Rating: 
Summary: Yet Another Customer Who Thinks This Is The Best
Review: "The World is founded on a pillar, which is founded on the Deep".The Deep is my favourite book. Is has a strange, ethereal quality and a satisfying completeness that matches the encapsulation of the world described. I've read it at least 5 times, probably 10, limited only by having to leave a gap of a year or two between re-readings to forget the details. Fortunately I have a poor memory. Engine Summer is also excellent, though pipped by The Deep. Beasts I've read only once, many years ago, but remember it fondly. If you've been put off Crowley by the unfortunate Little, Big then please try this instead.
Rating:
Summary: "Engine Summer", a story Ray Bradbury wishes he had written
Review: "The Deep" was very intriguing, and "Beasts" a little to be
desired, but "Engine Summer" packs it all with one punch!
"Engine Summer" is absolutely the BEST SciFi story I have
ever had the pleasure of reading, I cannot recommend it
highly enough. The ending will definitely leave you awestruck
and I promise when you are finished reading this book, you
will wish you could erase the memory of reading it so you
could enjoy the story for the first time all over again!
Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Customer Who Thinks This Is The Best
Review: "The World is founded on a pillar, which is founded on the Deep". The Deep is my favourite book. Is has a strange, ethereal quality and a satisfying completeness that matches the encapsulation of the world described. I've read it at least 5 times, probably 10, limited only by having to leave a gap of a year or two between re-readings to forget the details. Fortunately I have a poor memory. Engine Summer is also excellent, though pipped by The Deep. Beasts I've read only once, many years ago, but remember it fondly. If you've been put off Crowley by the unfortunate Little, Big then please try this instead.
Rating:
Summary: Yet Another Customer Who Thinks This Is The Best
Review: "The World is founded on a pillar, which is founded on the Deep". The Deep is my favourite book. Is has a strange, ethereal quality and a satisfying completeness that matches the encapsulation of the world described. I've read it at least 5 times, probably 10, limited only by having to leave a gap of a year or two between re-readings to forget the details. Fortunately I have a poor memory. Engine Summer is also excellent, though pipped by The Deep. Beasts I've read only once, many years ago, but remember it fondly. If you've been put off Crowley by the unfortunate Little, Big then please try this instead.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book, why is it of print
Review: Crowley has got to be one of my favourite authors ever. These books are both beautiful and moving. They are always going out of print and people who own them guard them jealously, so they are even hard to get second hand. Does anyone know why he doesn't write more?
Rating:
Summary: this is in fact the best sci-fi novel ever!
Review: Engine Summer is beyond great:this book has it ALL, great writing, wonderful plot and absolutely poignant and mind blowing ideas. This is one that should never go out of print and should be required reading for as many people as possible.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Novel Ever Written, Plus Two
Review: How many books in the Amazon database have been called the best novel ever written (or the best novel in its genre) by *half* of all the reviewers? ENGINE SUMMER was actually the first novel John Crowley ever completed; the ms. then sat in a draw for years while he honed his craft with THE DEEP and BEASTS. The original draft was then rewritten. You thus have a unique combination of an author's most central concerns, his fundamental, primal Tale (always in the first novel), with the skills and knowledge of a mature artist. Civilization has fallen apart and humanity has returned to a primitive way of life. It's one of the oldest ideas in science fiction, but ENGINE SUMMER is unlike any other post-holocaust novel ever written. Rather than a harsh existence and a struggle to return to former glories, Crowley has imagined a veritable utopian existence -- in a world which knows there can be no going back. This is the long "Engine Summer" ("Indian Summer" misremembered) of the world, and winter is coming. It's a setting of unbelievable poignance. Rush That Speaks, an adolescent boy, finds himself in a strange place. An unfamiliar woman asks him to tell his story. Since Rush's ambition has always been to become a "saint" -- someone who tells the story of their life in a special way -- he is happy to comply. Where is Rush? Who is the woman? As Rush tells his remarkable tale, the special (and unbearably poignant) circumstance of that telling gradually becomes clear to the reader. ENGINE SUMMER is ultimately a story *about* Story, about the human ability to be moved by tales like this and about our desire to know what happens next. I would say more, but I don't want to even hint at what is going on here. THE DEEP retells the story of the English Civil War in a unique setting which seems to be genre fantasy but turns out to be something very different. At the time it was published, I thought it was flawed but showed extraordinary promise. That promise was fulfilled in BEASTS, a novel I thought was the best sf novel of its year and one (I'm very proud to say!) I cited, in print, as evidence of Crowley's greatness before ENGINE SUMMER and LITTLE, BIG were ever published. You'll notice I made no attempt to summarize its plot. It's like that.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Novel Ever Written, Plus Two
Review: How many books in the Amazon database have been called the best novel ever written (or the best novel in its genre) by *half* of all the reviewers? ENGINE SUMMER was actually the first novel John Crowley ever completed; the ms. then sat in a draw for years while he honed his craft with THE DEEP and BEASTS. The original draft was then rewritten. You thus have a unique combination of an author's most central concerns, his fundamental, primal Tale (always in the first novel), with the skills and knowledge of a mature artist. Civilization has fallen apart and humanity has returned to a primitive way of life. It's one of the oldest ideas in science fiction, but ENGINE SUMMER is unlike any other post-holocaust novel ever written. Rather than a harsh existence and a struggle to return to former glories, Crowley has imagined a veritable utopian existence -- in a world which knows there can be no going back. This is the long "Engine Summer" ("Indian Summer" misremembered) of the world, and winter is coming. It's a setting of unbelievable poignance. Rush That Speaks, an adolescent boy, finds himself in a strange place. An unfamiliar woman asks him to tell his story. Since Rush's ambition has always been to become a "saint" -- someone who tells the story of their life in a special way -- he is happy to comply. Where is Rush? Who is the woman? As Rush tells his remarkable tale, the special (and unbearably poignant) circumstance of that telling gradually becomes clear to the reader. ENGINE SUMMER is ultimately a story *about* Story, about the human ability to be moved by tales like this and about our desire to know what happens next. I would say more, but I don't want to even hint at what is going on here. THE DEEP retells the story of the English Civil War in a unique setting which seems to be genre fantasy but turns out to be something very different. At the time it was published, I thought it was flawed but showed extraordinary promise. That promise was fulfilled in BEASTS, a novel I thought was the best sf novel of its year and one (I'm very proud to say!) I cited, in print, as evidence of Crowley's greatness before ENGINE SUMMER and LITTLE, BIG were ever published. You'll notice I made no attempt to summarize its plot. It's like that.
Rating:
Summary: The single best work of fiction I've ever read
Review: John Crowley is wonderfully humane in his
writing and these three works are all great
stories. Beasts and the Deep both are notables
but Engine Summer is the best I've ever
experienced. The imagery of the language is
breathtaking. There aren't many books that
make me cry.
Rating:
Summary: Two extraordinary novels and one absolute classic
Review: John Crowley leads up to his first masterpiece Engine Summer, with two earlier, less well known works of fantasy. The Deep is a strong first effort by a burgeoning fantasy author,while Beasts is Crowley's only true Sci-Fi novel, and a very overlooked post-apocalypse novel. Engine Summer is the true highlight of this collection, a stark and understated work of great beauty.
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