What do you think?
Rate this book
Hardwired #2
Voice of the Whirlwind
Steward, a beta clone with a limited memory, realizes that in the fifteen years since his last brain scan update the Orbital Policorp has collapsed and dozens of his friends have died in an off-planet war that he somehow survived. Reissue.
278 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1987
117 people are currently reading
1225 people want to read
About the author
Walter Jon Williams
238 books894 followersWalter Jon Williams has published twenty novels and short fiction collections. Most are science fiction or fantasy -Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire to name just a few - a few are historical adventures, and the most recent, The Rift, is a disaster novel in which "I just basically pound a part of the planet down to bedrock." And that's just the opening chapters. Walter holds a fourth-degree black belt in Kenpo Karate, and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving. He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Kathy Hedges.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
September 14, 2011
The clone of a mercenary named Steward wakes up and is tasked with finding out who killed the original. The only problem is his memories are fifteen years out of date. The Beta Steward wanders through his Alpha's former life, piecing together the last fifteen years in an effort to solve his murder. His search takes him from the earth to far flung colonies. Can Steward find his own murderer without being killed himself?
Voice of the Whirlwind, while on the surface is a combination of cyberpunk and space opera, is really a layered murder mystery. Steward wanders through the wreckage of his Alpha's former life and gradually pieces things together. Twists and turns abound. Since this wasn't my first invite to a detective party, I had a lot of the angles figured out by the end but not nearly all of them. This thing has as many angles as a dodecahedron. It's a real word. Look it up!
The world Walter Jon Williams has created is a step beyond the other cyberpunk stories written in that bygone age of 1987. While Steward is a fairly typical cyberpunk protagonist in most respects, most of the story takes place on space stations.
The best part of the book is the background Williams serves up, namely the Alpha Steward's stint with the Icehawks, a mercenary army, during a conflict called the Artifact War, a war over caches of alien artifacts littering other planets, notably a fateful ball of ice called Sheol. The aliens, simply called The Powers, aren't just humans with rubber masks. They're sort of centaur-amoeba things that I have difficulty describing. Needless to say, they are very alien aliens.
The tech level was pretty standard cyberpunk stuff: mirror shades, leather, monofilament, exotic firearms, cybernetics. Actually, Williams threw in a lot of gene splicing and his science regarding living in space and space travel was actually harder than I thought it would be.
I'm nearing the end of my book report here and can't decide how to rate Voice of the Whirlwind. I enjoyed it quite a bit but I wouldn't say I thought it was amazing. I will say that it has aged a lot better than many of its contemporaries. While I smiled when Steward had to use phone booths, Williams manages to keep most of the computer details pretty high level, unlike William Gibson in Neuromancer. Hell, I'll give it a 4 but that's in and of itself, not a reflection on the rest of the books on my shelf.
Voice of the Whirlwind, while on the surface is a combination of cyberpunk and space opera, is really a layered murder mystery. Steward wanders through the wreckage of his Alpha's former life and gradually pieces things together. Twists and turns abound. Since this wasn't my first invite to a detective party, I had a lot of the angles figured out by the end but not nearly all of them. This thing has as many angles as a dodecahedron. It's a real word. Look it up!
The world Walter Jon Williams has created is a step beyond the other cyberpunk stories written in that bygone age of 1987. While Steward is a fairly typical cyberpunk protagonist in most respects, most of the story takes place on space stations.
The best part of the book is the background Williams serves up, namely the Alpha Steward's stint with the Icehawks, a mercenary army, during a conflict called the Artifact War, a war over caches of alien artifacts littering other planets, notably a fateful ball of ice called Sheol. The aliens, simply called The Powers, aren't just humans with rubber masks. They're sort of centaur-amoeba things that I have difficulty describing. Needless to say, they are very alien aliens.
The tech level was pretty standard cyberpunk stuff: mirror shades, leather, monofilament, exotic firearms, cybernetics. Actually, Williams threw in a lot of gene splicing and his science regarding living in space and space travel was actually harder than I thought it would be.
I'm nearing the end of my book report here and can't decide how to rate Voice of the Whirlwind. I enjoyed it quite a bit but I wouldn't say I thought it was amazing. I will say that it has aged a lot better than many of its contemporaries. While I smiled when Steward had to use phone booths, Williams manages to keep most of the computer details pretty high level, unlike William Gibson in Neuromancer. Hell, I'll give it a 4 but that's in and of itself, not a reflection on the rest of the books on my shelf.
September 4, 2023
Taking place in the same seedy, space mega-corp dominated, fragmented future as Hardwired, this standalone novel is quite a bit darker, more suspenseful and tightly plotted. The narrative follows a cloned soldier's investigation and planned vengeance for the murder of his original/alpha and introduces a race of powerful, enigmatic aliens with arcane and seemingly nefarious ties to several human factions. The writing is just as dense with betrayals and turnabouts yet feels more mature, with a more coherent structure, and is just as hard driving and poetic.
May 26, 2011
I know that a lot of reviewers tend to weigh this against the Hardwired title, but do so negatively. I am the opposite. I preferred VotW over Hardwired hands-down. The way that Williams set up the war and the policorps makes me wish he would make more set in this EXACT universe and (general) time frame. I would LOVE to read a novel set during the Artifact Wars, especially on Sheol. Seeing the Icehawks in their prime would rock.
Seeing where the Gamma's arrow landed would not be a bad bonus either.
I have read through five copies of this book, four of them falling apart from so much wear and tear, and would highly recommend it to any fan of sci-fi and/or cyberpunk.
Seeing where the Gamma's arrow landed would not be a bad bonus either.
I have read through five copies of this book, four of them falling apart from so much wear and tear, and would highly recommend it to any fan of sci-fi and/or cyberpunk.
Read
May 25, 2022Underrated Early Cyberpunk Mystery, May Have Inspired Altered Carbon
While the characters may not be as emotionally engaging as in his classic Hardwired, VotW has just as much dense world-building, not just the cyberpunk details, but also alien contact, orbital world habitats, genetic engineering, cloning, and a very complex murder mystery (of the main character's Alpha, of whom he is a clone). There is even mention of permanent death (PD), meaning no clone backup, which is identical to the later use of real death (RD) in Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. The details hold up surprisingly well given its age, far better than many others, and the writing is top quality, so once again I just don't know why his books didn't get the wider credit they deserve. I also really liked his near-future Days of Atonement, and have yet to read Aristoi, Metropolitan, and City of Fire, he is one of my favourite SF authors out there.
While the characters may not be as emotionally engaging as in his classic Hardwired, VotW has just as much dense world-building, not just the cyberpunk details, but also alien contact, orbital world habitats, genetic engineering, cloning, and a very complex murder mystery (of the main character's Alpha, of whom he is a clone). There is even mention of permanent death (PD), meaning no clone backup, which is identical to the later use of real death (RD) in Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. The details hold up surprisingly well given its age, far better than many others, and the writing is top quality, so once again I just don't know why his books didn't get the wider credit they deserve. I also really liked his near-future Days of Atonement, and have yet to read Aristoi, Metropolitan, and City of Fire, he is one of my favourite SF authors out there.
May 11, 2019
I don't read a lot of science fiction but I've read this book probably ten times over the years. It just has a great protagonist. It says it's part of a series but other than being set in the same time era, it really has no connection to another book. Interested to hear from others who have read this.
September 24, 2023
This is an interesting and fast paced cyberpunk novel. Steward is a clone missing 15 years of the original bodies memories. An original that was murdered. So Steward V.2 tries to figure out who murdered him and why. The setting is a collection of space stations, with rich world building, political-corporate entities and character backgrounds. There are also the aliens - very alien aliens - that are somehow involved. An entertaining novel.
Note: This is a standalone novel that takes place in the same universe as one other novel and a short story.
Note: This is a standalone novel that takes place in the same universe as one other novel and a short story.
April 29, 2020
A fun read by Williams! The MC is a 'beta', e.g., a clone backup of the 'alpha' who recently died. Unfortunately for the beta, his alpha had not updated his memories in 15 years or so. In those 15 years, the alpha was part of a nasty war over alien artifacts found in a nearby solar system and was one of the few survivors. The war officially ended when the aliens (the Powers) returned and sent the humans back home. Earth's solar system is a nasty place, with corporations becoming effective nations and based in space stations. Our MC finally leaves the hospital where he was revived and seeks to get back to space. I will stop with the plot, but will say the plotting was careful and very well done.
This book feels a little dated; not surprising given its 80s publication date, but it still holds up well as the tech was more of a background to the actual story. One of Williams' better early works.
This book feels a little dated; not surprising given its 80s publication date, but it still holds up well as the tech was more of a background to the actual story. One of Williams' better early works.
February 12, 2021
As much crime mystery and sci-fi than cyberpunk. The plot is (sometimes convoluted) noir in space; neat job but not mind blowing. At least the final explanation is satisfying enough. The use of the clone obsession for his Alpha is a nice touch.
What really shines is the world Stewart lives in. Williams does a good job at mixing cyberpunk classic elements and science fiction, setting an interesting environment. The alluded to Artifact war would deserve its own book.
What really shines is the world Stewart lives in. Williams does a good job at mixing cyberpunk classic elements and science fiction, setting an interesting environment. The alluded to Artifact war would deserve its own book.
December 29, 2020
Notes:
Currently on Audible Plus
The broad outline of the story is really interesting and some of the setting elements. It needed to be a little bit longer to let the character be fleshed out into true potential. Steward was an interesting man. It kinda sucked that the story ended right when I wanted to see what else he could or would do.
Currently on Audible Plus
The broad outline of the story is really interesting and some of the setting elements. It needed to be a little bit longer to let the character be fleshed out into true potential. Steward was an interesting man. It kinda sucked that the story ended right when I wanted to see what else he could or would do.
August 25, 2024
Vichřice byla moc příjemné překvapení. Čekal jsem dost, ale dostal ještě víc. Dokonce mě to bavilo víc, než původní Hardware, se kterým toho vskutku moc společného Vichřice nemá.
Moc se mi líbila témata spojená s identitou, klonováním a odpovědností klonu za činy zesnulého originálu. Opravdu plno morálních dilemat zabalených do velmi líbivého cyberpunkového vesmíru. Oproti jiným dílům tohoto subžánru je potřeba ocenit přehlednost a přístupnost pro běžného čtenáře. Také velmi oceňuji, že se povedlo autorovi namíchat ideální poměr akce, špionáže, záhad a dalších témat. Nenašel se snad jediný okamžik, kdy bych se nudil. Posledním, co zmíním jako pozitivum je počet nečekaných zvratů, které dávají smysl a nejsou vycucané z prstu.
Upřímně moc nevím, co by se tady mělo vytknout. Možná by si některé vedlejší postavy zasloužily více péče a celkově bych asi ocenil, kdyby kniha byla o něco delší, protože jsem prostě chtěl vědět víc.
Dávám 5* knize, u které jsem očekával, že mě bude bavit, ale nakonec byla ještě o úroveň dál. Jde o cyberpunk, který má skvělý a srozumitelný příběh a nesnaží se za každou cenu tlačit jen atmosféričnost, což je z mé zkušenosti s tímto subžánrem výjimka, která se mi velmi líbí. To, že kniha obsahuje navíc i povídku Poslední cíl je také super bonus.
Moc se mi líbila témata spojená s identitou, klonováním a odpovědností klonu za činy zesnulého originálu. Opravdu plno morálních dilemat zabalených do velmi líbivého cyberpunkového vesmíru. Oproti jiným dílům tohoto subžánru je potřeba ocenit přehlednost a přístupnost pro běžného čtenáře. Také velmi oceňuji, že se povedlo autorovi namíchat ideální poměr akce, špionáže, záhad a dalších témat. Nenašel se snad jediný okamžik, kdy bych se nudil. Posledním, co zmíním jako pozitivum je počet nečekaných zvratů, které dávají smysl a nejsou vycucané z prstu.
Upřímně moc nevím, co by se tady mělo vytknout. Možná by si některé vedlejší postavy zasloužily více péče a celkově bych asi ocenil, kdyby kniha byla o něco delší, protože jsem prostě chtěl vědět víc.
Dávám 5* knize, u které jsem očekával, že mě bude bavit, ale nakonec byla ještě o úroveň dál. Jde o cyberpunk, který má skvělý a srozumitelný příběh a nesnaží se za každou cenu tlačit jen atmosféričnost, což je z mé zkušenosti s tímto subžánrem výjimka, která se mi velmi líbí. To, že kniha obsahuje navíc i povídku Poslední cíl je také super bonus.
March 3, 2013
Sci-fi of the sort that would make a good action movie...
When Etienne Steward signed up to go fight a war on Sheol, he took the
precaution of buying insurance... In the case of his death, a clone
would be created, complete with the most recent backup of his
memories. Now, Steward Beta has been activated - but for some reason,
the most recent backup was 15 years old. Steward realizes that he no
longer really knows who his Alpha was - he's suddenly divorced; he
even had a second wife (who also divorced him) whom he has no memory
of even meeting. He has no idea what happened to him as part of the
mercenary group Coherent Light, who he was fighting for. But it's
common knowledge that the war was a disaster, ending in a massacre.
But it's not at all certain that the original Steward was a war
casualty. As a matter of fact, it's beginning to look more like he was
murdered.
Suddenly, an old friend, Griffith, shows up, offering an opportunity
that could help Steward find out what happened... but without the
knowledge of what his Alpha was tangled up in, he may be in over his
head.
Plenty of action and mystery are balanced by a focus on ethical concerns.
When Etienne Steward signed up to go fight a war on Sheol, he took the
precaution of buying insurance... In the case of his death, a clone
would be created, complete with the most recent backup of his
memories. Now, Steward Beta has been activated - but for some reason,
the most recent backup was 15 years old. Steward realizes that he no
longer really knows who his Alpha was - he's suddenly divorced; he
even had a second wife (who also divorced him) whom he has no memory
of even meeting. He has no idea what happened to him as part of the
mercenary group Coherent Light, who he was fighting for. But it's
common knowledge that the war was a disaster, ending in a massacre.
But it's not at all certain that the original Steward was a war
casualty. As a matter of fact, it's beginning to look more like he was
murdered.
Suddenly, an old friend, Griffith, shows up, offering an opportunity
that could help Steward find out what happened... but without the
knowledge of what his Alpha was tangled up in, he may be in over his
head.
Plenty of action and mystery are balanced by a focus on ethical concerns.
December 5, 2017
Walter Jon Williams gets spookiness, writing a sci-fi espionage thriller that rivals vintage Le Carre. The protagonist, Stewart, is an old insurance policy, a clone with the 15 year old memories of his original, recently murdered on a space station. Last thing he remembers, he'd finish mercenary training with the Icehawks before a mission to Sheol to recover alien artifacts. After that, well, his original was a busy man with a lot of unfinished business.
A little less stylized than Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind tracks Stewart across the solar system and into a deadly game of corporate politics and biological warfare against the alien Powers, an advanced race that holds the key to massive wealth, and possibly an escape from the brutal cycle of corporate Darwin Days and ideological entropy. It's also not as compelling, but one chapter alternating Stewart making a drug connection in LA with an account of the war on Sheol, is as fine a writing as anything in scifi.
A little less stylized than Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind tracks Stewart across the solar system and into a deadly game of corporate politics and biological warfare against the alien Powers, an advanced race that holds the key to massive wealth, and possibly an escape from the brutal cycle of corporate Darwin Days and ideological entropy. It's also not as compelling, but one chapter alternating Stewart making a drug connection in LA with an account of the war on Sheol, is as fine a writing as anything in scifi.
October 24, 2017
Steward is a clone, the clone of a man who spent years as a member of a military polycorp called Coherent Light. The original, or "alpha," was murdered, and the clone, or "beta," is determined to find out who and why.
Unfortunately, he's been revived with fifteen years of memory missing. Nor is this an accident. It's a deliberate choice his alpha made, and chose not to explain. Steward has a lot of information to recover before he can hope to complete his mission, and every step of the way is dangerous. He's chasing through the solar system, one space habitat after another, and the history he missed includes the arrival of a significantly more advanced alien species known as the Powers.
It's a well-written story, with good plot and good characters, as you'd expect of Walter Jon Williams. Unfortunately, unlike many other Williams works, this one just didn't really connect for me. Not enough that I stopped listening to the audiobook, or that I regret listening to it. It is a good book. If you like cyberpunk, there's a good chance this will work a lot better for you than it does for me.
So I'd say don't rush out and buy it, but if it crosses your path, give it a try.
I bought this audiobook.
Unfortunately, he's been revived with fifteen years of memory missing. Nor is this an accident. It's a deliberate choice his alpha made, and chose not to explain. Steward has a lot of information to recover before he can hope to complete his mission, and every step of the way is dangerous. He's chasing through the solar system, one space habitat after another, and the history he missed includes the arrival of a significantly more advanced alien species known as the Powers.
It's a well-written story, with good plot and good characters, as you'd expect of Walter Jon Williams. Unfortunately, unlike many other Williams works, this one just didn't really connect for me. Not enough that I stopped listening to the audiobook, or that I regret listening to it. It is a good book. If you like cyberpunk, there's a good chance this will work a lot better for you than it does for me.
So I'd say don't rush out and buy it, but if it crosses your path, give it a try.
I bought this audiobook.
April 13, 2021
A bit more of a fun romp compared to the pretty excellently concocted and well executed Hardwired. But thats not a bad thing in the least. There’s some fun action, some twists across the investigation. Betrayals and deaths; frenetic pacing and excellent prose. Its exactly what it says on the tin and holds up pretty well.
June 21, 2022
This was truly a great read.
First thing first - I do not know why is this called Hardwired #2 because I could not see any connection points. Could be that I am missing something ..... in any case that's my 2 cents on this.
Back to the story. Main protagonist is Steward, data broker and gang banger in his youth and later member of elite mercenary outfit Icehawks sent to fight against other corporations on mysterious planet of Sheol. Well, to be more precise protagonist is clone of Steward (so called Beta) with the 15 year-gap since original Steward (aka Alpha) did not update his memories in the meantime. What Beta knows is that Alpha was killed on one of the colonies, and that his private life is in shambles.
Beta Steward, after series of incidents and deadly accidents involving him and people around him, soon decides he needs to look into conditions under which his Alpha died. And to achieve this goal he needs to become a storm - whirlwind in the title.
I wont go into any more details because book needs to be read, and I truly do not want to spoil anything for anyone. Its a truly great story.
Authors style is wonderful, way world is portrayed is pure joy. You can feel the people walking around, hear the noise. One of the recently read books that had same quality was Neon Leviathan by T.R. Napper (highly recommended if you did not read it already). There are no heavy details on technology or society, but through mentions and descriptions of the [brave new future] world we see how corporations now rule everything, how national states collapsed and how cybernetic enhancements and genetic manipulation started to dominate everything. In this way Richard K Morgan's style seems to echo this author's cyberpunk style. And I like this a lot.
I also liked the elements of story related to indoctrination of mercenary troops by corpos (use of quasi religion with elements of Zen), very similar to the way Dune universe troops get indoctrinated (I guess proven methods are there to remain eh :)). Also ideological rules from various corporations - what can be seen, read and consumed - might have seemed out of this world few years ago but now .... not so much.
Everything that makes a good action story is here: hero trying to bring his past to the light, advanced technology, space flights, commandos, secret services and spies, assassins, wars on distant worlds ..... you name it it is in there. Story flows very naturally and keeps you interested 'til the very end.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone looking for cyberpunk action/spy story.
First thing first - I do not know why is this called Hardwired #2 because I could not see any connection points. Could be that I am missing something ..... in any case that's my 2 cents on this.
Back to the story. Main protagonist is Steward, data broker and gang banger in his youth and later member of elite mercenary outfit Icehawks sent to fight against other corporations on mysterious planet of Sheol. Well, to be more precise protagonist is clone of Steward (so called Beta) with the 15 year-gap since original Steward (aka Alpha) did not update his memories in the meantime. What Beta knows is that Alpha was killed on one of the colonies, and that his private life is in shambles.
Beta Steward, after series of incidents and deadly accidents involving him and people around him, soon decides he needs to look into conditions under which his Alpha died. And to achieve this goal he needs to become a storm - whirlwind in the title.
I wont go into any more details because book needs to be read, and I truly do not want to spoil anything for anyone. Its a truly great story.
Authors style is wonderful, way world is portrayed is pure joy. You can feel the people walking around, hear the noise. One of the recently read books that had same quality was Neon Leviathan by T.R. Napper (highly recommended if you did not read it already). There are no heavy details on technology or society, but through mentions and descriptions of the [brave new future] world we see how corporations now rule everything, how national states collapsed and how cybernetic enhancements and genetic manipulation started to dominate everything. In this way Richard K Morgan's style seems to echo this author's cyberpunk style. And I like this a lot.
I also liked the elements of story related to indoctrination of mercenary troops by corpos (use of quasi religion with elements of Zen), very similar to the way Dune universe troops get indoctrinated (I guess proven methods are there to remain eh :)). Also ideological rules from various corporations - what can be seen, read and consumed - might have seemed out of this world few years ago but now .... not so much.
Everything that makes a good action story is here: hero trying to bring his past to the light, advanced technology, space flights, commandos, secret services and spies, assassins, wars on distant worlds ..... you name it it is in there. Story flows very naturally and keeps you interested 'til the very end.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone looking for cyberpunk action/spy story.
January 8, 2018
Voice of the Whirlwind (VOTW) is billed as cyberpunk, and does have a few of the trappings, but it's very much a sci-fi noir novel with transhumanist elements. The hero of the story, Etienne Steward, is a beta - he's been reborn into a cloned body from a back-up of his mind. What happened to the original ('alpha') version isn't clear to Steward, but one thing he does know is that the alpha hasn't updated his back-up in a while, so the beta version wakes up to find he's already out of date. He spend the rest of the novel trying to figure out what happened to his alpha, and to set things straight.
I feet the novel has strong world-building elements, and in particular I like the descriptions of the off-world locations, which are evocative and colorful. The further we get from home in Steward's quest, the weirder things become. Ultimately we encounter humans that are so modified they feel alien ('like limbless spiders moving through the vacuum') and actual aliens that are really quite alien - so much so that they're physically addictive to humans.
The plot, however, is pretty convoluted, and it twisted back on itself several times. This makes it pretty hard to keep up at times. It all comes to a tidy end, however.
I'll recommend this as an SF novel more than a cyberpunk novel. It's decent, but not groundbreaking. It shines in its descriptions. If you like your SF to have big ideas, or (horrors) the poetry of invention, then you'll have to look elsewhere.
I feet the novel has strong world-building elements, and in particular I like the descriptions of the off-world locations, which are evocative and colorful. The further we get from home in Steward's quest, the weirder things become. Ultimately we encounter humans that are so modified they feel alien ('like limbless spiders moving through the vacuum') and actual aliens that are really quite alien - so much so that they're physically addictive to humans.
The plot, however, is pretty convoluted, and it twisted back on itself several times. This makes it pretty hard to keep up at times. It all comes to a tidy end, however.
I'll recommend this as an SF novel more than a cyberpunk novel. It's decent, but not groundbreaking. It shines in its descriptions. If you like your SF to have big ideas, or (horrors) the poetry of invention, then you'll have to look elsewhere.
December 20, 2013
This is a mystery novel wrapped inside a military-techno-space-opera-thriller, and while I didn't have any difficulty getting through it, I was disappointed by two things: the reveal is really the penultimate reveal, which lessens the authenticity of the entire work because it is simply too neat. Second, the protagonists motivation is questionable throughout - it goes from learning his former self, to vengeance, to a bizarre zen-chaos-entropy to straight up xenophobia. In the final analysis, it's hard to tell if he is an amoral actor visiting destruction on the evil system - which is what his inner monologue seems to say - or, given that the major result of his actions is really massive death of aliens, is he just out to kill aliens?
To summarize, I found myself wanting to finish the book (so I did enjoy it, no?) but don't want to read anything else by this author.
To summarize, I found myself wanting to finish the book (so I did enjoy it, no?) but don't want to read anything else by this author.
November 2, 2009
I decided to re-read this, as part of my "hey, the author isn't deceased after all" celebration. I'd forgotten how good it is.
The novel sweeps you along right from the start, without being bewildering (as, for instance, Gene Wolfe can do). Having the main protagonist be a newly-created clone with out-of-date memories is a great way to "explain" things to the reader as you go along.
The setting isn't the star, it's merely there for mood. That's a good thing, in my opinion. I'd say the book is about evenly divided between character and plot, and it scores highly in both areas.
The book never stumbles, and I never lost the sense of "being there" with the protagonist. I think this novel is a masterful acheivement.
The novel sweeps you along right from the start, without being bewildering (as, for instance, Gene Wolfe can do). Having the main protagonist be a newly-created clone with out-of-date memories is a great way to "explain" things to the reader as you go along.
The setting isn't the star, it's merely there for mood. That's a good thing, in my opinion. I'd say the book is about evenly divided between character and plot, and it scores highly in both areas.
The book never stumbles, and I never lost the sense of "being there" with the protagonist. I think this novel is a masterful acheivement.
July 15, 2015
This was one of those books my husband picked for me to read. Sci-fi usually isn't my cup of tea, but I did end up enjoying this one because of the mystery involved. It took a while to get going, but once it did I got absorbed in it. It got really interesting when he finally started finding clues to who killed him, why, and the missing 15 years of his first life. While I ended up liking the book overall, I think it's main flaw is that there are no really likeable characters in it.
May 15, 2013
Walter Jon Williams admits that this wasn't conceived as a sequel to Hardwired, and it does very much stand on its own. It's quite readable, and hard to put down at times. Steward's identity as a clone is palpable throughout the text. The ending did feel a little rushed, and I had one suspension of disbelief moment, but it did still all hang together. It didn't push my buttons quite as much as Hardwired, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
![Profile Image for Ed [Redacted].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1429513592i%2F3968676.jpg&w=128&q=75)
March 5, 2013
I have nev read a bad WJW book. I would say most of what I have read of he has been very middle of the road. This book is no exception. Some good concepts and the usual workmanlike plotting and such from WJW in this volume. There was nothing in this book that lifted it from the crowd of SF books out there. It was entertaining and you could certainly do much worse.
June 11, 2016
One of his best. Look at his website to see if it's on sale, http://www.walterjonwilliams.net/eboo...
July 24, 2025
Steward is a dead man. Rather, he was a dead man. An exact clone down to a fixed point of time and consciousness, there is a slight hiccup: a 15 year gap. His 'Alpha', the original Steward, was a broken, violent man, a survivor of an apocalyptic extraterrestrial war, an indoctrinated operative of a militant corporate cult. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the new Steward managed to have been set before the trauma, only his past and his training weighing him down. As Steward is taken through the paces of physical and mental therapy to adjust to the unique circumstances of his life after death, his past, or rather the past of the dead man he was, begin to crawl out of that gap in time. After his therapist is found tortured to death, paths begin to open before him, leading him back towards the far reaches of space the Alpha had prowled and the mystery of the alien race that 'saved' him, ended the war, and set humanity on a new trajectory.
I really loved this book. A sequel to Williams' 'Hardwired', the novel takes place a couple hundred years in the future, though you can read this one in a vacuum. The element that worked for a good deal of the novel was Steward's simultaneous vulnerability and strength; he's out of the loop and unaware of the intersecting lines of violence and power that his 'Alpha' and the steady progression of time and corporate espionage had set. He's behind the times, in minor ways, culturally, though he is able to pull on his own real history and experience, unsurprised by much but still playing catch up more often than not.
The posthumanism and Earth vs Spacer dynamic, showing Humanity as a diverging and evolving according to their environment, the unique circumstances of space travel, and even purposeful genetic manipulation was very interesting as well. Not much time was really given to this element, though of course that wasn't the purpose of the novel, and in fact worked well with the worldbuilding, as though there is still the unfamiliarity of the posthumans we run into, they also are just the way things are, and while strange, they aren't new.
Identity, self, place, belonging, these were great motifs throughout the novel, and the transient, shifting nature of all of them in this extraplanetary phase of humanity. A lot of food for thought that doesn't give you time to get bogged down in the implications. 'That's not the story we're here to tell' so to speak. That said, the effectiveness of the writing and storytelling was such that these elements still had solid screentime and I think are a benefit for the more discerning reader, giving their mind more to chew on in the background.
Karmic debt was developed throughout very well, something that I think helped put us into the mind of a clone that knows and accepts they are a clone, but is also facing a unique aspect of posthuman relationships, especially to the self. While he was Steward, he recognized the Alpha as an entirely different being, though they had the same past, same neural patterns, same physical development, obviously arrested at that 15 year divergence point. This split, where he is is own person, but also a clone, therefore a copy of himself, but also another man, separated by time, life, and literal space, drives his actions as much as unseen plotters. An itch, a hunger, the literal definition of nostalgia, takes him back across the stars, following his Alpha's footsteps, almost akin to a son in a father's shadow, only it's a man in his own. As he sees evidence of the wreckage left by the war and those who twisted the suffering and death of him and all those involved for their profit and advancement, the sense of debt, of weight, begins to unmoor his sense of individual self and the direct line to his Alpha. This thread is a thought provoking aspect that I'm still coming back to and considering even after I've finished reading it.
The book is a page turner, I never really felt bored, the flow is very good. The prose, even when it gets more technical, is presented effectively and anchors itself, even when it gets more esoteric and academic. It manages to be grounded without losing the plot, futuristic but seemingly achievable/understandable through science-to-come, presented well as science-that-is in the context of the story's world.
The end of the novel, while effective, I thought, definitely was the weakest part of the entire book. I say this only because the book as a whole did a good job laying a mystery before us, putting breadcrumbs for a more skeptical/observant reader, so that the final mystery, including the convenience and coincidence that at times fell into Steward's lap would have made sense in the end. The book worries you aren't that skeptical or observant and explains everything in the space of about two pages. This almost ruined the entirety of the book for me, as it felt like a clumsy finish, but I just enjoyed what I enjoyed about the entire novel and accepted this unfortunate development.
A solid read.
I really loved this book. A sequel to Williams' 'Hardwired', the novel takes place a couple hundred years in the future, though you can read this one in a vacuum. The element that worked for a good deal of the novel was Steward's simultaneous vulnerability and strength; he's out of the loop and unaware of the intersecting lines of violence and power that his 'Alpha' and the steady progression of time and corporate espionage had set. He's behind the times, in minor ways, culturally, though he is able to pull on his own real history and experience, unsurprised by much but still playing catch up more often than not.
The posthumanism and Earth vs Spacer dynamic, showing Humanity as a diverging and evolving according to their environment, the unique circumstances of space travel, and even purposeful genetic manipulation was very interesting as well. Not much time was really given to this element, though of course that wasn't the purpose of the novel, and in fact worked well with the worldbuilding, as though there is still the unfamiliarity of the posthumans we run into, they also are just the way things are, and while strange, they aren't new.
Identity, self, place, belonging, these were great motifs throughout the novel, and the transient, shifting nature of all of them in this extraplanetary phase of humanity. A lot of food for thought that doesn't give you time to get bogged down in the implications. 'That's not the story we're here to tell' so to speak. That said, the effectiveness of the writing and storytelling was such that these elements still had solid screentime and I think are a benefit for the more discerning reader, giving their mind more to chew on in the background.
Karmic debt was developed throughout very well, something that I think helped put us into the mind of a clone that knows and accepts they are a clone, but is also facing a unique aspect of posthuman relationships, especially to the self. While he was Steward, he recognized the Alpha as an entirely different being, though they had the same past, same neural patterns, same physical development, obviously arrested at that 15 year divergence point. This split, where he is is own person, but also a clone, therefore a copy of himself, but also another man, separated by time, life, and literal space, drives his actions as much as unseen plotters. An itch, a hunger, the literal definition of nostalgia, takes him back across the stars, following his Alpha's footsteps, almost akin to a son in a father's shadow, only it's a man in his own. As he sees evidence of the wreckage left by the war and those who twisted the suffering and death of him and all those involved for their profit and advancement, the sense of debt, of weight, begins to unmoor his sense of individual self and the direct line to his Alpha. This thread is a thought provoking aspect that I'm still coming back to and considering even after I've finished reading it.
The book is a page turner, I never really felt bored, the flow is very good. The prose, even when it gets more technical, is presented effectively and anchors itself, even when it gets more esoteric and academic. It manages to be grounded without losing the plot, futuristic but seemingly achievable/understandable through science-to-come, presented well as science-that-is in the context of the story's world.
The end of the novel, while effective, I thought, definitely was the weakest part of the entire book. I say this only because the book as a whole did a good job laying a mystery before us, putting breadcrumbs for a more skeptical/observant reader, so that the final mystery, including the convenience and coincidence that at times fell into Steward's lap would have made sense in the end. The book worries you aren't that skeptical or observant and explains everything in the space of about two pages. This almost ruined the entirety of the book for me, as it felt like a clumsy finish, but I just enjoyed what I enjoyed about the entire novel and accepted this unfortunate development.
A solid read.
January 12, 2024
*Voice of the Whirlwind* is, in my opinion, a vastly overlooked but quintessential cyberpunk novel (and I'm sure the fact that it's the first one that I ever read *and* a hand-me-down from my Dad has nothing to do with that statement). It takes a look at large-scale corruption from a street-level perspective while dealing with cybernetic enhancements/implants and an (un)healthy dosage of drugs; nevermind that fact that it's also a fast-paced political thriller or that it uses alien involvement, a tool of SF-origin that is not usually used to build cyberpunk stories, or that the book which takes place hundreds of years before this (*Hardwired*) is just as good, if less consistent; this is where I suggest people start with cyberpunk, and here's why.
Steward wakes up in a hospital fifteen years after his last brainscan with most recent memories being training to fight in the Artifact Wars, corporately-manufactured conflicts to lay claim to abandoned alien artifacts, and he has no recollection of his original self (The "Alpha" to his "Beta") fighting in that war before it was stopped by the return of those artifacts' builders, a strange race called the Powers. He doesn't recall either of his divorces, either, or his reported murder. He soon discharges himself and meets up with an old war buddy (he only remembers the tip of the iceberg of their time together) who supplies him with shady-yet-legal jobs that he carries out while he crashes at the house of a woman who he used to know. Eventually he gets the urge to go into space and maybe even find out who killed him. He does this by joining a freighter helmed by a woman ?
There are some cool sequences, like when . I'm sorry that I don't have a better grasp on what all unfolded at the end, a fact made more shameful by the fact that this is really my *third* time reading the book; I read it for the first time between seventh and eighth grade (i.e. way too young), then again in 2020, and now again here in 2023. The problem is that I read it over Christmas because I figured it would be an easy re-read; it had slipped my mind that *Voice of the Whirlwind* is built around a rather involved plot that required I pay a bit more attention than I expected. A bit more on that plot in a second, but first, I have to say that I really liked the touch at the end where it was a really good ending.
Now, back to that plot: it's part-mystery and part-interstellar-political-thriller, but it never feels too far removed from Steward and his street-level origins. You may say that a man being hired into a war among the stars isn't very cyberpunk, but I believe that the driving force behind all these machinations - corporate greed and economically-fueled abuse of the common man - is what cyberpunk's all about. Sure, it's still not my favorite subgenre of science fiction and I'm still writing my internal thesis on what makes it tick, but I don't think I'm too far out of line when I say that the cyberpunky infusion of humanity and tech has always had something to say about economic oppression, which *Voice of the Whirlwind*, just like *Hardwired*, does. In fact, its common use of space travel heightens those themes because it shows a greater extension of the cyberpunk reality than its contemporaries. I've veered a bit away from the plot and into rambling on about what cyberpunk "really is or isn't about", but let me assure you one more time that this plot is really, really tight; Williams makes plotting for the long game look easy without letting any one scene overstay its welcome without neglecting the page count that they deserve. Plot is one of the things that's often overlooked in contemporary fiction, but let none tell you that this book falls into that category.
The prose is also better than I expected, although it really shouldn't surprise me after *Hardwired*, which had two of the best-written scenes I've read in years. There are no similar standouts in this sequel, but there's still a sharp edge to his prose that would seem juvenile and moody on other authors but cuts deeply under the tip of WJW's pen. There is some contention among us literary snobs over whether or not he ripped of William Gibson with his cyberpunk duology (I do have to admit that *VotW*'s opening line is very similar to *Neuromancer*'s...), but I remember reading that Williams wrote these books before Gibson's was released and were only published because of his success, so I'll stick to that story. It does makes Williams' prose, which subtly builds a world that feels more fleshed out than it really is, even better.
If I do have an issue with the book, it might be with the characters. It's not that they're poorly written, but I had a hard time getting invested in their stories. Williams' characters are usually ethically-questionable people in interesting situations that tend to make you root for them and against them at the same time, but I didn't feel those layers of almost New-Wavey self-torture here; that being said, I didn't feel much to fill that gap either. Steward's motivations always seemed a bit clumsy to me, but I think part of that appearance can be blamed on the fact that I read this directly over Christmas - rookie move, Darnoc. The rest of the cast's characters seemed slightly dreamy and self-punishing but they served as excellent plot pieces, so I can't really complain, and when I read this book at a better time in the future (for now I'll surely have to read this a fourth time), I reckon I'll connect with it more then.
Still, this book is just dripping with cool, and it did give me stabs of the sense of wonder that I find so important in science fiction, especially around the Artifact War and the not-so-distant mystery of the Power situation. I'm glad that Williams wrote a space-and-alien-filled cyberpunk book for me to drape an 8.5/10 rating on, and I really look forward to reading more of his work in the future. I'm also glad that I read his entire cyberpunk "trilogy" (*Hardwired*, the novella *Solip: System*, and this book) this year, even if I should've switched *Voice of the Whirlwind* and *The Santa Clause Bank Robbery* in terms of the ol' TBR...... Thanks for reading this review and feel free to get caught up on my other thoughts about Williams skewered about my profile. For now, have a great rest of your day, and here's hoping that your first time reading cyberpunk, if you haven't already, will be as special as mine was.
Steward wakes up in a hospital fifteen years after his last brainscan with most recent memories being training to fight in the Artifact Wars, corporately-manufactured conflicts to lay claim to abandoned alien artifacts, and he has no recollection of his original self (The "Alpha" to his "Beta") fighting in that war before it was stopped by the return of those artifacts' builders, a strange race called the Powers. He doesn't recall either of his divorces, either, or his reported murder. He soon discharges himself and meets up with an old war buddy (he only remembers the tip of the iceberg of their time together) who supplies him with shady-yet-legal jobs that he carries out while he crashes at the house of a woman who he used to know. Eventually he gets the urge to go into space and maybe even find out who killed him. He does this by joining a freighter helmed by a woman ?
There are some cool sequences, like when . I'm sorry that I don't have a better grasp on what all unfolded at the end, a fact made more shameful by the fact that this is really my *third* time reading the book; I read it for the first time between seventh and eighth grade (i.e. way too young), then again in 2020, and now again here in 2023. The problem is that I read it over Christmas because I figured it would be an easy re-read; it had slipped my mind that *Voice of the Whirlwind* is built around a rather involved plot that required I pay a bit more attention than I expected. A bit more on that plot in a second, but first, I have to say that I really liked the touch at the end where it was a really good ending.
Now, back to that plot: it's part-mystery and part-interstellar-political-thriller, but it never feels too far removed from Steward and his street-level origins. You may say that a man being hired into a war among the stars isn't very cyberpunk, but I believe that the driving force behind all these machinations - corporate greed and economically-fueled abuse of the common man - is what cyberpunk's all about. Sure, it's still not my favorite subgenre of science fiction and I'm still writing my internal thesis on what makes it tick, but I don't think I'm too far out of line when I say that the cyberpunky infusion of humanity and tech has always had something to say about economic oppression, which *Voice of the Whirlwind*, just like *Hardwired*, does. In fact, its common use of space travel heightens those themes because it shows a greater extension of the cyberpunk reality than its contemporaries. I've veered a bit away from the plot and into rambling on about what cyberpunk "really is or isn't about", but let me assure you one more time that this plot is really, really tight; Williams makes plotting for the long game look easy without letting any one scene overstay its welcome without neglecting the page count that they deserve. Plot is one of the things that's often overlooked in contemporary fiction, but let none tell you that this book falls into that category.
The prose is also better than I expected, although it really shouldn't surprise me after *Hardwired*, which had two of the best-written scenes I've read in years. There are no similar standouts in this sequel, but there's still a sharp edge to his prose that would seem juvenile and moody on other authors but cuts deeply under the tip of WJW's pen. There is some contention among us literary snobs over whether or not he ripped of William Gibson with his cyberpunk duology (I do have to admit that *VotW*'s opening line is very similar to *Neuromancer*'s...), but I remember reading that Williams wrote these books before Gibson's was released and were only published because of his success, so I'll stick to that story. It does makes Williams' prose, which subtly builds a world that feels more fleshed out than it really is, even better.
If I do have an issue with the book, it might be with the characters. It's not that they're poorly written, but I had a hard time getting invested in their stories. Williams' characters are usually ethically-questionable people in interesting situations that tend to make you root for them and against them at the same time, but I didn't feel those layers of almost New-Wavey self-torture here; that being said, I didn't feel much to fill that gap either. Steward's motivations always seemed a bit clumsy to me, but I think part of that appearance can be blamed on the fact that I read this directly over Christmas - rookie move, Darnoc. The rest of the cast's characters seemed slightly dreamy and self-punishing but they served as excellent plot pieces, so I can't really complain, and when I read this book at a better time in the future (for now I'll surely have to read this a fourth time), I reckon I'll connect with it more then.
Still, this book is just dripping with cool, and it did give me stabs of the sense of wonder that I find so important in science fiction, especially around the Artifact War and the not-so-distant mystery of the Power situation. I'm glad that Williams wrote a space-and-alien-filled cyberpunk book for me to drape an 8.5/10 rating on, and I really look forward to reading more of his work in the future. I'm also glad that I read his entire cyberpunk "trilogy" (*Hardwired*, the novella *Solip: System*, and this book) this year, even if I should've switched *Voice of the Whirlwind* and *The Santa Clause Bank Robbery* in terms of the ol' TBR...... Thanks for reading this review and feel free to get caught up on my other thoughts about Williams skewered about my profile. For now, have a great rest of your day, and here's hoping that your first time reading cyberpunk, if you haven't already, will be as special as mine was.
July 11, 2021
Voice of the Whirlwind is very much a "three and a half stars, rounded up" experience. A reviewer here - not entirely wrong - described Hardwired as a "tryhard book". I must agree, and note that the author's style has rather matured here, but the second half of the book doesn't really sound as cool as the author probably imagined. The premise - that of a clone, Steward, looking for the memories his deceased original chose not to implant in him - is riveting, but this mystery is unfortunately solved surprisingly fast. The first half concentrating on that particular enigma is certainly the strong suit of the work. Everything since is downhill (albeit on a slight incline), as the story meanders and takes a completely different track. Whether this is a stylistic choice for a story of a man without a purpose, or the author just pulling a bait and switch to write sci-fi about aliens, it leaves the reader feeling like the ending hasn't much to do with the premise. Sure, it's foreshadowed convincingly enough to get that last half star rounded up, and the ending is actually pretty neatly written, but given what we're told about the original Steward, it feels like we never see his true potential. And, you know, maybe that's the point. Beats Hardwired, anyway.
October 25, 2022
A sequel to Hardwired. I had read some Gibson and Stephenson and others and enjoyed their cyberpunk stories. I had not been exposed to Walter John Williams (WJW) until I played the Cyberpunk 2077 video game (amazing) and learned that it had its roots in WJW's Hardwired. I enjoyed Hardwired and having read and enjoyed cyberpunk stories in the past (see above), and playing Cyberpunk 2077, I was kind of surprised. Hardwired was less, to me, glittering tech and neon, and more Mad Max. Or at least, a fusion. I enjoyed it so figured I would check out the sequel, Voice of the Whirlwind. WJW surprised me again. While Whirlwind is said to be in the same universe as Hardwired, I could not really tell. Not only this, instead of the Mad Max fused with cyberpunk, Whirlwind turned out to be, to me, more of a hard-boiled SCI*FI mystery fused with cyberpunk. So good for you WJW! I appreciate the genre stretching. I did read a little while ago that WJW's novella, Solip System, takes place in between the events of Hardwired and Voice of the Whirwind and was meant to be a bridge. I guess I should have read that first. I'll have to and intend to explore more WJW.
March 12, 2024
« Le Souffle du Cyclone », un livre de, Walter Jon Williams (USA, né en 1953). Traduction : Jean Bonnefoy 352 pages ; éditions Denoël ;1988.
Cela parait dérisoire mais je trouve très bien qu’on nous donne le nom du héros dans la première page. Ça évite de galérer dans la prise de notes à laisser un blanc dans la dénomination. Donc ici, c’est Steward.
Un œuvre qu’on pourrait qualifier de « Cyber Punk » un genre que je décrirais comme assez opaque.
Une histoire de mémoire, de souvenirs… Le clone est censé servir de « back up » mais il n’a jamais été mis à jour… A la mort de l’original, le clone prend le relai mais il a du coup un cran de retard dans les événements de ce monde SF. (Le Clone un incontournable de la SF déjà en 1988:).
Promenons-nous dans les étoiles…
En prenant sur nous pour les émotions ressenties x) …
Walter Jon Williams est un auteur qui a fait beaucoup pour le genre SF (notamment il a travaillé sur du Star Wars).
Des mots écrits avant ma naissance(ce livre : 1988/ Ma naissance :1992) … Cela ne va pas… Quelque fois on peut passer outre, mais là ça n’accroche pas…
Phoenix
++
Cela parait dérisoire mais je trouve très bien qu’on nous donne le nom du héros dans la première page. Ça évite de galérer dans la prise de notes à laisser un blanc dans la dénomination. Donc ici, c’est Steward.
Un œuvre qu’on pourrait qualifier de « Cyber Punk » un genre que je décrirais comme assez opaque.
Une histoire de mémoire, de souvenirs… Le clone est censé servir de « back up » mais il n’a jamais été mis à jour… A la mort de l’original, le clone prend le relai mais il a du coup un cran de retard dans les événements de ce monde SF. (Le Clone un incontournable de la SF déjà en 1988:).
Promenons-nous dans les étoiles…
En prenant sur nous pour les émotions ressenties x) …
Walter Jon Williams est un auteur qui a fait beaucoup pour le genre SF (notamment il a travaillé sur du Star Wars).
Des mots écrits avant ma naissance(ce livre : 1988/ Ma naissance :1992) … Cela ne va pas… Quelque fois on peut passer outre, mais là ça n’accroche pas…
Phoenix
++
October 18, 2024
Voice of the Whirlwind is set a century after Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired. In the gap, the orbital policorps have fought a war over the right to plunder alien ruins. A new group of aliens, the Powers, have stepped in to end it, staking out their areas of influence and making those star systems no-fly zones. Steward Etienne, a hero for one of the losing policorps, is murdered, and his clone, Steward Beta, is revived with memories that are fifteen years out of date.
He has to retrieve his lost history and solve his own murder.
It is a cyberpunk world dominated by Gibsonesque media. In one program, a free-fall kabuki actor appears in a drama set in “a genetically modified posthuman society” threatened by “the return of violent human primitives from a forgotten space colony, a comedy of manners laced with acid and appalling violence.”
The story also has a post-Vietnam feel. In a 2011 interview with Lightspeed, Williams says, “With Steward I wanted to ring some changes on the idea of the combat veteran who returns home to find that he has changed too much to appreciate his homecoming.” Fifteen years of amnesia in a post-human world will sure do that.
He has to retrieve his lost history and solve his own murder.
It is a cyberpunk world dominated by Gibsonesque media. In one program, a free-fall kabuki actor appears in a drama set in “a genetically modified posthuman society” threatened by “the return of violent human primitives from a forgotten space colony, a comedy of manners laced with acid and appalling violence.”
The story also has a post-Vietnam feel. In a 2011 interview with Lightspeed, Williams says, “With Steward I wanted to ring some changes on the idea of the combat veteran who returns home to find that he has changed too much to appreciate his homecoming.” Fifteen years of amnesia in a post-human world will sure do that.
December 9, 2025
It is good, if a little slow. It is not action packed, but rather slow investigative thriller.
There was too much of descriptions of relationships of various corporations and their role in the world, conflict and interrests, where I was getting lost who is who, what and why. Often I had to go on with reading, thinking "ok,whatever".
On the other side, I liked a lot the description of the Powers. Their alien society, look and chemistry around them (literally). This was well thought through by the author. Finally some really strange, bizzare, non-humanoid, non-anthropoid aliens. Well done!
It seems a little disservice to the book, that it's claimed to be sort of a loose successor to the Hardwired, set in the same universe and series. People then tend to compare the two, which does not really work. The Hardwired is only briefly referenced here on a couple of lines and that's it.
Please do not treat this book as any kind of successor set in the same universe. Take it as mere standalone novel, and you'll be good.
There was too much of descriptions of relationships of various corporations and their role in the world, conflict and interrests, where I was getting lost who is who, what and why. Often I had to go on with reading, thinking "ok,whatever".
On the other side, I liked a lot the description of the Powers. Their alien society, look and chemistry around them (literally). This was well thought through by the author. Finally some really strange, bizzare, non-humanoid, non-anthropoid aliens. Well done!
It seems a little disservice to the book, that it's claimed to be sort of a loose successor to the Hardwired, set in the same universe and series. People then tend to compare the two, which does not really work. The Hardwired is only briefly referenced here on a couple of lines and that's it.
Please do not treat this book as any kind of successor set in the same universe. Take it as mere standalone novel, and you'll be good.
January 6, 2021
This book was OK, half the story is a red herring, very little evidence to point your way to the final outcome. It also felt like the author had a lot to build up but then realised that the book would be too long so he accellerated it. It felt like the bulk of the story was rushed and the background was disporportionatley long compared to the final story arc. The story changed pace a lot sometimes slow and grinding, others quick. This is not exactly cyberpunk, but there are elements, memory storage, wired up brains, and wire in.
There were some very precient forecasts about the future, he nailed the roomba concept, to the shape and the way of moving around the rooom.
One continuity issue round, in most of the book the Author says Prime-on-the-Right, but in one chapter it is Prime-of-the-Right, I would have expected a book this old and Print on Demand would have fixed this already. Other than this the editing is pretty good.
OK time for something new.
There were some very precient forecasts about the future, he nailed the roomba concept, to the shape and the way of moving around the rooom.
One continuity issue round, in most of the book the Author says Prime-on-the-Right, but in one chapter it is Prime-of-the-Right, I would have expected a book this old and Print on Demand would have fixed this already. Other than this the editing is pretty good.
OK time for something new.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews