Lon1_1
9/3/2026
This is the start of a trilogy that I am determined to read but I cannot say that it particularly gets off to the best start.
There are some interesting ideas (I particularly liked the miracle at Fish Lake) and storylines, but in general I would say that this needs a good edit. There are stories that don't conclude and parts that could definitely be left out; text that wanders off into the future before snapping back to the present; the first section would make a good short story but is not needed to understand the main part; plot devices that are only described in the appendices; the repeated mentions of the Human Space Station that, in an unexplained way, is capturing all these stories in such detail as to beam them back to Earth to be shown as Reality TV, but has no consequence on the story.
The idea that this small group of humans will progress in a single generation from hunter/gatherers to a city reliant on agriculture and trading, having discovered astronomy, as well as becoming a unique force of mounted soldiers, seems a bit more than far fetched.
Aldiss may be trying to create a story to discuss the effects of climate change, with the failure of the systems humans rely on and the effects in terms of failing food chains and immigration; he may be trying to comment the ways individuality and community drive change and innovation, but all of that is muddled in the story. He did manage to drop in his signature nod towards incest, a subject that appears in other books of his but never actually drives any storyline.
Lets hope the sequel is better.