ICARUS DESCENDING

Rating:
Summary: Touching, bittersweet end to series. Worth reading. Grade: A
Review: As with "Winterlong" and "Aestival Tide" (books 1 and 2 of this excellent series), the real story of "Icarus Descending" is more about the unresolved emotional wounds between family members than about the science fiction plot. The overt plot -- the geneslave rebellion, the impending collision of Icarus, the cat-and-mouse games of Tast'annin and Metatron -- is neatly summarized elsewhere on this page. The "real" stories here are about Aidan and Emma Harrow (we finally get an outside perspective on them), Jane Alopex and Miss Scarlet Pan (who represent the tyrant/geneslave macrocosm), and most touching of all, a man named Luther Burdock and his daughter Cybele.

Aidan, Emma, Jane, and Miss Scarlet are all characters from "Winterlong," and it is nice to see them again. (Wendy Wanders is back, and she serves as a major narrator -- but I cannot say that much of the plot revolves around her... at least, not until the end.) The nuances in their various sub-plots provide depth to the overt plot -- we see first-hand how the exterior world operates via the medium of these characters. It is nicely done.

The plot revolving around Luther Burdock and his daughter can be summarized thusly: Four hundred years before the novel begins, geneticist Luther Burdock successfully cloned a human being: his fifteen-year old daughter, Cybele. The religious fanatics of the Second Ascention could not tolerate this act, and murdered both of the Burdocks. Unfortunately, the tyrannical Ascendants found a use for Cybele's clone, Kalamat (meaning "miracle"), and used Dr. Burdock's discoveries to engineer a race of cloned slaves -- the energumens. Energumens are giant, beautiful (as Cybele was beautiful), and live for only 1000 days. They also retain all of Cybele's memories up until the experiment that created the first clone. In a sense, the energumens are all the same fifteen-year old girl, who longs for nothing more than to be reunited with Father. The novel begins and ends with one energumen's quest to find her long-dead Father, and Hand does not disappoint. The closest thing I can compare it to is Spielberg's "A.I."

This sense of separation and reunion is the dominant theme in the novel, as various characters say farewell forever (not a spoiler, but Hobi, Reive, and Rudyard Planck do not appear in this book, and we only hear of their fates in passing), while others are shockingly brought together (again, not a spoiler, but Wendy Wanders has not seen the last of Tast'annin). But then, that is probably to be expected in a book named for the Greek son who disregarded his father's advice, with fatal consequences.

This book is truly excellent. Despite the sci-fi trappings, it is literature, and well worth the read. An attentive reader will pick up on embedded details, such as the identity of the ethereal Gaping One, and the real significance of the fall of NASNA Prime in "Winterlong." In addition, Margalis Tast'annin presents his version of what actually happened between Aidan and Emma Harrow... and why.

This is a fantastic book, and a marvelous conclusion to the series. I can understand why some readers are disappointed -- there is no solid conclusion, just a transition of sorts. That shouldn't really be a problem, though -- neither of the earlier books ended concretely, either. And really, you don't need Hand to spell out the ending for you. That's just being lazy! After such a lush, dense read, use your imagination and make the ending yourself.

Rating:
Summary: A truly peculiar end to a very peculiar series.
Review: Icarus Descending is a very interesting tale, mostly looking at one particular question: if your total lifespan is only three years how do you view God or Salvation? What is important when you are literally born to work as a slave for 1000 days and then be discarded?

This book has a wildly black look at a possible future, brain eating in various guises and a really peculiar look at deepspace geneslave paganism. Lovely.

Rating:
Summary: A crushing disappointment!!!
Review: If there was a zero rating option, I would have picked it.I LOVED the two predecessors to this novel, Winterlong and Aestival Tide. Elizabeth Hand had drawn us into a dark future frightening and enthralling. Icarus Descending, on the other hand seems to have been written by someone who couldn't care less about the first two books... Everything in the first two books lead to NOTHING. I was so disappointed by this book that I shall never read another by the author again. In fact, I threw away my copy of Icarus Descending and just pretend that it never existed.

Rating:
Summary: sad, sad
Review: it's not as bad as one of these reviews might lead you to believe. . .

Some truely interesting concepts are presented, but as a sequel, and I guess as a book in general, it really does fall short. Too many loose ends and meandering sub-plots. A STRONG dissapointment, but if you've enjoyed Hand's other books, this probably IS worth a look (if you have nothing better to do.)