Engine City: Amazon.ca: Books

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First Sentence
THE JUMP IS instantaneous. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

2.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Not a strong finish...., Feb 27 2004

By	ThePGH (Florida, USA.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engine City: The Stunning Conclusion to The Engines of Light (Mass Market Paperback)

Ken MacLoeds books are usually a complex but ultimately satisfying read. The first two books of this trilogy fitted into that description but this third book, Engine City, missed the mark. I found myself skipping through pages which is something I usually never do. It seemed like this was a very disjointed finish to a story that had started out really well in books one and two.

I look forward to his next work...although may not a trilogy.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Incoherent, confused, disappointing, Jan 30 2004

By	John Faughnan "John G Faughnan (www.faughnan.... (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Engine City: The Stunning Conclusion to The Engines of Light (Mass Market Paperback)

Trilogies are hard. The most common pattern is a good start, a good to weak middle, and a weak ending. Macleod doesn't do that well.

The first book of this trilogy was an improvement on his previous writing, putting him almost at the same level at the earlier (weaker) books of Iain M Banks. By the second book he's slipped into the middle tier of writers, the third book sometimes reads like a satire of the first two. He seems desperate to find a way out of the story and finally just gives up.

Macleod shows signs of promise. He needs an editor, more discipline, and more practice. Stay away from the trilogies for a while.

As for you readers -- skip this book and skip the series.

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4.0 out of 5 stars An unusual ending for an unusual species, Aug 16 2003

By	Samer T Ismail "SF & classical music fan" (Danbury, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Engine City (Hardcover)

In retrospect, I suspect I should *not* have been surprised by the ending of the book; in a sense, the ending--and the coda which follows it--were set up in the very first book in the trilogy, "Cosmonaut Keep." The central theme of this book appears to be irony, from first page to last.

MacLeod has created a bizarre universe, populated with many different creatures, including saurs, krakens, selkies, and, perhaps the most alien of all, the eight-legged Multipliers. There's a lot of intriguing ideas jammed in here.

Unfortunately, all those ideas, in a book this short, mean that a lot of characters get short shrift. Likewise, the book isn't long enough to stand on its own; why certain characters behave the way they do doesn't really make sense unless you've read the previous two books. Thus, the series ends leaving a lot of questions (not the least of which is why the book is written in the present tense when, and only when, Matt Cairns is the viewpoint character).

All in all, though, if you've read the first two books, you'll probably want to read this one just to see how it ends. If you haven't, start with "Cosmonaut Keep" and "Dark Light" before reading this one.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointment
The book reads like an afterthought rather than a culmination to an interesting trilogy. The plot seems more designed to finish the series than to build to a satisfactory climax... Read more

Published on May 5 2003 by Ian S. Mccarthy

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite satisfying ending to a fine series.
This concluding novel in the Engines Of Light series just doesn't quite stand on it's own meriets, but should be read as the last part of the series. Read more

Published on April 3 2003 by Neal C. Reynolds

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid conclusion to a neat SF trilogy
_Engine City_ concludes Ken MacLeod's second novel series, together called Engines of Light. In the first two novels (_Cosmonaut Keep_ and _Dark Light_) we learned that an... Read more

Published on Mar 7 2003 by Richard R. Horton