Tuesday, 24th of December, 2002

In the middle of reading the Ken MacLeod books, I received the latest novel by John Meaney, called Context. I’m sure I reviewed Paradox (of which this is a sequel) when it came out, but it must’ve disappeared because of the disorganised way I used to keep my reviews. Damn!

Anyway, Paradox was set on a world called Nullapeiron, which has a literally stratified society: There are nobles and lower classes, but the world is also divided into many levels, with not even the noble classes living on the surface pretty much. The protagonist, Tom Corcorigan, is a highly intelligent young boy from the (very much) lower classes, and is a very sympathetic character. It’s not exactly hard science fiction, being set in the very far future with a mysterious “mu-space” (a space with fractal geometry) underlying a lot of the “science”… But the world is very complex and beautifully drawn, and the characters interact with it in very interesting ways.

Context follows on from Paradox pretty much directly. As with the previous novel, there is a short story intertwined with the main narrative. In Paradox Tom received a strange storage device from one of the “Pilots”, people who are specially adapted to be able to remain conscious and navigate in mu-space… They are, for some reason, reviled and feared on Nullapeiron. He gradually ingests (reads? experiences?) modules from a story about one of the original Pilots, and learns information vital to his own life. I felt that in Context, although it made some sense to continue it, this device seemed somewhat more artificial. Perhaps this is because the story in the previous novel was adapted from an already-existent story, whereas here it’s clearly written as part of the novel. This might seem contradictory, but the point is that the flash-back narrative (now about the daughter of the first story’s protagonist) reflects Tom’s experience in a too-convenient manner…
Apart from that, there is again a lot of fully-immersive world-building, and I enjoyed the experience of both Nullapeiron and (relatively) near-future Earth… Meaney is a great writer, and nothing’s ever dull or unconvincing… However, somehow the “Blight”, which is the main motivating factor for the characters in this book, is a bit too much of an Evil Overlord kind of villain, and the way it’s linked with the villain in Meaney’s first novel is a bit too convenient again. I got a strange feeling, near the end, that I was reading some epic fantasy novel rather than science fiction… and I don’t really like epic fantasy.
Still, I did like this book, and look forward to the next in the series, which should complete the story of Tom Corcorigan. Meaney tries hard to make his exotic future science seem plausible, and most succeeds. Indeed, it was more the narrative aspects that didn’t quite convince in this novel. Hopefully Resolution will be more convinving.

Comments are closed.