Sign in with Facebook
Matt Shaw's Reviews > Lords of Uncreation
Lords of Uncreation (The Final Architecture, #3)
by
by
The third volume of what should NOT have been a trilogy, Lords of Uncreation bears the greater burden of the chronic bloating, padding, filler, and regurgitation that stretches this story out for well over 1500 pages. Tchaikovsky has become one of my favorite current SF authors, but Orbit Books blatantly exposes their Revenue Generation priorities in the editing and packaging of this space-opera.
Yes, the core story is intriguing and yes, the cast of characters is pretty groovy. But the superfluous bunny-trails, the overly-frequent and unnecessary shoot-'em-up scenes, the constant conniving between factions with no resolutions, and the repeated, identical forays into Idris' weaknesses and failings (as well as the entire swaths of hand-wavium, metaphysical blather about the nature of unspace) make this feel like a nine-hour long Marvel Comics movie. It took me weeks to read a book that would normally have taken three days because I got too bored to continue. The final wound comes with the resolution: it occurs nearly in passing and is not referenced again: very unsatisfying.
I should have waited for the movie.
Yes, the core story is intriguing and yes, the cast of characters is pretty groovy. But the superfluous bunny-trails, the overly-frequent and unnecessary shoot-'em-up scenes, the constant conniving between factions with no resolutions, and the repeated, identical forays into Idris' weaknesses and failings (as well as the entire swaths of hand-wavium, metaphysical blather about the nature of unspace) make this feel like a nine-hour long Marvel Comics movie. It took me weeks to read a book that would normally have taken three days because I got too bored to continue. The final wound comes with the resolution: it occurs nearly in passing and is not referenced again: very unsatisfying.
I should have waited for the movie.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Lords of Uncreation.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Kathie
(new)
May 30, 2023 09:42AM
Sad to see this was such a mess. I know you admire the author. I long for the era of editors.
reply
|
flag
The actual writing and originality are more than sound, but there is no doubt at all that 3 glossy, 600 pp, $28 volumes make more cash than a single fat stand-alone or two tight narratives, so the push had to be on to "encourage" the author "extend" the manuscript. This trilogy would've have been gripping as heck if it were 50% lighter.
For a long time, I refused to read anything that wasn't a stand alone for just that reason. I do read some now, but it is really irritating to have to wade through the cruff to get to the story.
A strength of this same author's other hard-SF set ("Children of Time," etc) ios that it is not 'really' a trilogy; they are interconnected stories in the same universe.
