The Terror, by Dan Simmons - Book Review
November 1st, 2009 by Robert
Remind me never to go to the North Pole. If the conditions that Dan Simmons describes so meticulously in his latest novel are in any way accurate, it really doesn’t sound like a pleasant place to visit. Extreme cold, hazardous ice floes, frostbite, starvation, scurvy, mutiny, cannibalism: as if that wasn’t enough for these poor sailors to go through, Dan Simmons decides to throw an enormous ice monster into the mix to pick them off one by one. Read the rest of this entry »
I knew Mieville was a great writer, but little did I know on picking up this volume of short stories for a casual read while enduring some economy-class air hell that I was about to embark on an almost religious experience. 
I read sci fi so that every now and then I will read something as awesome as this. Reynolds’ first novel is amazing - on his first shot he wrote one of the greatest sci fi novels of all time. 
Long and detailed, but saved from being boring by some episodes of genuine suspense and tension. The action scenes are very well written and, apart from some obviously Tolkienesque plot elements, this is one of the more original sword and sorcery genre series (not that originality is one of the genre’s strong points!)
Ian Cormac is an elite agent for the Polity - an AI governed civilisation in the distant future somewhat akin to the “Culture” of Iain M. Banks’ books. For thirty years, Cormac has been “gridlinked”: his brain has been directly connected to the all-pervading information network pervading the entire Polity realm. The almost-omniscience this has brought him has made him a fantastic secret agent, but it’s also robbed him of much of his humanity. 
It’s not surprising that the film rights for Altered Carbon were snapped up by Warner Brothers so soon after Richard Morgan’s debut novel was published. This story packs such a solid punch, you can’t help but imagine all the action up on screen in a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. 
Economics gets a bad rap. To the layperson, the mere mention of economics evokes thoughts of suited bankers, interest rates, taxation and finance. Economists are seen as just another goon from the pantheon of Finance. Greenpeace doesn’t like them. They’re one of those guys whose reason for being is to help big business make more money, or to prevent countries from going broke.