Review: Terminal World

Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So I don't know what to say about this one. I liked it but I could barely articulate why. I didn't really like the set-up of Terminal World, and I certainly paid very little attention to the mechanics of the zones and how they shift around. I'm not even going to jump into the question of whether or not this is scifi or fantasy, but this is clearly an attempt to sketch out a semi-plausible steampunk future.

Anyway, even without following along closely the ending was still meaningful and mostly enjoyable. The only thing I didn't particularly like was the whole "chosen one" vibe about it, although that's essentially dismissed in the final moments.

The story as a whole though was very entertaining, with excellent characters and a steadily engaging plot throughout. I actually loved the pacing too, you'd get a bit of a sense of a secret (or find out that someone is keeping one) and never had to wait too long before both the reader and the blissfully ignorant characters were enlightened. I loved that approach, it created real tension but the story didn't rely on that to make or break the whole story. And it's so much better than having the audience wait patiently while obvious hints are ignored by otherwise intelligent characters.

So. There you go. I suppose I can articulate what I did and didn't like about the story after all.

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