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Golden Sunlands
The entire population of Calabel, a frontier world, is abducted by mysterious, ruthless aliens and transported to an unknown planet where the sun stands still in the sky.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 12, 1987
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About the author
Christopher Rowley
50 books95 followersChristopher Rowley is a prolific writer of both science fiction and fantasy novels. He was born in 1948 in Lynn, Massachusetts to an American mother and an English father. Educated for the most part at Brentwood School, Essex, England, he became a London-based journalist in the 1970s. In 1977 he moved to New York City and began work on The War For Eternity, his first science fiction novel. He currently lives in upstate New York.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 13, 2024
I really loved Rowley's The War for Eternity and The Vang series, definitely hidden gems, but Golden Sunlands, his fifth book, did not quite live up to those standards. While Golden Sunlands did have some great ideas, it just never really gelled, leaving more questions than answers at the end. Perhaps this was to be the first of a series, but Rowley never returned to it.
This starts on a colony world, Calabel, in the fairly distant future of about a million people in a star cluster sporting few inhabitable planets. Rowley introduces the main characters on the frontier planet (largely devoted to ranching some strange beast) when suddenly the alien ships arrive, robots land and subdue/capture the entire population, taking them aboard their spaceship packed like sardines. In a nod to hardish science fiction, the ship takes them to an obviously manufactured star system with several suns and departs to another universe, one created long ago by an alien race.
The 'world' the ex-colonists find themselves on is gigantic, many millions the surface area of Earth and basically flat; the world, one of many in this universe, is completely manufactured with its own sun that never sets. All this is by and by to the story, however, as the bulk of the tale revolves around the handful of characters introduced at the start as they attempt to deal with their new reality. The aliens had 'kidnapped' an entire colony once before, roughly a thousand years ago, and brought back the humans as slaves. The aliens that created the odd universe have fallen into decadence, however, really losing their technology and basically living on the remains.
A long, unending war is taking place, however, between the rump of the Aliens (and their various client species) and the AIs they had created that went feral. Most of the captured humans were 'mind conditioned', quickly trained, and set to the front lines of the war; a handful, however, managed to escape the mother ship and landed on a backwater providence. Rowley oscillates the POV among the main characters as the story progresses, taking us from the war zone to the backwater...
The lack of focus and unanswered questions really bugged, only partially offset by the fun action sequences and the unfolding of the past of the aliens and their technology. This reminded me a bit of Mick Farren's Their Master's War, but that was a tighter slice of pulp. All in all, a fun read, but ultimately, not very satisfying. 2.5 stars, rounding up for GR.
This starts on a colony world, Calabel, in the fairly distant future of about a million people in a star cluster sporting few inhabitable planets. Rowley introduces the main characters on the frontier planet (largely devoted to ranching some strange beast) when suddenly the alien ships arrive, robots land and subdue/capture the entire population, taking them aboard their spaceship packed like sardines. In a nod to hardish science fiction, the ship takes them to an obviously manufactured star system with several suns and departs to another universe, one created long ago by an alien race.
The 'world' the ex-colonists find themselves on is gigantic, many millions the surface area of Earth and basically flat; the world, one of many in this universe, is completely manufactured with its own sun that never sets. All this is by and by to the story, however, as the bulk of the tale revolves around the handful of characters introduced at the start as they attempt to deal with their new reality. The aliens had 'kidnapped' an entire colony once before, roughly a thousand years ago, and brought back the humans as slaves. The aliens that created the odd universe have fallen into decadence, however, really losing their technology and basically living on the remains.
A long, unending war is taking place, however, between the rump of the Aliens (and their various client species) and the AIs they had created that went feral. Most of the captured humans were 'mind conditioned', quickly trained, and set to the front lines of the war; a handful, however, managed to escape the mother ship and landed on a backwater providence. Rowley oscillates the POV among the main characters as the story progresses, taking us from the war zone to the backwater...
The lack of focus and unanswered questions really bugged, only partially offset by the fun action sequences and the unfolding of the past of the aliens and their technology. This reminded me a bit of Mick Farren's Their Master's War, but that was a tighter slice of pulp. All in all, a fun read, but ultimately, not very satisfying. 2.5 stars, rounding up for GR.
February 25, 2012
1ST BRITISH EDITION, story left unfinished but don't know of a sequel
October 17, 2012
Not as good as his others. While we get good characters and a great setup. That's all there is. It ends abruptly with nothing resolved.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews