivo abbia assunto consapevolezza di sé.
Ancor peggio, che abbia un proprio piano di azione. E la cosa può costringere Bandar a discendere nelle più scure foreste della mente, dove l’unica via di scampo dalla pazzia è la morte.
«Se vi piace la science fantasy di Jack Vance vi piacerà Matthew Hughes.» Locus
«Con questo libro Hughes ha creato un universo con prospettive particolarmente fertili per un’attività spettacolare.» Tangent
«Il ritmo frenetico di questo romanzo lo rende simile a un videogame: Guth Bandar deve affrontare livelli di difficoltà crescente e guadagnare esperienza lunga la via fino al confronto finale. Una cavalcata assolutamente divertente.» Quill and Quire
«Mondo intrigante con idee capaci di allargare la mente.» SF Signal
«Il coraggio di Hughes è ammirevole.» The New York Review of Science Fiction
- GenresScience Fiction
384 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2009
17 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Hughes
203 books282 followersBorn in Liverpool, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old. Married since late 1960s, he has three grown sons. He is currently relocated to Britain. He is a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Writers.
A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians.
He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.
His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.
He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, The Endeavour Award for his historical novel What the Wind Brings, and the Global Book Award in the dark fantasy category for The Ghost-Wrangler.
A university drop-out from a working poor background, he worked in a factory that made school desks, drove a grocery delivery truck, was night janitor in a GM dealership, and did a short stint as an orderly in a private mental hospital. As a teenager, he served a year as a volunteer with the Company of Young Canadians.
He has made his living as a writer all of his adult life, first as a journalist in newspapers, then as a staff speechwriter to the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and, since 1979, as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia.
His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s, Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Interzone, and a number of "Year’s Best" anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005.
He has won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, The Endeavour Award for his historical novel What the Wind Brings, and the Global Book Award in the dark fantasy category for The Ghost-Wrangler.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 31, 2015
Reify your dream-self
Definitely a 'good read', as long as you can digest the abstruse concepts of another's dream world. Bonus: you're bound to increase your vocabulary too.
Definitely a 'good read', as long as you can digest the abstruse concepts of another's dream world. Bonus: you're bound to increase your vocabulary too.
August 27, 2024
The Commons--the Jungian noosphere as seen in Hughes's own Archonate setting--is a fascinating concept but I find it not a particularly compelling read. Bandar navigates this virtual landscape with its forms and rules but the interactions are largely with the archetypical constructs of the environments and not actual characters (at least as far as I read, which wasn't over half of it). It's a technical exercise and not tied to story or character other than Bandar himself and the incidentals of his academic environment.
You get dollops of Vancian language constructions--"a man as long on enterprise as he was short on qualms"--but that was not sufficient for me to wade through the capitalized terms (Event, Landscape, Situation) and the various setting fiddly bits that makes it all work.
You get dollops of Vancian language constructions--"a man as long on enterprise as he was short on qualms"--but that was not sufficient for me to wade through the capitalized terms (Event, Landscape, Situation) and the various setting fiddly bits that makes it all work.
November 4, 2017
With the Guthrie Bandar stories, Matthew Hughes provides us with a fun, insightful,and page turning journey through the world's of the archonate and the collective unconscious. If you're not already a fan of Mr. Hughes, pick up this book and become one.
March 7, 2020
I stumbled across The Commons at the library and took it out thinking I had found a rare book by Matthew Hughes. I soon discovered that it was a fix-up novel of the stories about Guth Bandar that appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I also realized that I already owned the book, in a way. The author had the collection of original stories available on his site and I had purchased it some time previously.
I think returning the book and reading the originals instead might have been a mistake. The author admits in his introduction that he eliminated some inconsistencies and repetitive descriptions and I definitely noticed some of the mistakes that he cleared up as I was reading. (That stuff can drive me crazy).
I liked the stories overall, but none of them really stood out. Guth Bandar isn't a particularly endearing character, and in at least two of the stories, he gets into trouble while daydreaming in "the Commons" where he should always be on his guard (as he constantly warns us).
The last story was actually a retelling of Black Brillion from Guth Bandar's viewpoint and while enlightening and interesting, it suffered from the way the story was told. To his credit, Hughes was trying not to copy/paste Black Brillion into "The Helper and his Hero" but the way he did it turned the story into a "tell, not show" type of story instead of show, not tell.
I think returning the book and reading the originals instead might have been a mistake. The author admits in his introduction that he eliminated some inconsistencies and repetitive descriptions and I definitely noticed some of the mistakes that he cleared up as I was reading. (That stuff can drive me crazy).
I liked the stories overall, but none of them really stood out. Guth Bandar isn't a particularly endearing character, and in at least two of the stories, he gets into trouble while daydreaming in "the Commons" where he should always be on his guard (as he constantly warns us).
The last story was actually a retelling of Black Brillion from Guth Bandar's viewpoint and while enlightening and interesting, it suffered from the way the story was told. To his credit, Hughes was trying not to copy/paste Black Brillion into "The Helper and his Hero" but the way he did it turned the story into a "tell, not show" type of story instead of show, not tell.
August 19, 2023
Guth Bandar is an apprentice noõnaut, studying at the Institute of Historical Inquiry, an entity devoted to the noösphere, what psychologists called the Unconscious and the students call the Commons. That human sphere has been studied for millenia and there is nothing new to be found there, or so the scholars think. It is unfortunate for Bandar that he is about to prove them all wrong, particularly as nobody will believe him…. Matthew Hughes has a number of great sf/f series, generally set in the penultimate era of Old Earth, close in time to Jack Vance’s Dying Earth universe. I am more fond of other series characters than I am of Guth Bandar, but the stories themselves, originally published in F&SF, are quite complex and entertaining. This book contains those tales, including a very long novella, and while there are no previously unpublished stories here, it’s nice to have them all in one volume; recommended!
June 3, 2023
Resonance
You might experience soul's resonance while reading this book. It starts like something hard to remember trying to become a coherent thought and then it dawns in realization. Enjoy the book.
You might experience soul's resonance while reading this book. It starts like something hard to remember trying to become a coherent thought and then it dawns in realization. Enjoy the book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews