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When We Were Real [Mass Market Paperback]

William Barton (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Publication Date: Jun 1 1999
Acclaimed for combining grand galactic concepts with realistic characters and penetrating insights, William Barton's award-nominated novels include When Heaven Fell, Acts of Conscience, and The Transmigration of Souls. Now William Barton creates an astonishing empire of mutant humans, forlorn cyborgs, and genetic hybrids struggling for freedom in an unforgiving, endless future.

ORPHANS OF UNCREATED TIME

Violet is an optimod space-pilot -- a beautiful, purple-furred human-fox hybrid. Darius Murphy has escaped an oppressive religious matriarchy for a new life in the stars. Mercenaries crewing ships for the corporation that rules the galaxy from the Glow-Ice Worlds to Centauri Jet, Darius and Violet share a love that transcends wars, centuries...even death.

But in the face of a ruthless power that annihilates inhabited worlds for profit, is love enough? And can even immortals dare to seek happiness in a galaxy without peace, a universe with no freedom?

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Review

"INTENSE AND INTENSELY PLEASURABLE".

-- Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Acts of Conscience

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars A little more plot please... Sep 19 2000
By C. King
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This was an interesting read, the first of this author's works I've picked up. There were a number of great scenes in this book but they seemed disjointed, with the characters floating between them in a happenstance way. I wish the author had put more effort into the plot and less into describing the genitalia of the female characters.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Morality in complexity Jun 15 2000
By Keith M. Ellis
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Follows is what I wrote to a friend (keep in mind that the context is genre fiction, not great literature. Though, perhaps, Barton may grow beyond genre fiction. He has something to say.):

Another book by William Barton, a science-fiction writer that has astonished me before. I think I mentioned that a previous book was strangely really good but with a taint of pulp sex stuff. This was was sexual and sensual, but more, um, adult or restrained. Which is good, because the story went more smoothly. He still seems like he doesn't quite know how to transcend writing pulpy stuff. BUT. But, the thing is, each of the three books I've read have a way of being simultaneously four things a) not bad character studies (not good, though, he specializes in characters that themselves don't know who they are, and so...); b) some quite original, reasonable postulated future societies; c) there is satire in there somewhere, he's straddling a line, I think, and that's why there's a pulpy feel to his work; and finally, most importantly to me; d) you, the reader are stunned by the casual way in which he describes (and the protagonist does not recognize) the horror and amorailty of this world that is, really, in some scary way, not so different from our own (morally), and then when you've maybe given up on all hope of feeling justice being done, you share in the protagonist's epiphany, the awakening of moral conscience (the first and acclaimed book he wrote was "Acts of Conscience"), in what you've now experienced, from the inside, as a complex, easy to-go-along-with abhorrent cultural norm. This book, as in AoC, speculates a future where corporations are completely unrestrained by any idea of morality or justice -- just legality. And profit. Is our world so different, you might ask?

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4.0 out of 5 stars More about loss than about space opera May 2 2000
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I finished "When We Were Real" (WWWR) a few hours ago after several hours of non-stop reading. I am still thinking about it. Another reviewer compared WWWR to the classic "Forever War", which is indeed a book which came to mind as I read. Against a background of war and wanderings, both novels consider what happens to sentient people when they are separated by vast distances and spans of time. In WWWR, the technology and the settings are well-plotted and believable, but the book seems to me to be primarily an exploration of the implications of semi-immortality more than anything else. What happens to relationships, fights, and the development of sequential families when such events are teased out over centuries rather than months and years? And how much loss can we bear as our hurts accumulate while our blessings seemingly remain in short supply? The author thankfully does not try to rationalise his decision: it's a dirty world but love, somehow, will save us - shades of Auden's "We must love another or die". Other themes that the author brings up indirectly are what it means to (non)human and the place of corporate organisations in society. I found this to be a convincing, often moving, very human SF novel centered around a believably flawed and troubled man moving through a pan-galactic society irrevocably fragmented by time. Well worth the read.
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Most recent customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars Deep Rooted Themes Give The Plot Coherence
Categorically this is an avant garde approach compared to those authors such as Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, et al. Read more
Published on Mar 25 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars MAGNIFICENT SCIENCE FICTION
I have read five or six of Barton's (and co-authored) books, all were great, but this is my favorite so far. Read more
Published on Jan 2 2000 by Kevin Spoering
2.0 out of 5 stars It simply didn't work for me.
Seeing the other favorable reviews already posted here, this book obviously works for some people. I guess it all depends on what you look for in a science fiction book. Read more
Published on Dec 9 1999 by Joseph McCauley
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book from an underrated author
I like Wm. Barton's solo-authored novels very much, and don't know why he isn't a bigger name. He deserves a wide audience. Read more
Published on Nov 16 1999
4.0 out of 5 stars "When Heaven Fell" meets "The Forever War"
This a typical Barton novel. Mercenaries and kinky alien sex, but with a conscience, as only Barton can write. I personally liked When Heaven Fell better. Read more
Published on Oct 4 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars Ouch! The honesty is brutal ... and that makes it great!
Loved it. Barton is a brutal writer in emotional terms, but that's what makes him so darned good. Seems every issue of ASIMOV'S I pick up has a terrific story by him, too. Read more
Published on Aug 17 1999
5.0 out of 5 stars Barton's Usual Great Stuff
I'm not going to bother outlining the book for you. If you have read Barton's previous works and were not repulsed by them for their blatant honesty, you'll find more of the same... Read more
Published on Jun 12 1999
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