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timinbc's review against another edition
3.0
Well, it doesn't have as many issues as the ones where a video game Becomes A Deadly Reality, but it's close.
SF for me explores what might be, and of course an AI-heavy space-station refuge is plausible. But then we go into things that explain the many reviewers' references to Hannu Rajaniemi - that thing is WHAT? He did what? HOW? and WHY? Where did THAT come from? [trust me, reader, it just IS, isn't it cool?] Maybe I missed a lot of details, but I don't think so.
Why is Hugo such a grouch? Why is he apparently a ventriloquist's dummy in a wooden cage? What does he use for weapons when he attacks things? At least all that wood explains the need for a forest. And what was Hugo BEFORE he was a wooden dummy?
Contracts that require you to sell your body to fatal effect are allowed? Let's hear more about this legal system and how it evolved.
Why does East need makeup when she's a goddess and can look like ANYTHING?
Why can't Jack taste food without the weave? He can smell Docklands gin. Is the food all Soylent Green and only the weave can give it taste? Please tell us that.
How did the corporations, which certainly could develop godLIKE power in some areas, develop -- let's call them avatars -- that can do magic?
We saw the forest and the sewage pumps. Where's the nanogel factory? What does the station use for energy? How big is it? Is it the only one?
Anyway, we have a plot, and we have a decent discussion of what it means to be alive. That brings me to an explanation that might resolve some of my how-do-they questions. Does ANYone on this station actually have a real body? Is the station even real? Or is the whole thing just a bunch of subroutines clinging to an imagined existence long after the Xzyyts have obliterated all life in the solar system? An all-Pinocchio world?
And in the end, did anyone not see how the Hugo-Jack thing would end?
Still ... I see a chance of a very good book from this author in the future.
SF for me explores what might be, and of course an AI-heavy space-station refuge is plausible. But then we go into things that explain the many reviewers' references to Hannu Rajaniemi - that thing is WHAT? He did what? HOW? and WHY? Where did THAT come from? [trust me, reader, it just IS, isn't it cool?] Maybe I missed a lot of details, but I don't think so.
Why is Hugo such a grouch? Why is he apparently a ventriloquist's dummy in a wooden cage? What does he use for weapons when he attacks things? At least all that wood explains the need for a forest. And what was Hugo BEFORE he was a wooden dummy?
Contracts that require you to sell your body to fatal effect are allowed? Let's hear more about this legal system and how it evolved.
Why does East need makeup when she's a goddess and can look like ANYTHING?
Why can't Jack taste food without the weave? He can smell Docklands gin. Is the food all Soylent Green and only the weave can give it taste? Please tell us that.
How did the corporations, which certainly could develop godLIKE power in some areas, develop -- let's call them avatars -- that can do magic?
We saw the forest and the sewage pumps. Where's the nanogel factory? What does the station use for energy? How big is it? Is it the only one?
Anyway, we have a plot, and we have a decent discussion of what it means to be alive. That brings me to an explanation that might resolve some of my how-do-they questions. Does ANYone on this station actually have a real body? Is the station even real? Or is the whole thing just a bunch of subroutines clinging to an imagined existence long after the Xzyyts have obliterated all life in the solar system? An all-Pinocchio world?
And in the end, did anyone not see how the Hugo-Jack thing would end?
Still ... I see a chance of a very good book from this author in the future.
david_agranoff's review against another edition
3.0
Crashing Heaven is first rate second generation cyberpunk, hard boiled and gritty as a granola mixed with rocks so on the surface I should have loved this. This bold debut novel is so full of ideas I feel like many of them will go over many readers heads. Al Robertson certainly went for it with this book.
Set in the aftermath of both ecological devastation and a war with AI overlords on one of the space stations orbiting the dead earth. there are lots of new interesting details The AI's who control the weave (a more virtual reality future internet) have established themselves as gods, many of the cyborgs live in wooden shells, and our main character has a vituual puppet who he uses for guidance as he tries to solve the mystery of who killed his now dead Ex-lover who is only alive as simulation based on data called a fetch.
The level of gee-whiz inventiveness is turned up to 11,and many of the novels best moments are found in the banter mostly internal between Jack and his puppet Fist. Fist often comments on the scenes being stand-in for the reader, being for example disgusted by the cheezy romance between Jack and his ex Andrea. The only weakness in the setting was that I felt the space stattion was not as wild or Dangerous feeling to me as I think the author intended.
I think this is a pretty cool novel and there were times when I really enjoyed it, but failed to connect to the material at other times. As inventive and cool as the world building was I was not super into the narrative. I would find myself losing attention, my mind would wonder. I don't know or can't explain because at other times I was enjoying the book alot. I think it is me, not the book but more than once I thought about letting it go.
I pushed through and I am glad I read it. Certainly this novel is an heir to the legacy of Cyberpunk, and certainly it carries the torch well for a debut. That said I believe it will not bee the shock to the system that the Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon had on the scene back when it came out. You can certainly feel the William Gibson influence dripping off the page and in some ways Crashing Heaven is more accessible than Gibson.
So I didn't really connect with this book, but that doesn't mean it is not good. On paper all the elements are there, but didn't connect with me. The setting of the space station was very cool, I think it would have been neat if that was not revealed until deep into the novel.
None the less I think if you enjoy cyberpunk this is a safe bet. Overall I think most readers will enjoy for the inventive settings and details alone.
Set in the aftermath of both ecological devastation and a war with AI overlords on one of the space stations orbiting the dead earth. there are lots of new interesting details The AI's who control the weave (a more virtual reality future internet) have established themselves as gods, many of the cyborgs live in wooden shells, and our main character has a vituual puppet who he uses for guidance as he tries to solve the mystery of who killed his now dead Ex-lover who is only alive as simulation based on data called a fetch.
The level of gee-whiz inventiveness is turned up to 11,and many of the novels best moments are found in the banter mostly internal between Jack and his puppet Fist. Fist often comments on the scenes being stand-in for the reader, being for example disgusted by the cheezy romance between Jack and his ex Andrea. The only weakness in the setting was that I felt the space stattion was not as wild or Dangerous feeling to me as I think the author intended.
I think this is a pretty cool novel and there were times when I really enjoyed it, but failed to connect to the material at other times. As inventive and cool as the world building was I was not super into the narrative. I would find myself losing attention, my mind would wonder. I don't know or can't explain because at other times I was enjoying the book alot. I think it is me, not the book but more than once I thought about letting it go.
I pushed through and I am glad I read it. Certainly this novel is an heir to the legacy of Cyberpunk, and certainly it carries the torch well for a debut. That said I believe it will not bee the shock to the system that the Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon had on the scene back when it came out. You can certainly feel the William Gibson influence dripping off the page and in some ways Crashing Heaven is more accessible than Gibson.
So I didn't really connect with this book, but that doesn't mean it is not good. On paper all the elements are there, but didn't connect with me. The setting of the space station was very cool, I think it would have been neat if that was not revealed until deep into the novel.
None the less I think if you enjoy cyberpunk this is a safe bet. Overall I think most readers will enjoy for the inventive settings and details alone.
straystarlight's review against another edition
3.0
Easy to read, but I thought the dialogue felt kind of forced (and there was a lot of it) and am really baffled about the decision to make the puppets look like ventriloquist dummies. I mean, I sort of get it, but, like, still, why. I enjoyed Fist's development -- and the book overall -- even though the writing was a bit rough and could have done better with the underlying themes.
sirlancelot2021's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
diesmali's review
2.0
An interesting idea for a story, with some cool characters and snarky dialogue, but the plot was a it too weak and I was never really interested in the details of the story.
markyon's review against another edition
3.0
“With Earth abandoned, humanity resides on Station, an industrialised asteroid run by the sentient corporations of the Pantheon. Under their leadership a war has been raging against the Totality – ex-Pantheon AIs gone rogue.
With the war over, Jack Forster and his sidekick Hugo Fist, a virtual ventriloquist’s dummy tied to Jack’s mind and created to destroy the Totality, have returned home.
Labelled a traitor for surrendering to the Totality, all Jack wants is to clear his name but when he discovers two old friends have died under suspicious circumstances he also wants answers. Soon he and Fist are embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not only their future but all of humanity’s. But with Fist’s software licence about to expire, taking Jack’s life with it, can they bring down the real traitors before their time runs out?”
Based on the publisher’s description above, I must admit that when I got to Crashing Heaven I was rather expecting a violent, yet entertaining type of Space Opera.
Well, Crashing Heaven is not that book – in fact, it is one of the most unusual books I’ve read this year. It is instead what I can only describe as a strange mix of science fiction, detective noir and cyberpunk, with a strong element of Ballard’s dystopian bleakness and William Gibson’s Neuromancer cyberspace upgraded to the 21st century (or, rather, the 28th.)
Some of this you may like – other parts perhaps less so. If you are like me, the character of Hugo Fist is what makes this book work or not work for you. I think that your like or dislike of the novel will mainly depend on your acceptance of the lead characters in the novel.
As was mentioned in the publicity above, Hugo is an AI character that is connected internally to Jack Forster, so closely that when their contract runs out Jack has agreed that he will die and Hugo will take full control of his body. At the moment, Hugo can possess Jack’s body and make him do things he may not want to do, though as we quickly find this is against the law and if caught could lead to Hugo’s demise.
I must admit the thought of a wooden puppet animatronic appearing to allow Hugo to walk around was a trifle off-putting – I kept thinking of the Saw movies and the movie Magic, not to mention Dead of Night and The Twilight Zone for example – but the idea that such a persona was created in order to emphasise the idea of ‘puppet’ and ‘puppeteer’ and make Hugo less frightening for children works reasonably well.
However what makes this all the more unusual is that our first impressions of Hugo suggest that he is seriously messed up – a mean, vindictive, nasty, and manipulative character who is quite different to the rather cool and unemotional AI you may be used to in other novels. His often-maniacal persona made me think of an AI as Mr. Punch, or Batman’s Joker – as unpredictable and moody as you might expect from your usual psychopath.
Part of this may be that on his return to Station, Hugo is restricted in what he is allowed to do, and this no doubt frustrates ‘him’ enormously. As the novel progresses we start to see that such a persona may be a front and that there is more to Hugo than we initially think.
By comparison (but of necessity, I think) Jack Forster is a bit of a non-entity, in counterbalance to Fist’s maniacal behaviour. As we go along we do find out about his past – Andrea, his lost illicit lover, his dead sister and estranged father, for example – but other than that, the Jack we see here is (perhaps deliberately) bland – a sad, depressed figure, rejected by his world and an outsider on a world he has been separated from for years. To rack up the tension, it doesn’t help that he’s on a countdown to a time when his contract runs out, he dies, has his memory wiped and Hugo takes over his body.
Around these two characters, Al Robertson builds an environment filled with interesting ideas. The world that Jack and Hugo live on is ‘Station’, an asteroid-space station habitat that orbits an Earth made uninhabitable by the Soft War. Station is not the shiny future living-space envisioned in Elysium or 2001 – it has been around for hundreds of years and consequently is an amalgam of metastasized residences, shops and business parks. It’s all rather grimy and decrepit, which allows Jack and Hugo to run around in a dark shadowy world that is appropriately grim. This made me think of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles but in space.
Al’s world is appropriately dark for a book determined to be so cyber-noir. What is left of the human race is assisted by The Pantheon, a group of AI’s that fought against the Totality and won, and have celebrity-style god-like status. Most of the human inhabitants here live with ‘weaveware’, a virtual environment that is overlaid on top of the physical one that takes the masses away from the stark reality of this bleak human existence. Tired old buildings have become junkie centres for a drug known as ‘sweat’, their users rapidly degenerating into zombie-like beings obsessed with repetitive work-operations.
Jack’s view on life is rather apropos to the majority on Station – this experiences from the War have left him feeling that AI (and especially The Pantheon) should not be trusted, that the life they offer is a mere sop for the masses. This is not a happy future, even when it may look like it.
There are aliens – Totality bipeds known as ‘squishies’ – who are allowed relatively free access on Station and seem very keen to help Jack in his ‘last days’ but who are regarded with suspicion by most humans. Jack’s friendship with one named Ifor seems genuine but is not particularly liked by Hugo as their generosity may have a deeper motive.
This idea that things are not what they appear at first runs through much of the book. As the book develops, we have a building sense that Jack and Hugo are reluctantly involved in events that go beyond their own concerns – murder, torture, drugs hauls, conspiracies and competing power plays which they are often near but not part of, mean that they soon become part of a much bigger picture. Ultimately they realise that their futures are being played with for the biggest stakes of all, and the future of Station, if not the human race, may depend on what they do.
For such big events, most of the book is tightly plotted on one or two characters and places, until the end when, in cyberspace, things become quite frenetic and don’t quite hold together for me. Though there is resolution, up to a point, it is clear that there are big things still to happen, setting things up for the second book in this duology.
I mentioned on the SFFWorld Forums that I was trying to get my head around writing this review. Having given some time to think about it, I’m still veering between ‘bonkers’ and ‘brilliant’. Personally I’m still not sure whether Crashing Heaven is a case of an author trying hard (perhaps too hard) to be different, or that it is something genuinely original. On one hand I could see some readers seeing it as nothing more than a revamped rehash of older SF ideas, but alternatively it could be a novel that is seen to be trying hard to be something different, riffing off traditional tropes.
Generally though it must be said that Crashing Heaven is good fun and should be applauded for trying to be different. Even if it is not wholly successful for me, I think that many may be less critical of it, to the point where Crashing Heaven could be the start of something that is going to be very big.
With the war over, Jack Forster and his sidekick Hugo Fist, a virtual ventriloquist’s dummy tied to Jack’s mind and created to destroy the Totality, have returned home.
Labelled a traitor for surrendering to the Totality, all Jack wants is to clear his name but when he discovers two old friends have died under suspicious circumstances he also wants answers. Soon he and Fist are embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not only their future but all of humanity’s. But with Fist’s software licence about to expire, taking Jack’s life with it, can they bring down the real traitors before their time runs out?”
Based on the publisher’s description above, I must admit that when I got to Crashing Heaven I was rather expecting a violent, yet entertaining type of Space Opera.
Well, Crashing Heaven is not that book – in fact, it is one of the most unusual books I’ve read this year. It is instead what I can only describe as a strange mix of science fiction, detective noir and cyberpunk, with a strong element of Ballard’s dystopian bleakness and William Gibson’s Neuromancer cyberspace upgraded to the 21st century (or, rather, the 28th.)
Some of this you may like – other parts perhaps less so. If you are like me, the character of Hugo Fist is what makes this book work or not work for you. I think that your like or dislike of the novel will mainly depend on your acceptance of the lead characters in the novel.
As was mentioned in the publicity above, Hugo is an AI character that is connected internally to Jack Forster, so closely that when their contract runs out Jack has agreed that he will die and Hugo will take full control of his body. At the moment, Hugo can possess Jack’s body and make him do things he may not want to do, though as we quickly find this is against the law and if caught could lead to Hugo’s demise.
I must admit the thought of a wooden puppet animatronic appearing to allow Hugo to walk around was a trifle off-putting – I kept thinking of the Saw movies and the movie Magic, not to mention Dead of Night and The Twilight Zone for example – but the idea that such a persona was created in order to emphasise the idea of ‘puppet’ and ‘puppeteer’ and make Hugo less frightening for children works reasonably well.
However what makes this all the more unusual is that our first impressions of Hugo suggest that he is seriously messed up – a mean, vindictive, nasty, and manipulative character who is quite different to the rather cool and unemotional AI you may be used to in other novels. His often-maniacal persona made me think of an AI as Mr. Punch, or Batman’s Joker – as unpredictable and moody as you might expect from your usual psychopath.
Part of this may be that on his return to Station, Hugo is restricted in what he is allowed to do, and this no doubt frustrates ‘him’ enormously. As the novel progresses we start to see that such a persona may be a front and that there is more to Hugo than we initially think.
By comparison (but of necessity, I think) Jack Forster is a bit of a non-entity, in counterbalance to Fist’s maniacal behaviour. As we go along we do find out about his past – Andrea, his lost illicit lover, his dead sister and estranged father, for example – but other than that, the Jack we see here is (perhaps deliberately) bland – a sad, depressed figure, rejected by his world and an outsider on a world he has been separated from for years. To rack up the tension, it doesn’t help that he’s on a countdown to a time when his contract runs out, he dies, has his memory wiped and Hugo takes over his body.
Around these two characters, Al Robertson builds an environment filled with interesting ideas. The world that Jack and Hugo live on is ‘Station’, an asteroid-space station habitat that orbits an Earth made uninhabitable by the Soft War. Station is not the shiny future living-space envisioned in Elysium or 2001 – it has been around for hundreds of years and consequently is an amalgam of metastasized residences, shops and business parks. It’s all rather grimy and decrepit, which allows Jack and Hugo to run around in a dark shadowy world that is appropriately grim. This made me think of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles but in space.
Al’s world is appropriately dark for a book determined to be so cyber-noir. What is left of the human race is assisted by The Pantheon, a group of AI’s that fought against the Totality and won, and have celebrity-style god-like status. Most of the human inhabitants here live with ‘weaveware’, a virtual environment that is overlaid on top of the physical one that takes the masses away from the stark reality of this bleak human existence. Tired old buildings have become junkie centres for a drug known as ‘sweat’, their users rapidly degenerating into zombie-like beings obsessed with repetitive work-operations.
Jack’s view on life is rather apropos to the majority on Station – this experiences from the War have left him feeling that AI (and especially The Pantheon) should not be trusted, that the life they offer is a mere sop for the masses. This is not a happy future, even when it may look like it.
There are aliens – Totality bipeds known as ‘squishies’ – who are allowed relatively free access on Station and seem very keen to help Jack in his ‘last days’ but who are regarded with suspicion by most humans. Jack’s friendship with one named Ifor seems genuine but is not particularly liked by Hugo as their generosity may have a deeper motive.
This idea that things are not what they appear at first runs through much of the book. As the book develops, we have a building sense that Jack and Hugo are reluctantly involved in events that go beyond their own concerns – murder, torture, drugs hauls, conspiracies and competing power plays which they are often near but not part of, mean that they soon become part of a much bigger picture. Ultimately they realise that their futures are being played with for the biggest stakes of all, and the future of Station, if not the human race, may depend on what they do.
For such big events, most of the book is tightly plotted on one or two characters and places, until the end when, in cyberspace, things become quite frenetic and don’t quite hold together for me. Though there is resolution, up to a point, it is clear that there are big things still to happen, setting things up for the second book in this duology.
I mentioned on the SFFWorld Forums that I was trying to get my head around writing this review. Having given some time to think about it, I’m still veering between ‘bonkers’ and ‘brilliant’. Personally I’m still not sure whether Crashing Heaven is a case of an author trying hard (perhaps too hard) to be different, or that it is something genuinely original. On one hand I could see some readers seeing it as nothing more than a revamped rehash of older SF ideas, but alternatively it could be a novel that is seen to be trying hard to be something different, riffing off traditional tropes.
Generally though it must be said that Crashing Heaven is good fun and should be applauded for trying to be different. Even if it is not wholly successful for me, I think that many may be less critical of it, to the point where Crashing Heaven could be the start of something that is going to be very big.
riverwise's review against another edition
4.0
A lot of the hype around this SF debut has focused on how it updates cyberpunk for the 21st century. The use of a noir plot in a high tech setting certainly echoes Neuromancer (and Crashing Heaven also shares more than a few structural similarities with that classic), but there's more than just that old genre at play here. For all the Chandleresque men crashing through doors with guns and running down mean streets, there is also a real sense of the bleak emptiness of space and the beauty of glittering fragile spaceships that Alastair Reynolds would be proud of, and maybe even a nod to Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos. That's not to say Robertson is a plagiarist. The core SF concept at the heart of this novel is AI, and Robertson runs with this as well as anyone has in recent years, with a treatment I haven't seen anywhere else.
Lead character Jack is an accountant with a military AI residing in his brain, almost the last of its kind. This AI has a name, Hugo Fist, and manifests as a wooden ventriloquist's doll. Oh, and it's going to be taking over Jack's body in the near future. Fist is an amazing creation, initially a gibbering psychopathic howl of rage hellbent on destruction that goes through genuine character development over the course of the book, to the point where he becomes almost sympathetic. The other key AIs in the book are the Pantheon, a group of sentient corporations that essentially manage the remnants of humanity, who worship them as gods, and the Totality, rogue AIs with a hostile relationship to the Pantheon. It's the conflict between these two groups that ultimately drives the plot, as Jack and Fist attempt to discover exactly what Jack had got close enough to to force the Pantheon to introduce him to Fist and send him to war.
There's a lot here to chew on besides the plot. There's plenty of thought about what it means to be human. The boundaries of death are far from inviolate in this world, and the idea that our consciousness means more than our bodies is never far from the surface. It's not too much of a stretch to read the book as an allegory of modern tech-driven capitalism either - remember the vision of a disengaged populace living almost entirely in a virtual world and hoping for favours from their corporate gods next time you're on a train full of people looking at their iPhones. Robertson can handle a decent set piece as well. An encounter with one of the Pantheon in a virtual cathedral is a one of the more memorable parts of the book, and there are many action scenes that manage the trick of being both fast moving and perfectly clear.
This is a strong debut that is not only recommended, but probably essential if you want to keep up with modern SF. Good work, Mr Robertson!
Lead character Jack is an accountant with a military AI residing in his brain, almost the last of its kind. This AI has a name, Hugo Fist, and manifests as a wooden ventriloquist's doll. Oh, and it's going to be taking over Jack's body in the near future. Fist is an amazing creation, initially a gibbering psychopathic howl of rage hellbent on destruction that goes through genuine character development over the course of the book, to the point where he becomes almost sympathetic. The other key AIs in the book are the Pantheon, a group of sentient corporations that essentially manage the remnants of humanity, who worship them as gods, and the Totality, rogue AIs with a hostile relationship to the Pantheon. It's the conflict between these two groups that ultimately drives the plot, as Jack and Fist attempt to discover exactly what Jack had got close enough to to force the Pantheon to introduce him to Fist and send him to war.
There's a lot here to chew on besides the plot. There's plenty of thought about what it means to be human. The boundaries of death are far from inviolate in this world, and the idea that our consciousness means more than our bodies is never far from the surface. It's not too much of a stretch to read the book as an allegory of modern tech-driven capitalism either - remember the vision of a disengaged populace living almost entirely in a virtual world and hoping for favours from their corporate gods next time you're on a train full of people looking at their iPhones. Robertson can handle a decent set piece as well. An encounter with one of the Pantheon in a virtual cathedral is a one of the more memorable parts of the book, and there are many action scenes that manage the trick of being both fast moving and perfectly clear.
This is a strong debut that is not only recommended, but probably essential if you want to keep up with modern SF. Good work, Mr Robertson!
tuftymctavish's review
2.0
I don't think I'm all that into the cyberpunk. I've tried a few times, but it's not a style for me.
atis52's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 * - frankly, .5* is gone cause the terrible hungarian translation :(
This book was a mess. There are excellently written characters, scenes and there are terribly written characters and scenes. The plot is....well I just didn't cared about the plot :( Or plots as there are several of them.
Oh, and I just hated the deus ex machina plot device....what was used equally messy as the rest of the story (one scene - wow, I can do ANYTHING - next scene - wow, I'm useless...)
As a debut novel it's very good, I'll probably follow the authors works (just not the one set in the same world...)
This book was a mess. There are excellently written characters, scenes and there are terribly written characters and scenes. The plot is....well I just didn't cared about the plot :( Or plots as there are several of them.
Oh, and I just hated the deus ex machina plot device....what was used equally messy as the rest of the story (one scene - wow, I can do ANYTHING - next scene - wow, I'm useless...)
As a debut novel it's very good, I'll probably follow the authors works (just not the one set in the same world...)
fivemack's review against another edition
5.0
This is as fine an example of the cyberpunk noir aesthetic as I've seen since Gibson. Hard-boiled characterisation, a splendidly baroque world, infiltrating great corporate Powers under the eyes of AI Gods; splendid fun.