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Pages : 171
Overall Mark : 6/10
For many generations the Just have been at war with the Protectors. In their strange world, supported by a huge pillar poised in the vast and mysterious Deep, ritual bloodshed and sorcery have obsessed the inhabitants since the beginning of time. From the skies, the half-human, half-machine Visitor enters the world, his purpose unknown. Is he a peacemaker, an observer or a warrior the likes of which this planet has never seen before? Only time can tell – but time is something that his makers have not allowed for...
JOHN CROWLEY (1942-)
John Crowley was born in Maine in 1942 and grew up in Vermont, Kentucky and Indiana before moving to New York and taking up work in documentary films – an occupation he still pursues alongside his writing. The Deep, his first SF novel, was published in 1975 and was followed by Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time. With the publication of Little, Big in 1981 he won the World Fantasy Award and was shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula and BSFA Awards.
VERDICT
I couldn’t really get into this short novel, which felt much longer than its 171 pages. The characters are difficult to differentiate from each other, and the only section that felt to be any good to me was the third chapter of the third section that finally reveals what we’ve been trudging through the whole book to discover. Fans of strange alien sci-fi might enjoy this if they can decipher what is going on, but I just didn’t think it was worth the effort.
