The Grand Conjunction (UK/AUZ), Sean William’s fantastic conclusion to the Astropolis series, is out this month and the reviewers have been saying some great things about it. Gary at Conceptscifi.com thinks that:

‘The Grand Conjunction is an absolute winner and a joy to read.’

And Liviu at Fantasy Book Critic says:

‘The novel succeeds grandly indeed. Highly, highly recommended.’

This is certainly a book on a ‘grand’ scale. Readers can expect more of the awe-inspiringly mind-boggling concepts that make Sean Williams’ space opera so exceptional. The distortion of time is one such theme, with the action in the series spanning huge time periods (we’re talking millions of years) and different characters experiencing time at different tempos. For example – whilst the beings called Primes experience time much like a 20th Century human would, the highly evolved Forts can make a second last for a century.

Williams also explores the meaning of self in an ingenious manner, since his characters can have multiple versions of themselves wandering around the universe at different stages of evolution. This is the case for our principle character, Imre Bergamasc, and the different versions of himself aren’t exactly on friendly terms either. No wonder he’s having an identity crisis.

Besides the plentiful metaphysical and astrophysical ponderings, this final instalment in the Astropolis series is bursting at the seams with epic space battles, galaxy-spanning power struggles and awesome space-time-warping weapons. And with an intriguingly unconventional 50s noir detective-style beginning, Sean Williams reveals that he can turn his hand to many genres with supreme confidence and style. Doesn’t it just make you sick? 

You can read an extract here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 12:46 pm and is filed under All posts, Commentary, Extracts, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.