The Last Legends of Earth

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, epic in scale and grand in vision.
Review: This, without doubt, is a movie waiting to happen. The scale, the dizzying scenery, the torment, the sheer concept spurs the imagination and stimulates the mind. From the darkness and gigeresque locations of the evil zotl, to world creating machines - and a whole solar system engineered as bait for a trap. Attanasio propels you forward and backward in time, covering thousands of years in a breath, yet maintaining a single plot thread throughout. One of those few books which gets read again... and again... just for the thrill of it, and just to go there - one more time.

Rating:
Summary: Easily the greatest work of epic science fiction ever made..
Review: Tolkien for the sci-fi genre; that about sums this one up. Perfect perfect book that must be read!

Rating:
Summary: Attanasio's best, one of the best SF books I have read
Review: Two races fight an intergalactic war. One race use resurrected "lesser" species to trap the enemy. The latest of these is the long dead human race. Unknowing the humans love, fight, make plans, and go on quests that will become epics. However, the war does not stop and a crisis develops, now sooner or later humanity's minor role, and ultimate, fate must be revealed.

Rating:
Summary: Oh My God, It's Full Of Stars...
Review: What can I say about this book that someone else hasn't already? It's changed and enriched my philosophy of life. His thoughts on time, space and the afterlife are fascinating, and the conclusion reached by the Rimstalker as to why humans do one another harm is one of the most simple and insightful pieces of writing ever. Go to any lengths necessary to find and read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Simply One of the Best
Review: Winout mincing words, this is simply one of the best SF novels I have read (this covers a period of 35 years). The initial premise, the "universe" within which the story takes place, consistently beautiful and alien imagery, and the simple love story that winds throughout make this a great read. You really should make an effort to find and read this book.To whet your apetite, this is an excerpt from the intro (an "Instruction Manual" for humans who find themselves in the planetary system of Chalco-Doror): "Two billion years ago, it [the Sun] blew up, and the Earth was blown apart with it...The exploding Sun shattered the Earth and cast the hot debris into the cold darkness of the void...A few thousand years ago, an intelligent being from a reality we had never suspected found our dust. For its own alien purposes and by its own strange science, that intelligent being read in our dust the cryptarch of our lives...From our cryptarch, the alien created us again. And not just our bodies. You remember Earth because your consciousness, which is in fact a wavepattern of light emitted by your brain, was retrieved from the vacuum, where it had been expanding at the speed of light since you died...The alien is not a spiritual being...The truth is, this being regenerated you to serve as bait for yet another alien intelligence, its enemy, a species of sapient, winged spiders called zotl. Zotl eat people."

Rating:
Summary: Simply One of the Best
Review: Winout mincing words, this is simply one of the best SF novels I have read (this covers a period of 35 years). The initial premise, the "universe" within which the story takes place, consistently beautiful and alien imagery, and the simple love story that winds throughout make this a great read. You really should make an effort to find and read this book. To whet your apetite, this is an excerpt from the intro (an "Instruction Manual" for humans who find themselves in the planetary system of Chalco-Doror): "Two billion years ago, it [the Sun] blew up, and the Earth was blown apart with it...The exploding Sun shattered the Earth and cast the hot debris into the cold darkness of the void...A few thousand years ago, an intelligent being from a reality we had never suspected found our dust. For its own alien purposes and by its own strange science, that intelligent being read in our dust the cryptarch of our lives...From our cryptarch, the alien created us again. And not just our bodies. You remember Earth because your consciousness, which is in fact a wavepattern of light emitted by your brain, was retrieved from the vacuum, where it had been expanding at the speed of light since you died...The alien is not a spiritual being...The truth is, this being regenerated you to serve as bait for yet another alien intelligence, its enemy, a species of sapient, winged spiders called zotl. Zotl eat people."