Given that the suns of Draco stretch almost sixteen light years from end to end, it stands to reason that the cost of transportation is the most important factor of the 32nd century. And since Illyrion is the element most needed for space travel, Lorq von Ray is plenty willing to fly through the core of a recently imploded sun in order to obtain seven tons of it. The potential for profit is so great that Lorq has little difficulty cobbling together an alluring crew that includes a gypsy musician and a moon-obsessed scholar interested in the ancient art of writing a novel. What the crew doesn’t know, though, is that Lorq’s quest is actually fueled by a private revenge so consuming that he’ll stop at nothing to achieve it. In the grandest manner of speculative fiction, Nova is a wise and witty classic that casts a fascinating new light on some of humanity’s oldest truths and enduring myths.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Description de l'ouvrage
Descriptions du produit
Extrait
chapter one
"Hey, Mouse! Play us something," one of the mechanics called from the bar.
"Didn't get signed on no ship yet?" chided the other. "Your spinal socket'll rust up. Come on, give us a number."
The Mouse stopped running his finger around the rim of his glass. Wanting to say "no" he began a "yes." Then he frowned.
The mechanics frowned too:
He was an old man.
He was a strong man.
As the Mouse pulled his hand to the edge of the table, the derelict lurched forward. Hip banged the counter. Long toes struck a chair leg: the chair danced on the flags.
Old. Strong. The third thing the Mouse saw: Blind.
He swayed before the Mouse's table. His hand swung up; yellow nails hit the Mouse's cheek. (Spider's feet?) "You, boy . . ."
The Mouse stared at the pearls behind rough, blinking lids.
"You, boy. Do you know what it was like?"
Must be blind, the Mouse thought. Moves like blind. Head sits forward so on his neck. And his eyes--
The codger flapped out his hand, caught a chair, and yanked it to him. It rasped as he fell on the seat. "Do you know what it looked like, felt like, smelt like--do you?"
The Mouse shook his head; the fingers tapped his cheek.
"We were moving out, boy, with the three hundred suns of the Pleiades glittering like a puddle of jeweled milk on our left, and all blackness wrapped around our right. The ship was me; I was the ship. With these sockets--" he tapped the insets in his wrists against the table: click "--I was plugged into my vane-projector. Then--" the stubble on his jaw rose and fell with the words "--centered on the dark, a light! It reached out, grabbed our eyes as we lay in the projection chambers and wouldn't let them go. It was like the universe was torn and all day raging through. I wouldn't go off sensory input. I wouldn't look away. All the colors you could think of were there, blotting the night. And finally the shock waves: the walls sang! Magnetic inductance oscillated over our ship, nearly rattled us apart. But then it was too late. I was blind." He sat back in his chair. "I'm blind, boy. But with a funny kind of blindness: I can see you. I'm deaf. But if you talked to me, I could understand most of what you said. Olfactory nerves mostly shorted out at the brain end. Same with the taste buds over my tongue." His hand went flat on the Mouse's cheek. "I can't feel the texture of your face. Most of the tactile nerve endings were killed too. Are you smooth--or are you bristly and gristly as I am?" He laughed on yellow teeth in red, red gums. "Old Dan is blind in a funny way." His hand slipped down the Mouse's vest, catching the laces. "A funny way, yes. Most people go blind in blackness. I have a fire in my eyes. I have that whole collapsing sun in my head, my visual tectum shorted wide open, jumping, leaping, sparking. It's as though the light lashed the rods and cones of my retina to constant stimulation, balled up a rainbow and stuffed each socket full. That's what I'm seeing now. Then you, outlined here, highlighted there, a solarized ghost across hell from me. Who are you?"
"Pontichos," the Mouse offered. His voice sounded like wool with sand, grinding. "Pontichos Provechi."
Dan's face twisted. "Your name is . . . What did you say? It's shaking my head apart. There's a choir crouched in my ears, shouting down into my skull twenty-six hours a day. The brain-end synapses, they're sending out static, the death rattle that sun's been dying ever since. Over that, I can just hear your voice, like an echo of something shouted a hundred yards off." Dan coughed and sat back, hard. "Where are you from?" He wiped his mouth.
"Here in Draco," the Mouse said. "Earth."
"Earth? Where? America? You come from a little white house on a tree-lined street, with a bicycle in the garage?"
Oh yes, the Mouse thought. Blind, and deaf too. The Mouse's speech was good, but he'd never even tried to correct his accent.
"Me. I'm from Australia. From a white house. I lived just outside Melbourne. Trees. I had a bicycle. But that was a long time ago. A long time, wasn't it, boy? You know Australia, on Earth?"
"Been through." The Mouse squirmed in his chair and wondered how to get away.
"Yes. That's how it was. But you don't know, boy! You can't know what it's like to stagger through the rest of your life with a nova dug into your brain, remembering Melbourne, remembering the bicycle. What did you say your name was?"
The Mouse looked left at the window, right at the door.
"I can't remember it. The sound of that sun blots out everything."
The mechanics, who had been listening till now, turned to the bar.
"Can't remember a thing any more!"
At another table a black-haired woman fell back to her card game with her blond companion.
"Oh, I've been sent to doctors! They say if they cut out the nerves, optic and aural, slice them off at the brain, the roaring, the light--it might stop! Might?" He raised his hands to his face. "And the shadows of the world that come in, they'd stop too. Your name? What's your name?"
The Mouse got the words ready in his mouth, along with, excuse me, huh? I gotta go.
But old Dan coughed, clutched at his ears.
"Ahhh! That was a pig trip, a dog trip, a trip for flies! The ship was the Roc and I was a cyborg stud for Captain Lorq Von Ray. He took us"--Dan leaned across the table--"this close"--his thumb brushed his forefinger--"this close to hell. And brought us back. You can damn him, and damn Illyrion for that, boy, whoever you are. Wherever you're from!" Dan barked, flung back his head; his hands jumped on the table.
The bartender glanced over. Somebody signaled for a drink. The bartender's lips tightened, but he turned off, shaking his head.
"Pain--" Dan's chin came down--"after you've lived with it long enough, isn't pain anymore. It's something else. Lorq Von Ray is mad! He took us as near the edge of dying as he could. Now he's abandoned me, nine-tenths a corpse, here at the rim of the Solar System. And where's he gone--" Dan breathed hard. Something flapped in his lungs. "Where's blind Dan going to go now?"
Suddenly he grabbed the sides of the table.
"Where is Dan going to go!"
The Mouse's glass tumbled, smashed on the stone.
"You tell me!"
He shook the table again.
The bartender was coming over.
Dan stood, overturning his chair, and rubbed his knuckles on his eyes. He took two staggering steps through the sunburst that rayed the floor. Two more. The last left long maroon prints.
The black-haired woman caught her breath. The blond man closed the cards.
One mechanic started forward, but the other touched his arm.
Dan's fists struck the swinging doors. He was gone.
The Mouse looked around. Glass on stone again, but softer. The bartender had plugged the sweeper into his wrist and the machine hissed over dirt and bloody fragments. "You want another drink?"
"No," the Mouse's voice whispered from his ruined larynx. "No. I was finished. Who was that?"
"Used to be a cyborg stud on the Roc. He's been making trouble around here for a week. Lots of places throw him out soon as he comes in the door. How come you been having such a hard time getting signed on?"
"I've never been on a star-run before," came the Mouse's rough whisper. "I just got my certificate two years back. Since then I've been plugged in with a small freight company working around inside the Solar System on the triangle run."
"I could give you all kinds of advice." The bartender unplugged the sweeper from the socket on his wrist. "But I'll restrain myself. Ashton Clark go with you." He grinned and went back behind the bar.
The Mouse felt uncomfortable. He hooked a dark thumb beneath the leather strap over his shoulder, got up and started for the door.
"Eh, Mouse, come on. Play something for--"
The door closed behind him.
The shrunken sun lay jagged gold on the mountains. Neptune, huge in the sky, dropped mottled light on the plain. The starships hulked in the repair pits half a mile away.
The Mouse started down the strip of bars, cheap hotels, and eating places. Unemployed and despondent, he had bummed in most of them, playing for board, sleeping in the corner of somebody's room when he was pulled in to entertain at an all-night party. That wasn't what his certificate said he should be doing. That wasn't what he wanted.
He turned down the boardwalk that edged Hell3.
To make the satellite's surface habitable, Draco Commission had planted Illyrion furnaces to melt the moon's core. With surface temperature at mild autumn, atmosphere generated spontaneously from the rocks. An artificial ionosphere kept it in. The other manifestations of the newly molten core were Hells1 to 52, volcanic cracks that had opened in the crust of the moon. Hell3 was almost a hundred yards wide, twice as deep (a flaming worm broiled on its bottom), and seven miles long. The cañon flickered and fumed under pale night.
As the Mouse walked by the abyss, hot air caressed his cheek. He was thinking about blind Dan. He was thinking about the night beyond Pluto, beyond the edge of the stars called Draco. And was afraid. He fingered the leather sack against his side.
When the Mouse was ten years old, he'd stolen that sack. It held what he was to love most.
Terrified, he'd fled from the music stalls beneath white vaults, down between the stinking booths of suede. He clutched the sack to his belly, jumped over a carton of meersc... --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
"Hey, Mouse! Play us something," one of the mechanics called from the bar.
"Didn't get signed on no ship yet?" chided the other. "Your spinal socket'll rust up. Come on, give us a number."
The Mouse stopped running his finger around the rim of his glass. Wanting to say "no" he began a "yes." Then he frowned.
The mechanics frowned too:
He was an old man.
He was a strong man.
As the Mouse pulled his hand to the edge of the table, the derelict lurched forward. Hip banged the counter. Long toes struck a chair leg: the chair danced on the flags.
Old. Strong. The third thing the Mouse saw: Blind.
He swayed before the Mouse's table. His hand swung up; yellow nails hit the Mouse's cheek. (Spider's feet?) "You, boy . . ."
The Mouse stared at the pearls behind rough, blinking lids.
"You, boy. Do you know what it was like?"
Must be blind, the Mouse thought. Moves like blind. Head sits forward so on his neck. And his eyes--
The codger flapped out his hand, caught a chair, and yanked it to him. It rasped as he fell on the seat. "Do you know what it looked like, felt like, smelt like--do you?"
The Mouse shook his head; the fingers tapped his cheek.
"We were moving out, boy, with the three hundred suns of the Pleiades glittering like a puddle of jeweled milk on our left, and all blackness wrapped around our right. The ship was me; I was the ship. With these sockets--" he tapped the insets in his wrists against the table: click "--I was plugged into my vane-projector. Then--" the stubble on his jaw rose and fell with the words "--centered on the dark, a light! It reached out, grabbed our eyes as we lay in the projection chambers and wouldn't let them go. It was like the universe was torn and all day raging through. I wouldn't go off sensory input. I wouldn't look away. All the colors you could think of were there, blotting the night. And finally the shock waves: the walls sang! Magnetic inductance oscillated over our ship, nearly rattled us apart. But then it was too late. I was blind." He sat back in his chair. "I'm blind, boy. But with a funny kind of blindness: I can see you. I'm deaf. But if you talked to me, I could understand most of what you said. Olfactory nerves mostly shorted out at the brain end. Same with the taste buds over my tongue." His hand went flat on the Mouse's cheek. "I can't feel the texture of your face. Most of the tactile nerve endings were killed too. Are you smooth--or are you bristly and gristly as I am?" He laughed on yellow teeth in red, red gums. "Old Dan is blind in a funny way." His hand slipped down the Mouse's vest, catching the laces. "A funny way, yes. Most people go blind in blackness. I have a fire in my eyes. I have that whole collapsing sun in my head, my visual tectum shorted wide open, jumping, leaping, sparking. It's as though the light lashed the rods and cones of my retina to constant stimulation, balled up a rainbow and stuffed each socket full. That's what I'm seeing now. Then you, outlined here, highlighted there, a solarized ghost across hell from me. Who are you?"
"Pontichos," the Mouse offered. His voice sounded like wool with sand, grinding. "Pontichos Provechi."
Dan's face twisted. "Your name is . . . What did you say? It's shaking my head apart. There's a choir crouched in my ears, shouting down into my skull twenty-six hours a day. The brain-end synapses, they're sending out static, the death rattle that sun's been dying ever since. Over that, I can just hear your voice, like an echo of something shouted a hundred yards off." Dan coughed and sat back, hard. "Where are you from?" He wiped his mouth.
"Here in Draco," the Mouse said. "Earth."
"Earth? Where? America? You come from a little white house on a tree-lined street, with a bicycle in the garage?"
Oh yes, the Mouse thought. Blind, and deaf too. The Mouse's speech was good, but he'd never even tried to correct his accent.
"Me. I'm from Australia. From a white house. I lived just outside Melbourne. Trees. I had a bicycle. But that was a long time ago. A long time, wasn't it, boy? You know Australia, on Earth?"
"Been through." The Mouse squirmed in his chair and wondered how to get away.
"Yes. That's how it was. But you don't know, boy! You can't know what it's like to stagger through the rest of your life with a nova dug into your brain, remembering Melbourne, remembering the bicycle. What did you say your name was?"
The Mouse looked left at the window, right at the door.
"I can't remember it. The sound of that sun blots out everything."
The mechanics, who had been listening till now, turned to the bar.
"Can't remember a thing any more!"
At another table a black-haired woman fell back to her card game with her blond companion.
"Oh, I've been sent to doctors! They say if they cut out the nerves, optic and aural, slice them off at the brain, the roaring, the light--it might stop! Might?" He raised his hands to his face. "And the shadows of the world that come in, they'd stop too. Your name? What's your name?"
The Mouse got the words ready in his mouth, along with, excuse me, huh? I gotta go.
But old Dan coughed, clutched at his ears.
"Ahhh! That was a pig trip, a dog trip, a trip for flies! The ship was the Roc and I was a cyborg stud for Captain Lorq Von Ray. He took us"--Dan leaned across the table--"this close"--his thumb brushed his forefinger--"this close to hell. And brought us back. You can damn him, and damn Illyrion for that, boy, whoever you are. Wherever you're from!" Dan barked, flung back his head; his hands jumped on the table.
The bartender glanced over. Somebody signaled for a drink. The bartender's lips tightened, but he turned off, shaking his head.
"Pain--" Dan's chin came down--"after you've lived with it long enough, isn't pain anymore. It's something else. Lorq Von Ray is mad! He took us as near the edge of dying as he could. Now he's abandoned me, nine-tenths a corpse, here at the rim of the Solar System. And where's he gone--" Dan breathed hard. Something flapped in his lungs. "Where's blind Dan going to go now?"
Suddenly he grabbed the sides of the table.
"Where is Dan going to go!"
The Mouse's glass tumbled, smashed on the stone.
"You tell me!"
He shook the table again.
The bartender was coming over.
Dan stood, overturning his chair, and rubbed his knuckles on his eyes. He took two staggering steps through the sunburst that rayed the floor. Two more. The last left long maroon prints.
The black-haired woman caught her breath. The blond man closed the cards.
One mechanic started forward, but the other touched his arm.
Dan's fists struck the swinging doors. He was gone.
The Mouse looked around. Glass on stone again, but softer. The bartender had plugged the sweeper into his wrist and the machine hissed over dirt and bloody fragments. "You want another drink?"
"No," the Mouse's voice whispered from his ruined larynx. "No. I was finished. Who was that?"
"Used to be a cyborg stud on the Roc. He's been making trouble around here for a week. Lots of places throw him out soon as he comes in the door. How come you been having such a hard time getting signed on?"
"I've never been on a star-run before," came the Mouse's rough whisper. "I just got my certificate two years back. Since then I've been plugged in with a small freight company working around inside the Solar System on the triangle run."
"I could give you all kinds of advice." The bartender unplugged the sweeper from the socket on his wrist. "But I'll restrain myself. Ashton Clark go with you." He grinned and went back behind the bar.
The Mouse felt uncomfortable. He hooked a dark thumb beneath the leather strap over his shoulder, got up and started for the door.
"Eh, Mouse, come on. Play something for--"
The door closed behind him.
The shrunken sun lay jagged gold on the mountains. Neptune, huge in the sky, dropped mottled light on the plain. The starships hulked in the repair pits half a mile away.
The Mouse started down the strip of bars, cheap hotels, and eating places. Unemployed and despondent, he had bummed in most of them, playing for board, sleeping in the corner of somebody's room when he was pulled in to entertain at an all-night party. That wasn't what his certificate said he should be doing. That wasn't what he wanted.
He turned down the boardwalk that edged Hell3.
To make the satellite's surface habitable, Draco Commission had planted Illyrion furnaces to melt the moon's core. With surface temperature at mild autumn, atmosphere generated spontaneously from the rocks. An artificial ionosphere kept it in. The other manifestations of the newly molten core were Hells1 to 52, volcanic cracks that had opened in the crust of the moon. Hell3 was almost a hundred yards wide, twice as deep (a flaming worm broiled on its bottom), and seven miles long. The cañon flickered and fumed under pale night.
As the Mouse walked by the abyss, hot air caressed his cheek. He was thinking about blind Dan. He was thinking about the night beyond Pluto, beyond the edge of the stars called Draco. And was afraid. He fingered the leather sack against his side.
When the Mouse was ten years old, he'd stolen that sack. It held what he was to love most.
Terrified, he'd fled from the music stalls beneath white vaults, down between the stinking booths of suede. He clutched the sack to his belly, jumped over a carton of meersc... --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Revue de presse
“One of the most complete and fully realized pictures of an interstellar society that I have ever read.” --Science Fiction Times
“As of this book [Samuel R. Delany] is the best science-fiction writer in the world.” --Galaxy
“A fast-action farflung interstellar adventure; [an] archetypal mystical/mythical allegory; [a] modern myth told in the S-F idiomÉand lots more.” --Fantasy and Science Fiction --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
“As of this book [Samuel R. Delany] is the best science-fiction writer in the world.” --Galaxy
“A fast-action farflung interstellar adventure; [an] archetypal mystical/mythical allegory; [a] modern myth told in the S-F idiomÉand lots more.” --Fantasy and Science Fiction --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Détails sur le produit
Souhaitez-vous compléter ou améliorer les informations sur ce produit ? Ou faire modifier les images?
|
En savoir plus sur l'auteur
Découvrez des livres, informez-vous sur les écrivains, lisez des blogs d'auteurs et bien plus encore.
Dans ce livre
(En savoir plus)
Couverture | Copyright | Extrait | Quatrième de couverture
En découvrir plus
Concordance
Parcourir les pages échantillon
Concordance
Couverture | Copyright | Extrait | Quatrième de couverture
Vendre une version numérique de ce livre dans la boutique Kindle.
Si vous êtes un éditeur ou un auteur et que vous disposez des droits numériques sur un livre, vous pouvez vendre la version numérique du livre dans notre boutique Kindle.
En savoir plus
Commentaires en ligne
Commentaires client les plus utiles
Par Gilles Laffay
Format:Broché
SI vous devez en acheter qu'un, achetez babel 17
si vous en achetez 2 prenez babel 17 ET nova
nova est un space opera sur fond de course de vaisseau
de plongee dans le coeur des etoiles et le tout rythmé par des prédictions du Tarot, un livre curieux, fort et rapide : riche. par l'un des auteur de sf les plus littéraire des années 60's radical et black evoluant dans la contre culture, bref un imaginaire assez ouvert et subversif pour depasser le cadre restraint de la "sci fi"
si vous en achetez 2 prenez babel 17 ET nova
nova est un space opera sur fond de course de vaisseau
de plongee dans le coeur des etoiles et le tout rythmé par des prédictions du Tarot, un livre curieux, fort et rapide : riche. par l'un des auteur de sf les plus littéraire des années 60's radical et black evoluant dans la contre culture, bref un imaginaire assez ouvert et subversif pour depasser le cadre restraint de la "sci fi"
Commentaires client les plus utiles sur Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 étoiles sur 5
27 commentaires
48 internautes sur 50 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
5.0 étoiles sur 5
Melville in the Future
17 juin 2003
Par Christopher Forbes
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Broché
I have a feeling this is going to be my summer of Delany. I read Nova on the heels of his short story collection Aye, and Gomorrah and the virtues that I found in that collection are also to be found in this novel in spades. Delany writes with an attention to detail, prose and character that is astounding, and in doing so he creates a scifi world that is truly natural and lacks the self-consciousness of much of the genre.
Nova is to be compared with the great works of literature, both in theme and achievement. The story centers around a reckless quest by starship captain Lorq Von Ray, a figure reminiscent of Melville's Ahab in his oversized dimensions and emotional complexity. Von Ray hires a crew of "cyberstuds", men who interface with machines to navigate the vast distances between the worlds of their interspace confederation. The mission is to enter a sun as it novas, during the first few hours, to gather an element that is used as the basis of space travel. The element is mined on planets, but rarely found. However, in the core of a sun during a nova, the element is found in great abundance. As the quest continues though, Von Ray's darker obsessions become evident and the tale plumbs deeper themes of revenge, political freedom and the search for the Holy Grail.
From the outset of the novel, Delany captures you with the originality of his prose style and the deeper resonance of his characters. Most of the tale is told through the eyes of a gypsy musician, the Mouse and his friend Katin, who is collecting notes for a novel he is destined not to write. These characters are fully drawn, but set up parallels to Melville's Ishmael and Quee Queg. Von Ray is introduced carefully, first by reputation, as an old mad former crewman in a bar describes him. The ties to Coleridge are unmistakable. Then, when Von Ray makes his appearance, he is already clothed in the stuff of myth that makes him such an unforgettable character. His nemeses in the book, Prince and Ruby Red, are every bit as oversized and yet as believable as Von Ray. Prince is rage personified, while Ruby is both sympathetic and devious.
This is a work that will haunt the mind for days afterwards. And yet, it is also a first rate scifi yarn as well. Delany's attention to technology, and consistency within the world he creates is remarkable. Delany writes as if we too inhabit this world, artfully showing us the parallels to our own and pointing out the differences with elegance and wit. Anyone who enjoys scifi should make the acquaintance of this author. But even if you don't like the genre, Delany is a writer than should be read. His craft is impeccable and the themes underlying the book are universal, as all great literature should be.
13 internautes sur 13 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
5.0 étoiles sur 5
A classic rollercoaster ride
5 juin 1998
Par Un client
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Poche
It seems extraordinary that this seminal novel should be out of print. Perhaps Delany is out of fashion, or maybe readers have beeen put off by the reputation produced by books like Dhalgren that he is hard to read.
Nova is a giddy dash across a shiny future civilisation where economic forces are about to act on a large scale to change people's lives. If the quest of Captain Lorq von Ray succeeds, energy prices will plummet and power will shift from one ruthless faction to another. The stakes are high and both sides will stop at nothing.
Into this situation, add some more ingredients. Nearly everyone, aristocrats to lowlife, is equipped with neural sockets which allow then to jack into any machinery from starships down and inhabit a virual reality where the machinery becomes an extension of themselves. Yes - cyberpunk fans will be amazed at how much of their genre Delany foresaw/invented. Throw in a synasthaesic musical instrument, an overheated love affair and a pysychotic or two and the brew is starting to bubble nicely. Add a sense of history, the Tarot and a hint of decadence and the pot is starting to look as if it will boil over.
It very nearly does. Delany's style, which dazzled when the book was first published in the mid-'60s, now seems more flashy than brilliant and there's rather too much exposition for a book of this kind. In the end, though, bravado carries all and the reader's irritation gives way to exhilaration.
It's a wonderful ride on the Roc with Lorq von Ray and his motley crew. If only it were longer...
19 internautes sur 21 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
5.0 étoiles sur 5
Stellar (Dis)-Integration
12 novembre 2001
Par Patrick Shepherd
- Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Poche
I consider Nova to be one of Delany's best works. While written comparatively early in his career (1968), it shows maturity in handling of both language and character. The narrator, the Mouse, is Delany's typical nail biting, one shoed foot outsider from civilization (gypsy like, in this case), who, while intriguing in his own right, makes an excellent contrast to Prince Red, spoiled, rich, and equipped with an artificial hand that he is extremely sensitive about, and Captain Lorq von Ray. The plot is near space opera, with a race to visit a star in the first stages of nova to collect trans- uranic elements, commonly referred to as Illyrion, that are the power basis of the stellar economy, and also the basis for the high level political/corporate battle. Illyrion is also used to power one of the most unique gadgets I have come across in SF, the sensory- syrynx, which can produce music (or any type of sound), moving holographic images, and scents, all under the control of a single player. This instrument figures prominently in the final climatic scene where Prince gets his just dues. The book also introduces the idea of socket inserts in humans, allowing anyone to plug into any machine and control the machine as an extension of his body.
But beyond the simple, near-cliched plot line lies a deeper level of meaning, when each of the characters, gadgets, and indeed even the portrayed socioeconomic structure is viewed as a symbol or metaphor for larger items. Careful reading and thinking about this book will reward the reader with some unexpected insights into courage, environment versus heredity, the use and abuse of power, the influence of 'little people' on the course of history, and many other items.
His control of language is illustrated by this quote:
He was an old man.
He was a strong man.
As the Mouse pulled his hand to the edge of the table, the derelict lurched forward. Hip
banged the counter. Long toes struck a chair leg: the chair danced on the flags.
Old. Strong. The third thing the Mouse saw: blind.
He swayed before the Mouse's table. His hand swung up; yellow nails hit the Mouse's cheek.
(Spider's feet?) "You, boy..."
The Mouse stared at the pearls behind rough, blinking lids.
A finely crafted book rich in ideas and well drawn, idiosyncratic characters, told with near-poetic style.
›
Allez sur Amazon.com pour voir l'ensemble des 27 commentaires
4.0 étoiles sur 5
Ces commentaires ont-ils été utiles ?
Dites-le-nous
Listmania!
Rechercher des articles similaires par rubrique
Commentaires
Souhaitez-vous compléter ou améliorer les informations sur ce produit ? Ou faire modifier les images?
