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5.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not terribly exciting, Sep 17 2003
I have a feeling Dickson really had no idea how he was going to cap off his epic "Childe Cycle" and what conclusion to come to. The last two books, The Final Encyclopedia and Chantry Guild, both end in what can politely be called an anticlimax, both leaving a sort of cliffhanger for the next book to deal with. However, instead of wrapping it up after Chantry Guild, Dickson decided to focus on Hal's nemesis Bleys Ahern in the next novel (and the one after that) and show his more formative years. In one sense, this was a good idea, since Bleys (and the Others) really came out of nowhere, showing up in the beginning of the Final Encyclopedia and then making various appearances throughout that and the next novel, without us ever really finding out much about him. So this does strip away some of the mystery and gives us a look into what formed his main opposition to Hal, his view that humanity should retreat to Earth and regroup. Dickson unfortunately makes both arguments fairly reasonable and so it really doesn't seem to matter much how wins, except that all the characters get fairly hysterical over the potential outcomes. It hardly seems wrestling with the Universe over. As for the novel itself, it helps fill in the gaps, shows more of Bleys' brother Dahno (who we only saw very briefly in the Final Encyclopedia) and how Bleys got control of the Others organization and used it to further his own plans. This, alas, is where the lack of excitement comes in. Like most of Dickson's characters, most things come very effortlessly to Bleys. Since the prose is very readable and the story moves along fairly quickly you don't really notice it but it definitely takes out a lot of the drama of the book and gives you no real compelling reason to read further. Bleys is faster and smarter and just heads and shoulders over everyone else, and so the book is just victory after victory. Plus since you know he appears in the Final Encyclopedia intact, there's no real sense of "is he in danger?" because you know he lives. The most dramatic moments come at the end, when Dickson reenacts the attempt to capture Hal at the beginning of the Final Encyclopedia, which didn't really go well. That moment manages to capture the mystery and danger that highlighted that first appearance but it comes right at the end and most readers have seen it before anyway. So in retrospect, it probably would have been better for Dickson to move ahead with the Cycle instead of stepping back (and for two entire novels, Other is a sequel to this book) but it makes for an entertaining, if not totally memorable experience, for those who are fans of the series. For those who aren't, by all means, start elsewhere and work your way to this. The true riches in this series lie earlier.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Continuing the Childe Cycle, May 10 2000
The novels "Young Bleys" and "Other" tells the story of Bleys Ahrens, founder of the Others, who has set himself against Hal Mayne and his plan to unite the splinter cultures. Both novels are very long with not that much happening. If they were cut considerably and combined in one book, it would have been a lot more interesting.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Dickson struggles to give the Childe Cycle some depth., Jan 17 1999
Like many writers, Dickson has been unable to escape the success of one of his early novels, in this case Dorsai. Young Bleys is the second novel to fail to finish the Child Cycle which grew out of the Dorsai trilogy since Final Encyclopaedia was supposed to (Final Encyclopaedia and Chantry Guild appear to have been reissued as Final Encyclopaedia 1 & 2).As readers of Final Encyclopaedia will know, Hal Mayne, Dickson's hero (a science fiction equivalent of Moorcock's "eternal champion" who is in his third incarnation) is the leader of one side in an epic battle for the future of Human Evolution. The human race has separated since departing Earth into three "Splinter Cultures" -- Exotic (mystic), Dorsai (soldier), and Friendly (religious fanatic) and these races must be reunited so that the resulting Ubermenschen can fulfill their destiny among the stars. Young Bleys is the story of Mayne's nemesis Bleys Ahrens. I can only assume that this is a devious attempt to deal with the ideological conflict at the end of Final Encyclopaedia in which Hal and Bleys discuss their differences in a truce: in a nutshell, Bleys believes that the human race is too screwed up to spread out like a tumour across the universe, and should return to Earth and sort itself out before proceeding. This sounds like a pretty sound idea to me, and regardless of Hal's arguments there is no way to show one side's ideas to be naturally superior to the other's. How does Young Bleys shed light on this? At first, it seems that this book will resemble Solder, Ask Not (Dickson's best novel, by far) in that it will portray the redemption of a selfish genius, but Bleys' story, starting with his leaving his mother as a child, his teenage years on his Friendly uncle's farm, his desperate search for God, his relationship with his hulking but brilliant brother Dahno, his rise to power in Dahno's interstellar organisation of Others, is a lazily written, shapeless bore with occasional bouts of character assassination. The saddest aspect of this novel is how banal it is. Bleys is constantly stated to be brilliant -- he reads really quickly (what, we're never told), speaks persuasively (his speeches are omitted, we must accept that they're brilliant), figures things out through sheer genius (the explanations defy description, so the author doesn't bother). The character is pathetically superior -- taller, stronger, faster, smarter, and more perceptive than anyone else. A lot like Hal Mayne. Indeed, like Hal Mayne (and many religious gurus), his greatest "insights" occur while hallucinating (he is fasting, Hal was delirious). Here at last we have it, Dickson -- having created an argument he cannot win has decided to go ad hominem, and attack his Bleys' person rather than his arguments. All told, Dickson is digging the Child Cycle hole deeper and deeper, telling in four books (so far) a story that isn't going anywhere.
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