Child Of The River: The First Book Of Confluence [Hardcover]

Paul J. McAuley has won just about all the awards named for science fiction authors: the Philip K. Dick, the Arthur C. Clarke, and the John W. Campbell Memorial. McAuley is a true wordsmith, an author's author, and in Child of the River, he has not only written an outstanding novel, he has created a universe. While fans of Gene Wolfe and Mervyn Peake might be taken aback by McAuley's stylistic imitation of those two luminaries, why look a gift horse in the mouth? McAuley's vision is original enough, as well as complex and entertaining enough, to keep a demanding reader engrossed.

Child of the River tells the story of Yama, a young man of unique heritage in a world of genetically altered beings. The river world Confluence is a place of crumbling, ancient cities and machines so old and mysterious they seem like magic. From the vast necropolis of Aeolis to the engimatic metropolis of Ys, Yama seeks the truth about himself, and the universe. With Child of the River, McAuley begins a trilogy examining the death of a breathtakingly epic civilization. --Therese Littleton

On the world of Confluence, where thousands of bloodlines compete for position in a society abandoned by its creators, the mysterious appearance of a youth of indeterminable heritage portends either the world's end or a new beginning. Yama's search for his origins leads him from the faded necropolis of Aeolis to the fabled metropolis of Ys, bringing him closer to the secret of his past while simultaneously plunging him into the midst of a convoluted war of politics and religion. McAuley's (Fairyland, Avon, 1996) latest novel launches an ambitious sf/fantasy saga set against a richly detailed world of ancient technology and forbidden magics. A good addition to most sf or fantasy collections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As the first book of The Confluence, McAuley's novel begins an elegant literary exploration of the end of civilization that recalls the work of Patricia McKillip. McAuley uses a standard gambit, that of the orphan on a quest to discover his own mysterious past, with a host of secondary characters either asking him riddles or trying to kill him. The riddles concern the nature of the world: Who were the Builders, Creators, and Preservers? How did the various Bloodlines and Machines come to be? Tantalizing hints of the answers keep one turning pages despite slow pacing, which is also compensated for by excellent world building and highly competent characterization. The audience for this volume will consist mostly of literary sf aficionados, but any collection catering to a significant number of such should acquire this book and watch for its sequels. Roland Green

Thousands of years ago, so we eventually learn, the omnipotent and now-vanished Preservers built Confluence, not a planet but a habitat, or construct, thats home to a zillion species``bloodlines''whose ancestry includes both human and animal genes. When Yama, a boy of mysterious origin, was found resting on the breast of a dead woman in a boat, he was adopted by the Aedile, ruler of the city Aeolis and of the vast, crumbling necropolis that surrounds it. Now, the sinister apothecary Dr. Dismas visits the great city Ys and learns something significant about Yama's originsbut he won't tell the Aedile what it is; indeed, Dismas attempts to kidnap Yama and involve him in the war against the ``heretics,'' adherents of the enigmatic and recently vanished Ancients of Days. Yama escapes Dismas and in the necropolis acquires a sentient knife that feeds on sunlight. The Aedile resolves to place Yama as a clerk with Prefect Corin in Ys, but Yama, finding he can mentally control machines, joins up instead with potboy Pandaras and agrees to assist the warrior Tamora with her commission to track down and capture a spaceman who's jumped ship. Yama defeats the corrupt, powerful spaceman by unexpectedly summoning a feral machine. Eventually, Yama will learn that hes a Builder, one of a race created to serve the Preservers; but to learn the rest of his own identity and heritage, he must force his way into the jealously guarded Palace of the Memory of the People. Agreeably meaty and complex, challenging and tantalizing: an entry with ample scope for sequels, the one possible drawback being that McAuley's (Pasquale's Angel, 1995, etc.) narrative voice may be too cool to be entirely satisfying. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

An Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winner for his novel FAIRYLAND, Paul J. McAuley designs and fabricates remarkably intricate worlds. He builds some out of solid bricks of science, some from granite carved from the rich quarry of human history and experience. All are marvelous constructs of invention and thought; enthralling landscapes to wander, explore and lose oneself in. He offers now a world that stands distinctly apart: a place of savagery, secrets and war; the home of ten thousand extraordinary bloodlines ruled by universal devotion to absent gods; a realm of merchants, mercenaries, ghouls, heretics, bureaucrats and feral machines; a world called Confluence. CHILD OF THE RIVER is the first book of the end times; the beginning chapter in the final great epic of a mysterious civilization. In it, a singular young man named Yama makes his way from a ghostly city of the dead to a metropolis of living wonders, and through the labyrinthine country o

Paul J. McAuley won a Philip K. Dick Award for his debut novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars. He won the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards for his novel Fairyland. In addition he has published five other novels-including Child of the River,the first book of Confluence--and two collections of short stories. In 1995, his short story, "The Temptation of Dr. Stein," won the British Fantasy Society Award. Mr. McAuley is a regular contributor to the British SF magazine Interzone and writes reviews for Foundation. He lives in London.