Two Line Review: Uh... as a second book in a series, this one is particularly difficult to really review without spoiling the first one. Let's sum it up by saying, "Middle Book Syndrome."
Which will tell you a lot of what you need to know if you haven't read the first one. The first one ends with a cliffhanger that is the logical extension of which way a particular dilemma was settled, so I don't want to go into too many details.
In rough terms, though, this has middle book syndrome written all over it. It's hard to imagine the sense of wonder going out of the setting, but that's really exactly what happened here. Over the course of the first book, we're really told a lot about the way things work, and there are no comparable revelations here. In fact, we know so much about the way things work that the one or two points of mystery to the whole second act of this hopefully three act play weren't really very, er, mysterious.
Which is to say, me and my unaugmented brain managed to figure out the resolution well in advance of the highly augmented beings in the story. So much so that when one element was revealed, I wanted to smack the characters, because they had no right to have been deluded that long (on the one hand) or be that smug (on the other.)
However, while it didn't make up for the loss of the sense of wonder, we did get to see more of the world at large and get a better feel for how it developed that way. There was a good deal of historical excursion along the way.
Also, Wright tried to do a fairly ambitious thing here, I think. In the course of the book, our hero Phaethon has cause to interract with the absolute dregs of his incredibly wealthy (by our standards) society. It's often remarked that the very poor of the 21st Century West are still much better off than most people of a thousand years ago. I think Wright was trying to convey the same sense here, that Phaethon should see these people who by our standards should have a comfortable life, as being unbearably poverty stricken and unhealthy by comparison.
That I can't tell if this was his intent or not means, ultimately, that he failed regardless his intent. But it was an ambitious attempt, if that's what it was.
I also noted that Wright has a problem with voice and character. That problem continues here. To some degree, it's with Phaethon, and to some degree due to the circumstances in the book, it's excuseable. It also affects some of the supporting characters, particularly a clone of his wife Daphne, and there it's not excuseable. Daphne seems to morph from bubble-headed socialite to Nancy Drew, detective at large, with alarming ease. She exists to do what is needed to be done.
In summary, it's not all bad, but it's definitely not all good. If the first had been of this quality, I wouldn't buy a second one in hardback. But it does look like the ending has been set up now, and since I'm 2/3 there, I might as well buy the last one when it comes out, too.
[This review was originally posted to Usenet, and is archived through "makeashorterlink" on Google Groups.]