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SCULPTEURS DE CIEL
201pages. poche. Broché.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Alexander Jablokov
83 books31 followersAlexander Jablokov writes science fiction for readers who won't give up literate writing or vivid characters to get the thrills they demand. He is a natural transition for non-SF readers interested in taking a stroll with a dangerous AI or a neurosurgeon/jazz musician turned detective, while still giving hardcore SF fans speculative flash, incomprehensible aliens, and kitchen appliances with insect wing cases.
From his well-regarded first novel, Carve the Sky, an interplanetary espionage novel set in a culturally complex 25th century, through the obscenely articulate dolphins with military modifications of a Deeper Sea, the hardboiled post-cyberpunk of Nimbus, the subterranean Martian repression of River of Dust, and the perverse space opera of Deepdrive, he has come to Brain Thief, a contemporary high-tech thriller with a class clown attitude.
From his well-regarded first novel, Carve the Sky, an interplanetary espionage novel set in a culturally complex 25th century, through the obscenely articulate dolphins with military modifications of a Deeper Sea, the hardboiled post-cyberpunk of Nimbus, the subterranean Martian repression of River of Dust, and the perverse space opera of Deepdrive, he has come to Brain Thief, a contemporary high-tech thriller with a class clown attitude.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
October 2, 2023
I really enjoyed this. It's like an Umberto Eco mystery in space. I enjoyed the central focus on aesthetics: the descriptive writing wasn't just good for bringing me into the story but also for building a gallery of art in my mind for me to enjoy. I also really liked how the centuries of history between the present and the setting seemed as rich and full of conflict, turmoil, and political intrigue as our present and the centuries behind us. It seemed human and possible. And the characters were equally believable and it was easy to care what happened to them.
September 20, 2016
Carve The Sky is a 1991 science fiction novel by Alexander Jablokov starring Anton Lindgren (Seneschal to George Harvey Westerkamp, Lord Monboddo, Interrogator of Boston, Colonel Division of External Security {Westerkamp wears a lot of hats}) and Vanessa Karageorge (Ordinary Fellow of the Academia Sapientae).
The plot of the novel revolves around the search for a famous and skilled sculptor who’s supposed to have been dead for a couple of years. A new piece by him has appeared and it contains a very special extra-terrestrial mineral. A mineral that might contain the secret to space travel. The Union of Nations wants the mineral. The Technic Alliance of the outer planets and satellites wants it. And nobody knows what the Academia Sapientae wants, but they’re involved. The threat of the Second Solar War looms. It’s a Macguffin hunt. It’s a tour novel.
But what makes this novel special is that it’s so wonderfully decadent, filled with delightful touches. Because of weapons satellites left over from the Orthodox Empire, there’s no high speed travel on Earth. No jets or anything like that. All long distance travel is done by zeppelin and train. A slow decadent pace for a book that goes from Boston to the Pamir Mountains via an art gallery in Paris and a monastery in Istanbul and then to the Asteroid Belt via a stop on the moon for more art and a boar hunt.
It’s on the Moon, in the city of Rutherford which rests in the Crater Clavius, where Jablokov sets the scene that truly informs the reader that this isn’t a usual SF novel. The scene is a wild animal hunt. On the Moon. A regular event where the Justice of Clavius, a member of the nobility, releases a flood of wild animals in the streets and forests that stretch below the surface of the Moon. Boar, deer, gazelles, pronghorn antelopes. All of them being hunted with spears and bows by the citizens. On the Moon.
Jablokov does something that I greatly admire on the level of technique. Many of the chapters start with extracts from books, reports, catalogues, tourist guides. The extracts give a little background to the chapter: lunar culture, Anatolian politics, cult history, best place to get noodles in the Asteroid Belt. This is a very artful way to avoid info-dumps. So artful, that I’m going to steal it for my next book.
Jablokov has written several other very good SF novels. River of Dust takes place in the same universe as Carve The Sky, some of the same characters but younger. Same flavor. Nimbus is a near future SF novel informed by the chaos of the post-Soviet 90s. There’s a very cute bit in Nimbus of jazz playing LARPers who pretend to be living in a world where rock and roll never happened. It’s a typically Jablokovian grace note. He’s a very good writer who, as far as I can tell, fell victim to the collapse of the mid-list. And we readers are the poorer for it.
I highly recommend Carve The Sky. A very good SF novel written with imagination and verve.
The plot of the novel revolves around the search for a famous and skilled sculptor who’s supposed to have been dead for a couple of years. A new piece by him has appeared and it contains a very special extra-terrestrial mineral. A mineral that might contain the secret to space travel. The Union of Nations wants the mineral. The Technic Alliance of the outer planets and satellites wants it. And nobody knows what the Academia Sapientae wants, but they’re involved. The threat of the Second Solar War looms. It’s a Macguffin hunt. It’s a tour novel.
But what makes this novel special is that it’s so wonderfully decadent, filled with delightful touches. Because of weapons satellites left over from the Orthodox Empire, there’s no high speed travel on Earth. No jets or anything like that. All long distance travel is done by zeppelin and train. A slow decadent pace for a book that goes from Boston to the Pamir Mountains via an art gallery in Paris and a monastery in Istanbul and then to the Asteroid Belt via a stop on the moon for more art and a boar hunt.
It’s on the Moon, in the city of Rutherford which rests in the Crater Clavius, where Jablokov sets the scene that truly informs the reader that this isn’t a usual SF novel. The scene is a wild animal hunt. On the Moon. A regular event where the Justice of Clavius, a member of the nobility, releases a flood of wild animals in the streets and forests that stretch below the surface of the Moon. Boar, deer, gazelles, pronghorn antelopes. All of them being hunted with spears and bows by the citizens. On the Moon.
Jablokov does something that I greatly admire on the level of technique. Many of the chapters start with extracts from books, reports, catalogues, tourist guides. The extracts give a little background to the chapter: lunar culture, Anatolian politics, cult history, best place to get noodles in the Asteroid Belt. This is a very artful way to avoid info-dumps. So artful, that I’m going to steal it for my next book.
Jablokov has written several other very good SF novels. River of Dust takes place in the same universe as Carve The Sky, some of the same characters but younger. Same flavor. Nimbus is a near future SF novel informed by the chaos of the post-Soviet 90s. There’s a very cute bit in Nimbus of jazz playing LARPers who pretend to be living in a world where rock and roll never happened. It’s a typically Jablokovian grace note. He’s a very good writer who, as far as I can tell, fell victim to the collapse of the mid-list. And we readers are the poorer for it.
I highly recommend Carve The Sky. A very good SF novel written with imagination and verve.
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February 22, 2014If you haven't read anything by Alexander Jablokov yet - you MIGHT want to save this for later. I say that because i've read all his books, and so far this is by far the very best one. If you read them in the order they came out - as i did - there is an -admittedly unfair- sense of slight disappointment. Hopefully that is just me, but in any case, this is a full-on masterpiece.
This, his first novel makes me think of Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. His later works (like with Mr. Welles) are quite solid and sound. Just not quite to the high standard of Carve.
I trust him to keep the quality of future novels high, and i'd love to see him reach or exceed the quality of this one. Art and [fictional] Art History figure highly in this work, so maybe that just aligned with my passions more than the subsequent titles.
Mr. Jablokov has also written some outstanding short stories i recommend highly!
This, his first novel makes me think of Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. His later works (like with Mr. Welles) are quite solid and sound. Just not quite to the high standard of Carve.
I trust him to keep the quality of future novels high, and i'd love to see him reach or exceed the quality of this one. Art and [fictional] Art History figure highly in this work, so maybe that just aligned with my passions more than the subsequent titles.
Mr. Jablokov has also written some outstanding short stories i recommend highly!
March 15, 2010
I marked as being on my "Mystery" bookshelf (as well as "science fiction"). However, the story is closer to "espionage", although not quite what I'd usually expect if I was told a book was espionage.
There's a good pace and a good writing style. The story takes place in the context of an interplanetary human civilization which has no starships. There are tensions between the political blocs of the inner planets and the outer planets. Mars, being near the border between the two blocs, feels more at risk and therefore more militarily-inclined.
A previously unknown work by a sculptor who died 20 years earlier gives hints of a large quantity of a mineral composed of trans-Uranium elements - a mineral that is priceless. (The mineral is believed to be left over from interstellar aliens visiting the solar system over a million years ago.) There seems to be a connection to a vanished religious group. Meanwhile, there is a series of thefts of artworks at several locations around the solar system.
While trying to make sense of these clues, we travel to places on Earth, the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt...
There's a good pace and a good writing style. The story takes place in the context of an interplanetary human civilization which has no starships. There are tensions between the political blocs of the inner planets and the outer planets. Mars, being near the border between the two blocs, feels more at risk and therefore more militarily-inclined.
A previously unknown work by a sculptor who died 20 years earlier gives hints of a large quantity of a mineral composed of trans-Uranium elements - a mineral that is priceless. (The mineral is believed to be left over from interstellar aliens visiting the solar system over a million years ago.) There seems to be a connection to a vanished religious group. Meanwhile, there is a series of thefts of artworks at several locations around the solar system.
While trying to make sense of these clues, we travel to places on Earth, the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt...
December 22, 2017
Though it largely fails in execution, Carve the Sky is at least trying to do something interesting, a feature that always buys a work of science fiction a lot of good will from me. Unfortunately, the interesting overall concept is undermined by Jablokov’s failure to create dramatic tension and contradictory depictions of both characters and the setting. The end result is a book that has intriguing elements but that ultimately failed to engage me, rendering it a forgettable piece of pulp.
Jablokov depicts a future where art and history have become of paramount importance, eclipsing everything else in this society of the future. There is, for instance, a cabal of art history majors that double as espionage agents which is an important world power, some of the most powerful players on the world stage are prominent art collectors, there have been various aesthetic shifts for humanity, and pieces of art scattered throughout the solar system serve pieces of key importance to the overall story. This is a novel take on the future, and lets Jablokov weave into the narrative descriptions of art and some artistic theory in a way that makes Carve the Sky stand out from other pulp science fiction. Unfortunately, this is Carve the Sky’s greatest virtue by far, while Jablokov’s characterization and narrative structure are notable weaknesses.
For instance, how you introduce a character matters. The female protagonist Vanessa, an agent for the aforementioned cabal, is introduced in the story as oversleeping and then getting her informant murdered because she was late, which needless to say paints her as comically incompetent. Her other actions during the beginning of the book reinforce this impression: she is immediately charmed by the male protagonist, she is revealed to be unknowingly dating a spy that is charged with keeping tabs on her, and she almost falls off a building to her death for no good reason, all of which make her seem to be an inept agent. The rest of Carve the Sky, however, makes it obvious that Jablokov did not intend to initially depict her as comically incompetent, making me think that Jablokov does not understand how to introduce a character. Additionally, the universe that Jablokov creates does not feel cohesive, but like a hodgepodge of ideas, with people traveling on Earth via outdated technology while simultaneously spaceships miles long travel the solar system powered by material believed to have been left by a since-vanished race of ancient aliens. At one point the male protagonist visits a feast and an attendant with a clipboard records his preference for what animal to hunt. This takes place in a lunar colony. It feels as though Jablokov came up with ideas for settings he wanted the characters to visit and then wrote the plot connecting those dots.
Furthermore, Carve the Sky doesn’t successfully make you care about the story’s events. For instance, the reveal that an artist thought dead is actually alive falls flat, since, despite the book making clear that this is important, the book has not made you care about this artist (with whom no character has an actual relationship when this reveal occurs). More importantly, the book fails to create a sense of urgency for the main plot until late in the eleventh hour. We know that the MacGuffin is important, that it will potentially sway the balance of power between the main factions, but for the majority of the book there’s no reason why it’s essential that the main character locate it right this very minute—the MacGuffin has apparently been floating around for some time and nothing important has come of it. The lack of a feeling of urgency is made worse by Carve the Sky being far too reliant on coincidence, such as when the male protagonist happening to find a piece of a stolen device in the snow after happening to run into a woman that is by chance able to provide a detailed account of a thief’s actions. The coincidences made it feel like the protagonists would just stumble onto the answer, so why worry about how fast they went about tracking down the MacGuffin holder?
When the characters aren’t skillfully drawn, when the universe doesn’t feel cohesive, and when the plot lacks momentum and urgency, it’s hard to imagine that the book can be saved by an interesting central concept. Certainly it didn’t happen with Carve the Sky. I’m giving it a 2.5/5, rounding up.
Jablokov depicts a future where art and history have become of paramount importance, eclipsing everything else in this society of the future. There is, for instance, a cabal of art history majors that double as espionage agents which is an important world power, some of the most powerful players on the world stage are prominent art collectors, there have been various aesthetic shifts for humanity, and pieces of art scattered throughout the solar system serve pieces of key importance to the overall story. This is a novel take on the future, and lets Jablokov weave into the narrative descriptions of art and some artistic theory in a way that makes Carve the Sky stand out from other pulp science fiction. Unfortunately, this is Carve the Sky’s greatest virtue by far, while Jablokov’s characterization and narrative structure are notable weaknesses.
For instance, how you introduce a character matters. The female protagonist Vanessa, an agent for the aforementioned cabal, is introduced in the story as oversleeping and then getting her informant murdered because she was late, which needless to say paints her as comically incompetent. Her other actions during the beginning of the book reinforce this impression: she is immediately charmed by the male protagonist, she is revealed to be unknowingly dating a spy that is charged with keeping tabs on her, and she almost falls off a building to her death for no good reason, all of which make her seem to be an inept agent. The rest of Carve the Sky, however, makes it obvious that Jablokov did not intend to initially depict her as comically incompetent, making me think that Jablokov does not understand how to introduce a character. Additionally, the universe that Jablokov creates does not feel cohesive, but like a hodgepodge of ideas, with people traveling on Earth via outdated technology while simultaneously spaceships miles long travel the solar system powered by material believed to have been left by a since-vanished race of ancient aliens. At one point the male protagonist visits a feast and an attendant with a clipboard records his preference for what animal to hunt. This takes place in a lunar colony. It feels as though Jablokov came up with ideas for settings he wanted the characters to visit and then wrote the plot connecting those dots.
Furthermore, Carve the Sky doesn’t successfully make you care about the story’s events. For instance, the reveal that an artist thought dead is actually alive falls flat, since, despite the book making clear that this is important, the book has not made you care about this artist (with whom no character has an actual relationship when this reveal occurs). More importantly, the book fails to create a sense of urgency for the main plot until late in the eleventh hour. We know that the MacGuffin is important, that it will potentially sway the balance of power between the main factions, but for the majority of the book there’s no reason why it’s essential that the main character locate it right this very minute—the MacGuffin has apparently been floating around for some time and nothing important has come of it. The lack of a feeling of urgency is made worse by Carve the Sky being far too reliant on coincidence, such as when the male protagonist happening to find a piece of a stolen device in the snow after happening to run into a woman that is by chance able to provide a detailed account of a thief’s actions. The coincidences made it feel like the protagonists would just stumble onto the answer, so why worry about how fast they went about tracking down the MacGuffin holder?
When the characters aren’t skillfully drawn, when the universe doesn’t feel cohesive, and when the plot lacks momentum and urgency, it’s hard to imagine that the book can be saved by an interesting central concept. Certainly it didn’t happen with Carve the Sky. I’m giving it a 2.5/5, rounding up.
April 10, 2019
Alexander Jablokov’s Carve the Sky takes place in the year 2358. Vanessa is an art expert who is supposed to authenticate a carving by famous sculptor Ozaki, and Anton is the Seneschal to the Monboddo Household, responsible for caring for its vast art collection. Vanessa also works for the Academia Sapientiae, and Anton is an intelligence officer. The Ozaki carving sets off a series of events that lead to conspiracies, a trip to the moon (where the characters participate in an animal hunt), a trip to the asteroid belt, rumblings of war, a religious conspiracy, a race to collect a set of four mysterious artifacts, and even a touch of romance.
The worldbuilding is both the book’s strength and its weakness. We get dumped into the middle of it and are expected to pick it up along the way. Bits of history emerge in the form of artifact catalog listings, which is clever. But there’s just so much detail to all of it that I never felt as though I really got a handle on it all. It distracted from the plot at times, and sometimes it seemed to substitute for plot.
The characters are interesting, although some of the side characters are a bit one-note. Vanessa and Anton are what make this book worth reading. I enjoyed their conversations quite a bit, and in those chats the worldbuilding seemed to settle a bit and make more sense. Both characters are imperfect and fallible, yet strong and competent, which is quite nice.
This book didn’t wow me, but it’s solidly entertaining.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/04/s...
The worldbuilding is both the book’s strength and its weakness. We get dumped into the middle of it and are expected to pick it up along the way. Bits of history emerge in the form of artifact catalog listings, which is clever. But there’s just so much detail to all of it that I never felt as though I really got a handle on it all. It distracted from the plot at times, and sometimes it seemed to substitute for plot.
The characters are interesting, although some of the side characters are a bit one-note. Vanessa and Anton are what make this book worth reading. I enjoyed their conversations quite a bit, and in those chats the worldbuilding seemed to settle a bit and make more sense. Both characters are imperfect and fallible, yet strong and competent, which is quite nice.
This book didn’t wow me, but it’s solidly entertaining.
Original review posted on my blog: http://www.errantdreams.com/2019/04/s...
July 30, 2024
A grand byzantine space opera with militant martians, alien artifacts, and court intrigues that stretch from the Himalayas to the asteroid belt with Jablokov's world-building a wonderful mix of high tech and gothic elegance (art figures prominently). I could have done without some of the James Bond antics but I suppose it's all part of the genre. A good read.
October 31, 2017
OK. A bit slow....interesting story.
June 7, 2019
Fresh, original and compelling.
November 20, 2023
Very interesting worldbuilding, but a sometimes confusing/baffling plot.
August 23, 2010
J'ai lu ce roman il y a un ou deux ans et, curieusement, je n'en avais gardé aucune trace écrite, alors qu'il m'avait profondément marqué. Mais faisons les choses dans l'ordre.
Dans un système solaire du XXIVème siècle déjà colonisé par l'homme, la Terre est toujours occupée malgré les innombrables guerres qui y ont eu lieu. Sur cette Terre, qui semble toute entière être devenue un musée, Anton Lindgren gère le domaine de Lord Monboddo, un riche collectionneur d'art au goût terriblement sûr (bien aidé par sa richesse). Mais comme dans cette illusion d'optique classique où l'on voit une femme tantôt jeune, tantôt vieille, cette réalité en cache une autre dans laquelle ces deux personnages prennent part au destin du système solaire. Heureusement, ces deux réalités se rejoignent parfois, comme dans cette aventure où Lindgren va, après un voyage lui faisant traverser tout le système solaire, retrouver un gisement d'un matériau à la fois artistique et terriblement important stratégiquement. Tout cela se place bien sûr dans un univers séparé en plusieurs factions, dont aucune ne semble être meilleure que les autres, et opposant d''une façon tout à fait traditionnelle le coeur chaud et traditionnel du système solaire à une périphérie plus froide, mais plus exubérante (car moins soumise aux contingences gravitationnelles, peut-être).
Tout cela nous exposé sous la forme de scènes se déroulant dans des environnements variés, où la recherche esthétique est présente dans l'oeuvre comme dans sa présentation. Ainsi, on visitera une Lune imaginée comme une oasis de vie "sous serre" où les animaux vivent jusque dans les chambres d'invités (et pas n'importe quels animaux : des grues, des écureuils, ...) ou une auberge du Japon classique au coeur d'un habitat en orbite entre Mars et Jupiter. Et si chacun de ces décors nous est présenté, c'est avec un soin dans l'écriture qui les magnifie. Et ce ne sont d'ailleurs pas les seuls. J'ai trouvé les différents principaux prêtant leurs pensées au récit traités avec beaucoup de subtilité et ... peut-être ... de tendresse. Même Théophrane de Borgra, l'agent des technos, m'a ainsi paru humain avant d'être un des moteurs de l'action. Quant à Anton, j'ai eu l'impression, rare, de plonger aux tréfonds de son âme alors qu'il se prépare à faire passer (d'une façon typiquement martienne du point de vue du roman) la nécessité avant tout.
Nous avons donc un voyage parmi les plus beaux endroits de cet univers, en compagnie de personnages charismatiques, pour un roman dont la principale ambition n'est évidement pas ce bloc de matière qui pourra, ou pas, projeter l'humanité encore plus loin, mais plutôt un voyage dans le monde de l'art. Qu'est-ce qu'une oeuvre d'art ? On pourrait croire qu'il s'agit essentiellement pour lui de magnifier le beau par la collection de Momboddo. Pourtant, certaines oeuvres présentées (le procès de Nuremberg, les oeuvres des frères dépossédés, ...) ne visent pas le beau, mais avant tout l'émotion chez le spectateur de ces oeuvres. Et c'est peut-être la plus grande force de ce roman, selon moi : réussir à intégrer dans une expérience cohérente des oeuvres suscitant toute la palette des émotions esthétiques sans même se plonger dans des descriptions fastidieuses.
Avec tout ça, évidement, vous devinerez facilement que j'ai particulièrement apprécié cette oeuvre qui traite d'un thème somme toute peu traité en science-fiction : l'art et l'esthétique. En ce sens, on pourrait le rapprocher de l'oecumène d'or de John C Wright, ou La mémoire de la lumière de Kim Stanley Robinson. Mais il y a dans cette histoire une finesse, une variété dans les différentes esthétiques présentées, qui porte littéralement ce récit.. Alors est-ce que je dois encore vous recommander de lire ce roman ou est-ce que les arguments développés vous suffiront ?
Dans un système solaire du XXIVème siècle déjà colonisé par l'homme, la Terre est toujours occupée malgré les innombrables guerres qui y ont eu lieu. Sur cette Terre, qui semble toute entière être devenue un musée, Anton Lindgren gère le domaine de Lord Monboddo, un riche collectionneur d'art au goût terriblement sûr (bien aidé par sa richesse). Mais comme dans cette illusion d'optique classique où l'on voit une femme tantôt jeune, tantôt vieille, cette réalité en cache une autre dans laquelle ces deux personnages prennent part au destin du système solaire. Heureusement, ces deux réalités se rejoignent parfois, comme dans cette aventure où Lindgren va, après un voyage lui faisant traverser tout le système solaire, retrouver un gisement d'un matériau à la fois artistique et terriblement important stratégiquement. Tout cela se place bien sûr dans un univers séparé en plusieurs factions, dont aucune ne semble être meilleure que les autres, et opposant d''une façon tout à fait traditionnelle le coeur chaud et traditionnel du système solaire à une périphérie plus froide, mais plus exubérante (car moins soumise aux contingences gravitationnelles, peut-être).
Tout cela nous exposé sous la forme de scènes se déroulant dans des environnements variés, où la recherche esthétique est présente dans l'oeuvre comme dans sa présentation. Ainsi, on visitera une Lune imaginée comme une oasis de vie "sous serre" où les animaux vivent jusque dans les chambres d'invités (et pas n'importe quels animaux : des grues, des écureuils, ...) ou une auberge du Japon classique au coeur d'un habitat en orbite entre Mars et Jupiter. Et si chacun de ces décors nous est présenté, c'est avec un soin dans l'écriture qui les magnifie. Et ce ne sont d'ailleurs pas les seuls. J'ai trouvé les différents principaux prêtant leurs pensées au récit traités avec beaucoup de subtilité et ... peut-être ... de tendresse. Même Théophrane de Borgra, l'agent des technos, m'a ainsi paru humain avant d'être un des moteurs de l'action. Quant à Anton, j'ai eu l'impression, rare, de plonger aux tréfonds de son âme alors qu'il se prépare à faire passer (d'une façon typiquement martienne du point de vue du roman) la nécessité avant tout.
Nous avons donc un voyage parmi les plus beaux endroits de cet univers, en compagnie de personnages charismatiques, pour un roman dont la principale ambition n'est évidement pas ce bloc de matière qui pourra, ou pas, projeter l'humanité encore plus loin, mais plutôt un voyage dans le monde de l'art. Qu'est-ce qu'une oeuvre d'art ? On pourrait croire qu'il s'agit essentiellement pour lui de magnifier le beau par la collection de Momboddo. Pourtant, certaines oeuvres présentées (le procès de Nuremberg, les oeuvres des frères dépossédés, ...) ne visent pas le beau, mais avant tout l'émotion chez le spectateur de ces oeuvres. Et c'est peut-être la plus grande force de ce roman, selon moi : réussir à intégrer dans une expérience cohérente des oeuvres suscitant toute la palette des émotions esthétiques sans même se plonger dans des descriptions fastidieuses.
Avec tout ça, évidement, vous devinerez facilement que j'ai particulièrement apprécié cette oeuvre qui traite d'un thème somme toute peu traité en science-fiction : l'art et l'esthétique. En ce sens, on pourrait le rapprocher de l'oecumène d'or de John C Wright, ou La mémoire de la lumière de Kim Stanley Robinson. Mais il y a dans cette histoire une finesse, une variété dans les différentes esthétiques présentées, qui porte littéralement ce récit.. Alors est-ce que je dois encore vous recommander de lire ce roman ou est-ce que les arguments développés vous suffiront ?
February 12, 2013
I wanted to like this book, but I got tired of the characters after a while. The book has some really strong ideas: art and the study of art as an important cultural and politicial marker in a SciFi world and the logivity of Christian imagry. Loved this aspect of the book. The female characters were so James Bond, though, that it was hard to stay focused. This was ultimatley an espionage story - and that got a bit tedious.
August 31, 2013
Questo è un gran romanzo. Non tanto per l'argomento, ma per come l'autore crea e definisce una futura società soffermandosi sugli aspetti artistici, e della vita intesa come arte nel senso aristocratico del termine. Poi certo, la trama è ben costruita e decisamente avvincente, e la storia scorre molto bene. Ma è la parte dedicata alle opere d'arte quella fondamentale.
March 21, 2013
Bought on Ebay by mistake as I thought I would get something else. Abandoned after reading the prologue. Too much action / espionage, too many clichés and stereotypes, not enough sci-fi or depth to be interesting for me.
January 26, 2021
Priceless sculpture, with sordid history, is basis for interplanetary war. Aesthetics, and cultural intangibles, more valuable than realized.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews