City Without End | ||||||||
Kay Kenyon | ||||||||
Pyr, 433 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Greg L. Johnson
A World Too Near, part two of Kay Kenyon's series The Entire and the Rose, did a good job of
complicating the characters' motivations and increasing the tension level of the story. That means the bar has been
raised for City Without End, which has to maintain the quality of the first two volumes of the series,
and set everything up for the big ending that is sure to come.
As City Without End opens, the major story-lines left over from A World Too Near are front and
center. Titus Quinn still searches for a way to save our universe, the Rose, without destroying the Entire. Meanwhile,
his daughter grows in power even as she renounces their relationship, and Helice continues her plan to bring humans
to the Entire, no matter the cost to Earth.
Those are the bare outlines of a story that has grown in complexity with each additional volume in the series. In
the process, the emphasis has changed from the plight of the hero in a world he never knew to the clash of personal
power relationships in a world filled with intrigue and schemes. At the same time, the tone of the novels has also
changed. While Bright of the Sky, with its fantastic landscape, hidden technologies, and abundant
aliens had the feel of a fantasy story, City Without End is more recognizably a science fiction novel,
one where the exact nature of the reality that can contain at least two contiguous universes is becoming more
and more important to the plot.
Because of that, a series that wowed at the beginning for the complexity and creativity of its invented
setting, earning comparisons to classics like Riverworld and Ringworld, has now filled that
setting with characters whose motives and aspirations are often hidden and always conflicting, a situation
that makes The Entire and the Rose at least as comparable to Dune and the tension-filled
novels of C.J. Cherryh as it is those other works. Which means that at the end of City Without End,
even though several story lines have been concluded, a couple in surprising and dramatic fashion, the crux
of the problem still remains. Titus Quinn's family and loved ones are scattered across two different universes,
and whether he can save or hold on to any of it remains in serious doubt. The stage is now set for the final
volume in what is already looking like one of the classic science fiction series of our time.
Reviewer Greg L. Johnson can hardly wait for the publication of Prince of Storms and the conclusion of The Entire and the Rose in January 2010. His reviews also appear in the The New York Review of Science Fiction. And, for something different, Greg blogs about news and politics relating to outdoors issues and the environment at Thinking Outside. |
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