Implied Spaces
by Walter Jon Williams
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Book Summary Information
Author: Walter Jon WilliamsEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-11
ISBN: 1597801259
Number of pages: 264
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Book Reviews of Implied Spaces
Book Review: Good entertaining story, but lacks focus
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book in 3-4 days, tops. It was very enjoyable reading, as I have been a big fan of WJW ever since his first short story in Omni. Great fun: evil villains, dashing swordsmen in a World of Warcraft type setting, AI sidekicks, big combat scenes...
But I don't think it measures up to his best books like Aristoi, Voice of the Whirlwind or Angel Station. One problem is that he starts throwing out what could be fairly serious themes: re-incarnation, the relationship of self-aware AIs to humankind, contrasting the achievements of the talented few to the more frivolous masses, the nature vs. nurture of ethics. But none of these ideas are explored in any depth. The AI debate is a case in point as it postulates a radically different relationship than say Banks' Culture Minds. But the discussion is over in one paragraph.
WJW is good at "big concept SF" and he is also good at just writing good adventure novels. In Dread Empire and City on Fire, he told good stories, without any philosophical ambitions. Aristoi is the opposite - he has a _few_ great ideas and treats them brilliantly in what is probably his best novel to date.
In Implied Spaces, whose main protagonist often reminded me of Aristoi's, he just throws out a lot of neat ideas and doesn't do anything much with them. Left that way, those ideas get in the way, because they leave you wanting more, much more. The ending was also somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic so that worked against the "pure story" approach.
In sum, Implied Spaces ends up neither fish nor fowl, but remains enjoyable nonetheless. You would expect nothing less of WJW, but you might expect more.
Summary of Implied Spaces
Aristide, a semi-retired computer scientist turned swordsman, is a scholar of the implied spaces, seeking meaning amid the accidents of architecture in a universe where reality itself has been sculpted and designed by superhuman machine intelligence. While exploring the pre-technological world Midgarth, one of four dozen pocket universes created within a series of vast, orbital matrioshka computer arrays, Aristide uncovers a fiendish plot threatening to set off a nightmare scenario, perhaps even bringing about the ultimate Existential Crisis: the end of civilization itself. Traveling the pocket universes with his wormhole-edged sword Tecmesssa in hand and talking cat Bitsy, avatar of the planet-sized computer Endora, at his side, Aristide must find a way to save the multiverse from subversion, sabotage, and certain destruction.General Books
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