RADIX

Rating:
Summary: Radix, book of changes.
Review: i met this book ten years ago. and i still live with it inside. This is the book of changes... How can i say?...(my english is bad). Read it and you 'll be different.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most frustrating and annoying SF books I've read
Review: I thought about reading Radix because I like to pick out older and overlooked science fiction books and I have found some gems in the past, like David Zindell's Neverness and Donald Kingsbury's Courtship Rite. But this book nearly drove me crazy. It started out all right, with the protagonist Sumner Kagan gaining revenge against various gangs. Although it didn't hook me, it was enough to keep me reading. But once the novel introduced the voors, telepathic entities, it started going downhill into an endless stream of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. The plot, if it could be called such, veered off into a hundred different directions and I couldn't buy Sumner's development from fat, picked-on punk kid to Nietzchean superman. The novel might have been better if it just stuck to the pre-developed Sumner. And the climax and ending were so scattershot and confusing, I felt like I was reading Mad Max meets Monty Python meets Nietzche. Half the time I didn't understand what was going on. And when I did, it didn't interest me.

Reading this book was also an exercise in frustration, as a hundred different characters keep popping in and out. You need a score card to keep track. And terms. He sticks together so many words and phrases and similes that my eyes glazed over trying to read them. Psynergy, eo, Delph, godmind, voors, starglass. It's annoying to have to go back and forth trying to figure who's who and what's what. The only reason I even finished this book was because I had already read half of it and wanted to see if it got any better.

A lot of people have compared this novel to Dune by Frank Herbert. Perhaps it has a few similarities, but Dune is a vastly superior work. Dune may have some metaphysical aspects, but it gradually and slowly introduces you to Arrakis and its world culture instead of bludgeoning you full force on the head like Attanasio does in Radix.

Perhaps the worst thing of all is that Radix is well written. Attanasio's prose is direct and clean and uncluttered, without a lot of useless adverbs. But this was all in vain, since the story itself was so confusing and unengaging.

Overall, I felt more of a sense of boredom and aggravation rather than any sense of wonder reading Radix. And why this book is rated so high, I have no idea. I didn't get any entertainment or even enlightenment out of reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant piece of work
Review: I took this book along with me on an extended solo backpack trip in the wilderness of Alaska seven years ago. One reason was its size--I figured it would last the entire 10 days. I didn't know the author from Adam, so it was a chance. Even with the extended light of summer and long hiking days, I managed to finish it in four days. I spent the next four reading it again. All I can say is, it was an exceptional novel. The rest of the Radix Tetrad is wonderful, and "The Last Legends of Earth" is the best book I have read. Read this book, and the next three...you won't be sorry!

Rating:
Summary: Enriching
Review: I've read through A.A.Attanasio's Radix and I'm captivated by his vivid mastery of the senses, emotions, uncertainty and the unknown. These very human components are deliciously composed together with the barely knowable aspects of reality and the very fringes of fantasy. It was a deeply spiritual journey that presents a panclusive view of the world, life in general, the universe and everything. The book's last piece of poetry sums it all up,

Pain is a rose of great peace.
Silence is the depth of a song.
And stillness is the space of our lives,
So empty it can hold everything.

Without the context of the plot, the poem sounds kinda dark. On the contrary, the book is a celebration of life and all its wonders, possibilities and even impossibilities.

Objectively speaking, the ending got a bit sticky and scattered but the impact this book made on the core of my personality overshadows the minor lapses in the flow of the plot. I'm guessing it's a matter of unavoidable editing. But I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the Radix Tetrad.

If you're daunted by neologisms and poetry don't even try. BUT. If you're up for challenging reality and pushing your imaginations beyond your current world-view then enjoy this beautifully crafted piece of literature.

Rating:
Summary: What a Dreary, Ponderous Book...
Review: It is hard to pin down what i don't like about this book. Is it the dry, sketchy writing style? Is it the faux-mystical overtones? Is it the dearth of likable characters?

Radix was difficult to get into, but Sumner Kagan quickly emerged as a formidable anti-hero, defending himself against street gangs in devious and deadly ways. But Attanasio isn't content to stay in the grimy city, where things are interesting. She wants to lift Sumner to Godhood, so we must follow Kagan into the wilderness and through his many changes. What a load of crap.

I struggled to stay awake while finishing this book, and not even the final meeting with the Delph was enough to hold my interest.

Rating:
Summary: A.A, is a guy
Review: Lives in Hawaii himseld. Just letting you all know. I loved this book i am just trying to find it again.

Rating:
Summary: A complex tale of the alchemy of the soul - 5 stars!
Review: Most books of heroic transformation involve an "average" character who is changed by circumstances or a heroic character in a "slump" suddenly called back to do what he does best. In Radix a more complex challenge is presented. The "anti-hero" is transformed into something greater through the course of many confrontations psychological, physical and metaphysical - a much more difficult task. It is essentially a tale of alchemy of the soul. Because of the complexity, contrast and beauty of the story I feel it is one of the best I have EVER read - and I have read many such tales. If your idea of the perfect heroic tale is summed up by typical dime store romance this is not the book for you. However, if you want to read a book that will make you think, which is completely different from anything you have previously read, you will not want to miss reading Radix; you will finish it and want MORE!

Rating:
Summary: Revolting
Review: One of the worst main characters I have ever had the misfortune to meet. I couldn't find one likable feature about him and after 150 odd pages left him to whatever fate was in store for him. It's a very rare book I can't bring myself to finish but this is definitely one of the

Rating:
Summary: Radix
Review: Radix is the story of Sumner Kagan--or rather, it is two stories about him. This could be its major weakness.

I was very involved with the first part of the book, which details the personal growth of Sumner Kagan in the layered environment of a future-Earth. Kagan is a rebel, an out-of-shape but nevertheless effective scourge of all those who have wronged him. Since that includes entire streetgangs, Sumner's vengeful lifestyle is not without its risks, but he seems to have a knack for luring whole packs of bullies into deathtraps. Meanwhile, he conducts an abrasive relationship with his mother. This is Sumner Kagan--aka Sugerat--when we meet him.

Once the repressive Masseboth government catch him, though, Sumner's life will change. His genetically-pure "white-card" status will be exploited by controllers looking to have him father pure offspring; this is isn't such a bad spot for Kagan to find himself in. Less pleasurable is his forced time in the swamp, being sharpened, mentally and physically, into a soldier, and then a Ranger.

But Sumner, especially the new, near-perfect Sumner, is not one to be exploited by government or anyone else, for long.

There comes a point in the novel--probably when Sumner has a powerful epiphany called One-Mind--that our hero has jumped onto more cosmic stepping-stones than before, and the book is about him taking his place amongst various future-earth superbeings, not all of them friendly. In fact, he is fated to be merely one player in a twelve hundred year old cosmic chess-game. The One-Mind epiphany, along with Sumner chancing upon his mother and realizing she no longer recognizes him, almost mean that the first sections of the novel get dismissed, or don't matter much to later parts. Or, it may be fairer to say that we lose touch with Sumner after a certain point; he is not a character to be cheered for, sympathized with, angered by...whatever. He becomes a puzzle-piece, lost in a crowd of superbeing friends and enemies, preparing to do battle on a radically-altered earth. Lots of characters wrestle for room in the spotlight, some of them disappearing for long stretches of the novel. This becomes a book where the reader must try to keep track of each character: who is that character, what classification of human or super-creature is that character, what are the origins of that group of beings, what is his-her-its relation to Kagan, friend or foe, and what happened the last time that character appeared? I confess it all becomes a bit much, though in truth, it can be distilled down to a battle between Kagan and his strange allies, and an entity called the Delph...though behind the Delpth lurks an even deadlier foe, the real puppet-master.

I enjoyed this book mainly because the piled-on details do tend to support an exciting, ultimately simple story of warring adversaries trying to best one another on a colourful background. But there did come a point where I felt wrenched away from Sumner Kagan and his emotions, after Sumner was basically recruited to fight a cosmic war. What did the personal tragedies of Sumner Kagan--wonderfully and painfully depicted in the first half of the book--what did they matter, if he was fated to leave it all behind? Reader becomes viewer; the cosmic canvas is so big, the only emotion generated is awe.

Rating:
Summary: A Very Unique Hero
Review: Sumner has been, and still is one of my favorite fictional heroes. I read this book at a time when anti-heroes, and good guys with dark pasts were not as abundant as they are now. In effect, this was one of the first I have discovered, and still is one of the best. It is a story of a strange, sad and troubled young man. Far from perfect, the overweight, nearly psychotic Sumner, originally, has only one strength. He is one of the last beings on earth with a totally Human genetic make-up. He was not a heroic figure. He did not try to be a good guy. He was just a mess that ended up totally transformed by situations he had no control of. Earth has passed through a fixed point of space which travels straight through the core of the Galaxy. The "Line" as it is called, is a Cosmic Super-Highway for Gods, Demons, Spirits, and reality-altering powers traveling from place and time, to place and time. At a time, not too far from now, earth passes through the Line with cataclysmic effects! What is not destroyed, is forever changed. Earth is not the same planet anymore. It is a place run by Gods who make war against each other, as well as corrupt governments, rampant mutations, and a host of spiritual entities. 11,000 years later, Sumner finds himself in this altered world. As a somewhat "normal" human, and as a failure in general, he is a true outsider. Preyed upon, and harrassed by mutant gangs, and his own perceptions of himself, he finds something he is good at, beside eating and cultivating a bad case of acne. Sumner is a natural killer. And a genetically "whole" human being. Maybe the 2 traits are interchangeable. And his story takes place between the time others are made aware of this trait, as he is trained and comes of age, and the time when he eventually becomes a deadly instrument in a battle where 2 Gods could decide the final fate of Mankind. It is about a very imperfect hero. The kind of hero anybody could be.