CompleteMartialArts.com - Ventus
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List Price: $27.95
Our Price: $2.94
Your Save: $ 25.01 ( 89% )
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Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780312871970
ISBN: 031287197X
Label: Tor Books
Manufacturer: Tor Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 2000-12-08
Publisher: Tor Books
Studio: Tor Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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Ventus is a large-scale Hard SF adventure novel in the tradition of Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge, and Arthur C. Clarke. Karl Schroeder, a physicist and writer, is a winner of Canada's Aurora Award. His first novel was called the best first fantasy of the year by Science Fiction Chronicle, and now his first SF novel launches a major career in SF.
Young Jordan Mason, on the terraformed planet Ventus, has visions. Kidnapped by Calandria May--a human from offworld sent to investigate the AIs (the Winds) of Ventus--Jordan is desperate to find the meaning of his visions, desperate enough to risk calling down the Winds that destroy technology to protect the created environment, who descend and wreak havoc. As a result Jordan escapes from Calandria and sets out to discover his destiny on his own. Calandria and others, both human and AI, search for Jordan, who holds the key to catastrophe or salvation.
Ventus is an epic journey across a fascinating planet with a big mystery--why have the Winds fallen silent? It is one of the major, ambitious SF novels of the year and the international launch of an important new hard SF writer.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Full of ideas I wish I had though of ...
Comment: This book combines the best elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and historical fiction into one. It's set in the far future where most of human civilization wants for nothing, but sent on a distant planet where the local human population lives a hard, feudal, primitive life.
The over-arching theme is whether an artificial intelligence can obtain a true identity apart from its creators. A fascinating question that probably doesn't have a "right" answer ... and the book leaves room for the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.
The beginning can be a little difficult; at first I questioned whether this was the book for me. But I'm very glad I stuck with it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Free SF Reader
Comment: Ventus is the story of a conflict between artificial intelligences with different aims. Some want to do what they like with planets. Others work with human agents to stop them. These humans have been modified and upgraded with body armor, nanotech, and other ability boosting devices.
The conflict in this story is played out on the planet Ventus, where an underling of one of the rogue AI is experimenting with some of the local primitive humans.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Underrated, I think
Comment: A good story in which all the many dangling threads are resolved, but without seeming overly tidy about it. As others have pointed out, Vernor Vinge is probably the best point of comparative reference here: the numerous, complex characters (including women); the multiple, intersecting plotlines; and most of all, the contrast between a low-tech, quasi-medieval society and an advanced, space-faring culture. I could have used a bit more of the latter, especially further elaboration of the rogue AI backstory, which was intriguing. (I understand that he picks up some of that thread in his later novel Lady of Mazes.) I definitely can recommend this one, though, and I certainly think Schroeder is a talent worth watching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't let the first 150 pages fool you
Comment: This is a science fiction novel even though it starts out sounding like a feudal fantasy. Stay with it and the plot runs the gamut of big idea SF. The majority of my SF book discussion group enjoyed this book. As a computer professional, some of the ideas appealed to me because of their basis in nacient current computer technology.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Epic scope, human scale
Comment: Two things I'd add to the customer reviews already posted:
Although it's an epic, it's told on a human scale. Little of the narration is from a god's-eye point of view; it's mostly from the point of view of people on foot or horseback, tired, cold, hungry, lonely and lost. Schroeder made me feel, hear and smell the planet Ventus.
Also, there are deft "culture shock" touches which I enjoyed, like a nobleman laughing at (under-cover) off-worlder Axel's idiom, "I'm all ears."
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