Galveston

Rating:
Summary: Evocative, moody and brilliant
Review: "Galveston" is a beautifully written portrait of a post-apocalyptic world taken over by magic and cut adrift from the modern world. The characters are finely drawn, complex, and extremely likeable, and Stewart's ability to write women who ring true is a joy. The tone of this book reminds me a bit of Jonathan Carroll's work, with perhaps some Sturgeon thrown in. I have liked other of Stewart's books very well, but this one I absolutely loved. Highly recommended to people who like their science fiction with real characters with whom one becomes emotionally involved.

Rating:
Summary: Evocative, moody and brilliant
Review: "Galveston" is a beautifully written portrait of a post-apocalyptic world taken over by magic and cut adrift from the modern world. The characters are finely drawn, complex, and extremely likeable, and Stewart's ability to write women who ring true is a joy. The tone of this book reminds me a bit of Jonathan Carroll's work, with perhaps some Sturgeon thrown in. I have liked other of Stewart's books very well, but this one I absolutely loved. Highly recommended to people who like their science fiction with real characters with whom one becomes emotionally involved.

Rating:
Summary: Great Characters . . . Good Plot
Review: A fantasy vision of a not-so-future apocalypse with a cast I really cared about. Magic clings to everything in Galveston, almost like the humidity in the air. A Mardis Gras celebration opens the fooldgates of magic, both good and bad, and Galveston never recovered. For years the residents have held the line against these forces, occassionally losing one of their brethren to the allure of magic.

This is a story of class distinctions as much as a compelling fantasy. The main charaters Ham, Josh, Sloane and Ace - among others - are people you really want to see surmount the problems they face. It's not just the magic they must deal with. Perhaps the most malevelant forces at play are the old money Galveston residents, members of the Krews (Mardis Gras societies). Many of these folks want to keep things, and people just the way they are and will play dirty, very dirty, to keep the status quo.

This book has it all. Weird creatures, humor, heroes who get banished from Galveston Island only to be confronted with cannibals, and plot twists. The writing gives you a flavor of the land, the sky, the sea. You can almost smell it and taste it.

Other than some information which would have helped "flesh" this out . . . such as what happened to the rest of the world . . . this is quite fanatastic an imaginative. Sean Stewart has done a wonderful job.

Buy this book and enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Characters . . . Good Plot
Review: A fantasy vision of a not-so-future apocalypse with a cast I really cared about. Magic clings to everything in Galveston, almost like the humidity in the air. A Mardis Gras celebration opens the fooldgates of magic, both good and bad, and Galveston never recovered. For years the residents have held the line against these forces, occassionally losing one of their brethren to the allure of magic.

This is a story of class distinctions as much as a compelling fantasy. The main charaters Ham, Josh, Sloane and Ace - among others - are people you really want to see surmount the problems they face. It's not just the magic they must deal with. Perhaps the most malevelant forces at play are the old money Galveston residents, members of the Krews (Mardis Gras societies). Many of these folks want to keep things, and people just the way they are and will play dirty, very dirty, to keep the status quo.

This book has it all. Weird creatures, humor, heroes who get banished from Galveston Island only to be confronted with cannibals, and plot twists. The writing gives you a flavor of the land, the sky, the sea. You can almost smell it and taste it.

Other than some information which would have helped "flesh" this out . . . such as what happened to the rest of the world . . . this is quite fanatastic an imaginative. Sean Stewart has done a wonderful job.

Buy this book and enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: great premise
Review: After the Magic Flood of 2004, there are two Galvestons in Texas, one the "real" world, one the bizarre, twisted world of Mardi Gras. The characters in the novel are poised between the two, trying to keep the tide of magic from washing over what remains of the ordered, rational, pre-Flood world.

Sean Stewart has created a rich, compelling world. His characters are fully fleshed out, particularly Sloane (daughter of the woman who governs the "human" Galveston,) and Josh Cane, the town's bitter, dispossessed healer. There are many wonderful minor characters, a great setting, and an inventive premise.

However! the main character is eminently unlikable, the pace of the plot is uneven (pages and pages of description of one poker game, followed later by a span of 50 pages or so which cover exile, snakes, hurricanes, cannibals, and other assorted misfortunes.) Also annoying is the author's tendency to have important action take place "off-screen:" the narrative just jumps to a spot further down the timeline, and blandly mentions what has happened in the interval. The ending is weak, with several plot threads left dangling, and surprising hints of major tragedy to come for some important characters, while the reader is left to guess what happens next.

Rating:
Summary: A Writer Who Blurs the Lines Between the Magical & Mundane
Review: GALVESTON is a fabulous book about the pain of loss, the fear of discovery, and the elusiveness of redemption.

The setting is the imaginary side-by-side worlds of a future Galveston. One world uses magic to create an artificial light in an ever-present night. The other world uses rules and limits to create order out of chaos.

Neither world is perfect; neither world is fair, but they must co-exist, imperfect mirror images in a glass world about to shatter.

Beautiful writing. Wonderful storytelling. Poverty. Inequity. Mardi Gras and Prawn Men.

I thought this Sean Stewart's best book yet.

I am limited to 5 stars for this review; when I read "Galveston" and looked into its sultry Texas night, the sky blazed with more stars than I could count and it was awesome.

Bravo.

Signed, usually not so verbose.

Rating:
Summary: Do you like poker?
Review: I did not enjoy this book. While I often enjoy post-apocalytic literature, this one did not grab me. I did not care about the characters, I did not like them or symphatize with them. In fact, if that is what humans come to, they deserve to see the end of the world! I could not grasp the "magic" idea, it was not well described in my view. Much of the book is based on the game of poker: I know nothing about that game and so I was lost in several places. I thought the writing was good but the concepts did not work. Like fantasy? Try "The Golden Compass" written mostly for teens but a much more interesting treatment of a similar subject.

Rating:
Summary: Uh...WHOA
Review: I have just this past moment finished this book, so you'll have to forgive me for being a little overwhelmed here. I won't be very intelligibile, so newly released from a book that has held me so emotionally tight, and so am, quite frankly, reeling. Hmm...do I reccommend it? That's a tricky question. Rating it five stars for 1)vivid prose, 2)living characters, 3)gripping emotion, 4)effective storyline and 5)excellent execution, is one thing but...dare I thrust this shocking, draining book upon an unsuspecting amazon customer? Can't say I'm sure. In my humble opinion Sean Stewart is a mixed blessing. You have to admire/respect his imagination and skill but personally I quail before his ability to hold me fast in sympathy with characters I don't even identify with, and that knack he has sometimes of stripping them bare until YOU are feeling exposed and almost sick with empathy. (Er, sorry, make the emphatic 'you' read 'me') His is a harsh treatment. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes twisted, it has this stamp of being so brutally real that one feels it is the truth and the life you lead is the fantasy. I don't know how he manages it! It may be due to the way its a contemporary novel (though strictly speaking it's futuristic). An added discomfort for me is that he has a few characters who swear a good deal, but I'm sure this won't bother anyone else. That ruthless (or maybe wholly compassionate?) unveiling of an infirm character, that robbing of someone's pride, well, that's very effective and shocking too. I spent the whole day reading this book completely enthralled - not always pleasantly. I believe it is brilliant. Creative, bold, real, tightly wrought, thoughtful...you name it. I also think that you have to be really brave to read it. 'Course that could just be because I'm a young and naive coward. Told you I wouldn't make much sense. Nevertheless, I hope I have imparted to you the fact that I was moved in a million painful ways by this exciting book. (Somehow I cared so much for those lousy people!) So, if you are willing to give it a try and start an unique experience, I say pick up the darned book! After all: "it just doesn't get better than this!" Hee, hee, hee...(those who have read Galveston will appreciate my evil chuckle and quote)

Rating:
Summary: Wind-up is better than the pitch.
Review: I like what one of the other reviewers here said when he remarked that this book doesn't end, it just stops. What occurs to me most, as I sit down to write this review, is that I don't really remember the ending. I remember parts of it-- I remember how the romantic tension between the two leads worked out. I remember what the characters learned about themselves, but I have to say that I don't really remember what exactly happened once we got past the hurricane. It's a shame, also, because I remember the opening so vividly.

Still, a remarkable book all told. I was interested to read that this is the third book that Stewart set in this world. I may well go looking for one of the earlier ones.

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, but not much else
Review: I only picked this book up because I live close to Galveston. It was very creative, but that's about it. I was able to identify with the area. However that's about all that I enjoyed.