msjenne's review
4.0
OK, so this Schroeder guy who I had never even heard of a year ago is now one of my favorite SF writers. I would not call him a "crossover" writer however; this is strictly for nerds. But nerds are cool, right?
..right?
Anyway, this is the second one in a series, obviously, and the deal with this Virga thing is that it's kind of an inside-out planet, with a big man-made sun in the middle, and a bunch of littler suns farther out, and then a sort of skin around the whole thing, so it's like a balloon in space with the atmosphere inside, if that makes sense.
And so there are all these like, floating cities, and gravity is sort of a commodity, so poor people tend to have long skinny legs and arms because they couldn't afford to grow up in somewhere with normal gravity. Anyway, this book is all about this woman who is WILY! and an aristocrat, and she has migraines, and secret plans for world domination, and she's also hot. but mean.
So she ends up on this one city/country place (through a series of events that took place in the first book, and I mostly forget what they were) and through her WILES tries to take over the city/country.
It's all very elegant and sort of steampunk-y, if you're into that, and it reminds me a little bit of the Gormenghast books. But with more action! And less weird.
..right?
Anyway, this is the second one in a series, obviously, and the deal with this Virga thing is that it's kind of an inside-out planet, with a big man-made sun in the middle, and a bunch of littler suns farther out, and then a sort of skin around the whole thing, so it's like a balloon in space with the atmosphere inside, if that makes sense.
And so there are all these like, floating cities, and gravity is sort of a commodity, so poor people tend to have long skinny legs and arms because they couldn't afford to grow up in somewhere with normal gravity. Anyway, this book is all about this woman who is WILY! and an aristocrat, and she has migraines, and secret plans for world domination, and she's also hot. but mean.
So she ends up on this one city/country place (through a series of events that took place in the first book, and I mostly forget what they were) and through her WILES tries to take over the city/country.
It's all very elegant and sort of steampunk-y, if you're into that, and it reminds me a little bit of the Gormenghast books. But with more action! And less weird.
ewolf's review
5.0
Definately pickup from Book 1, Sun of Suns. Once I was able to get going with it the book became harder to put down.
pussreboots's review
4.0
For the 2009-10 Canada Reads challenge I started reading Karl Schroeder's Virga series. In typical fashion I read the series completely out of order. I stared with the final book, The Sunless Countries and went back to the beginning with Sun of Suns. Now I'm at the second book, Queen of Cadesce.
In the previous book Venera Fanning fell to her presumed death. Except she's living inside an artificial world. So instead of going splat, she's burned by a man made sun and lands on the crumbling remains of Spyre.
Queen of Cadensce certainly kept my attention better than Sun of Suns did. Venera on her own comes alive. We are left with her thoughts on revenge and survival as she explores the ruins of Spyre. Although falling apart, Sypre is inhabited. It's a ghost town in the making with the closed up estates of crumbling mansions of once great families.
Spyre is as much a character as her inhabitants and Venera Fanning herself. I love Schroeder's world building and I felt I had more time to explore in this book than in the first.
In the previous book Venera Fanning fell to her presumed death. Except she's living inside an artificial world. So instead of going splat, she's burned by a man made sun and lands on the crumbling remains of Spyre.
Queen of Cadensce certainly kept my attention better than Sun of Suns did. Venera on her own comes alive. We are left with her thoughts on revenge and survival as she explores the ruins of Spyre. Although falling apart, Sypre is inhabited. It's a ghost town in the making with the closed up estates of crumbling mansions of once great families.
Spyre is as much a character as her inhabitants and Venera Fanning herself. I love Schroeder's world building and I felt I had more time to explore in this book than in the first.
jenne's review
4.0
OK, so this Schroeder guy who I had never even heard of a year ago is now one of my favorite SF writers. I would not call him a "crossover" writer however; this is strictly for nerds. But nerds are cool, right?
..right?
Anyway, this is the second one in a series, obviously, and the deal with this Virga thing is that it's kind of an inside-out planet, with a big man-made sun in the middle, and a bunch of littler suns farther out, and then a sort of skin around the whole thing, so it's like a balloon in space with the atmosphere inside, if that makes sense.
And so there are all these like, floating cities, and gravity is sort of a commodity, so poor people tend to have long skinny legs and arms because they couldn't afford to grow up in somewhere with normal gravity. Anyway, this book is all about this woman who is WILY! and an aristocrat, and she has migraines, and secret plans for world domination, and she's also hot. but mean.
So she ends up on this one city/country place (through a series of events that took place in the first book, and I mostly forget what they were) and through her WILES tries to take over the city/country.
It's all very elegant and sort of steampunk-y, if you're into that, and it reminds me a little bit of the Gormenghast books. But with more action! And less weird.
..right?
Anyway, this is the second one in a series, obviously, and the deal with this Virga thing is that it's kind of an inside-out planet, with a big man-made sun in the middle, and a bunch of littler suns farther out, and then a sort of skin around the whole thing, so it's like a balloon in space with the atmosphere inside, if that makes sense.
And so there are all these like, floating cities, and gravity is sort of a commodity, so poor people tend to have long skinny legs and arms because they couldn't afford to grow up in somewhere with normal gravity. Anyway, this book is all about this woman who is WILY! and an aristocrat, and she has migraines, and secret plans for world domination, and she's also hot. but mean.
So she ends up on this one city/country place (through a series of events that took place in the first book, and I mostly forget what they were) and through her WILES tries to take over the city/country.
It's all very elegant and sort of steampunk-y, if you're into that, and it reminds me a little bit of the Gormenghast books. But with more action! And less weird.
tachyondecay's review
4.0
I read Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns almost a year ago and liked it but didn't love it. Queen of Candesce, in addition to standing by itself, has made me wonder if I was uncharitable to the first book. I honestly enjoyed Queen of Candesce every step of the way.
There is no question that Schroeder's Virga is a fabulous example of world-building. But it was so obvious in the first book, so overt, that at times it overwhelmed the story. That isn't the case here. Virga still plays an important role, but it's one that is integrated better into the story itself, which is really a political one.
Schroeder shows us that he can do more than describe a different type of world and drop people with steampunkesque technology and politics into that setting. Spyre is an example of how human politics has adjusted to the unique attributes of living on a wheel inside of fullerene sphere. There's an entire faction of conservation engineers devoted only to keeping Spyre intact, never mind politics. There are rebels who want "emergent government," something that Venera thinks won't work by dint of how Virga itself was designed. And hovering behind everything, there's the sinister but poorly-understood threat of "Artificial Nature." (I'm just now realizing what an oxymoron the phrase itself is, never mind what it denotes.)
Venera Fanning, who was more of antagonist in the first book, is a delectable protagonist. She lands in the nation of Spyre, which is more of a collection of micro-nations on two massive wheels near Candesce. With no previous knowledge of Spyre's politics or culture, she manages to inveigle her way into society, pull a con, and begin building her resource base. Her goal is to have the resources to return to Slipstream with a fleet and take revenge for her husband's death. But as Venera builds power in Spyre, she starts to make allies, even friends, and much to her dismay, develops a conscience.
I described Venera in my review of Sun of Suns as "a fun but ruthless antagonist." She's fun but ruthless here as well. She's fun because she gives every gambit everything she has; Venera is not just an action hero but an intelligent action hero who, once she has decided upon a course of action, commits to it whole-heartedly. She's ruthless because, at least at first, she doesn't care about how much of Spyre she has to destabilize (physically or politically) to get back home. Even when she displays loyalty to her new companions, like Garth, she never develops the same loyalty for Spyre or its people. Venera is always the outsider, driven by the goals that define her.
That's the deeper part of the story. We learn early on that Venera cares about only two possessions: the key to Candesce and the mysterious bullet that broke her jaw. Both are important to the plot, but they are more important to Venera as a character. Venera's accident with the bullet has formed the core of her personality, especially now that she believes her husband is dead: one of her reasons for staying alive is to find the origin of that bullet. But if she solves that mystery, who then does she become?
It's this question of identity that is central to Queen of Candesce. Venera has the opportunity to become the "botanist" of a small cherry-growing nation called Liris, but she doesn't. She instead cedes the position to someone more qualified, then returns to Greater Spyre in order to start anew and try to find a way to escape Spyre itself. Later, she assumes the identity of Amandera Thrace-Guilles, last heir of the sequestered nation of Buridan. Like any good con artist, she must become Amandera in order to dupe her marks (the entire council of Spyre, in this case). It's interesting to watch Venera try to juggle her two identities and watch the reactions of people based on who they think Venera is.
Maybe I just have a weakness for stories wrapped around con games, but Venera's deception makes Queen of Candesce just plain fun. Often she miscalculates, makes a mistake, and has to think on her feet, compromise, and come up with a new plan. But once in a while, one of Venera's plans works out, and every time that happened I just squealed in delight. I'm not sure if Sun of Suns deserves more credit than I originally gave it, but reading it was worth it just to get to this book. Here, Schroeder melds the massive scope of Virga with the minute scope of human lives. And now I know that if Venera Fanning is ever around, I want to be on her side.
My Reviews of the Virga series:
← Sun of Suns | Pirate Sun →
There is no question that Schroeder's Virga is a fabulous example of world-building. But it was so obvious in the first book, so overt, that at times it overwhelmed the story. That isn't the case here. Virga still plays an important role, but it's one that is integrated better into the story itself, which is really a political one.
Schroeder shows us that he can do more than describe a different type of world and drop people with steampunkesque technology and politics into that setting. Spyre is an example of how human politics has adjusted to the unique attributes of living on a wheel inside of fullerene sphere. There's an entire faction of conservation engineers devoted only to keeping Spyre intact, never mind politics. There are rebels who want "emergent government," something that Venera thinks won't work by dint of how Virga itself was designed. And hovering behind everything, there's the sinister but poorly-understood threat of "Artificial Nature." (I'm just now realizing what an oxymoron the phrase itself is, never mind what it denotes.)
Venera Fanning, who was more of antagonist in the first book, is a delectable protagonist. She lands in the nation of Spyre, which is more of a collection of micro-nations on two massive wheels near Candesce. With no previous knowledge of Spyre's politics or culture, she manages to inveigle her way into society, pull a con, and begin building her resource base. Her goal is to have the resources to return to Slipstream with a fleet and take revenge for her husband's death. But as Venera builds power in Spyre, she starts to make allies, even friends, and much to her dismay, develops a conscience.
I described Venera in my review of Sun of Suns as "a fun but ruthless antagonist." She's fun but ruthless here as well. She's fun because she gives every gambit everything she has; Venera is not just an action hero but an intelligent action hero who, once she has decided upon a course of action, commits to it whole-heartedly. She's ruthless because, at least at first, she doesn't care about how much of Spyre she has to destabilize (physically or politically) to get back home. Even when she displays loyalty to her new companions, like Garth, she never develops the same loyalty for Spyre or its people. Venera is always the outsider, driven by the goals that define her.
That's the deeper part of the story. We learn early on that Venera cares about only two possessions: the key to Candesce and the mysterious bullet that broke her jaw. Both are important to the plot, but they are more important to Venera as a character. Venera's accident with the bullet has formed the core of her personality, especially now that she believes her husband is dead: one of her reasons for staying alive is to find the origin of that bullet. But if she solves that mystery, who then does she become?
It's this question of identity that is central to Queen of Candesce. Venera has the opportunity to become the "botanist" of a small cherry-growing nation called Liris, but she doesn't. She instead cedes the position to someone more qualified, then returns to Greater Spyre in order to start anew and try to find a way to escape Spyre itself. Later, she assumes the identity of Amandera Thrace-Guilles, last heir of the sequestered nation of Buridan. Like any good con artist, she must become Amandera in order to dupe her marks (the entire council of Spyre, in this case). It's interesting to watch Venera try to juggle her two identities and watch the reactions of people based on who they think Venera is.
Maybe I just have a weakness for stories wrapped around con games, but Venera's deception makes Queen of Candesce just plain fun. Often she miscalculates, makes a mistake, and has to think on her feet, compromise, and come up with a new plan. But once in a while, one of Venera's plans works out, and every time that happened I just squealed in delight. I'm not sure if Sun of Suns deserves more credit than I originally gave it, but reading it was worth it just to get to this book. Here, Schroeder melds the massive scope of Virga with the minute scope of human lives. And now I know that if Venera Fanning is ever around, I want to be on her side.
My Reviews of the Virga series:
← Sun of Suns | Pirate Sun →
doorisajar's review
3.0
A solid follow-up to its predecessor, focusing on the most interesting character. Another wild ride set in a very well-realized, detailed, and warped setting. There were maybe two coincidences I had a bit of trouble getting past.
As in the first book, we're only given hints of a broader scope. Since the broader scope is actually the most interesting part of the series for me, the overall length of the series will probably determine whether I make it all the way to the end.
As in the first book, we're only given hints of a broader scope. Since the broader scope is actually the most interesting part of the series for me, the overall length of the series will probably determine whether I make it all the way to the end.
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