Great Sky River: Amazon.ca: Gregory Benford: Books

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7 Reviews

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4 star:		(1)
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4.6 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Great beginning, peters out, Aug 30 2006

By	Krypter (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Sky River (Mass Market Paperback)

Caveat: I have not read the other books in the series. Benford is superb at presenting a technologically-advanced civilization that has sunk to the level of nomadic savages and does an admirable job of exploring the psychology of such a group, but he falls a little flat in explaining some of the group dynamics. The neat gadgets (ancestral Aspects, regenerative implants, sensoria) he shows are very clever and a perfect counterpoint to the illiterate savagery of his protagonists, and his portrayal of the alien machine civilization is terrifying...at least in the first half of the book. It's the second half where he falls down, when the terror of the machines is turned into a rather silly game and where incessant repetition of the phrase "they're aliens, they think like aliens" (paraphrased) completely undermines the intended effect. The ending will also probably disappoint people who expect a coherent book, but it probably makes sense in the context of the greater series.

Fans of this book may want to check out Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! comic book series, which is based in large part on this milieu.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Sep 15 2000

By	David Bonesteel (Fresno, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: GREAT SKY RIVER (Mass Market Paperback)

The only reason I can't give this book five stars is that the deus ex machina ending was disappointing. Perhaps the communications from beings that live in stars and the existence of a hidden ship that just happens to be awaiting the arrival of our hero wouldn't have seemed so left-field if I had known that this was the third book of a series when I began it. I presume that these are plot elements left over from the first two books. Isn't there some way to let the reader know that before he begins reading?

At any rate, I plan to go back and read the prior books before forging ahead. It looks like I still have a lot of great reading ahead of me!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Bottom of The Ten Best SF Books Ever!, Aug 2 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: GREAT SKY RIVER (Mass Market Paperback)

Great Sky River's Genre involves Humanity's last group of survivalist set out against droids. If you ever seen The Matrix this book is for you! Benford gives a :-( description of the survivalists such as: they didn't know what a year meant and that it was basicly irrelevant for their situation.

Great Sky River is Probaly somwhere 7-10 on Best SF books that I have read.

Try reading Asimov's books; Greg Bear; DAvid Brin.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Hardcore SF the way its meant to be
I've got a list of books that I consider the best in the genre. Great Sky River is definitely one of those. Read more

Published on April 18 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant!
great sky river is an incredable journey into the far flung future of humanity,a spellbinding adventure,true scifi with a fastpace,and a very original, story,i found it hard to... Read more

Published on Jan 16 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional hard sf
One of the best examples of hard sf available. If you'd like an excellent introduction to the genre and/or a great read, this is your book. Read more

Published on Dec 2 1998 by GreeneCS@aol.com