Newton's Wake

Newton's Wake

2004 • 384 pages

Ratings6

Average rating2.7

15

I went into this book looking for an engaging Science Fiction story with multiple interesting story lines which touch on one-another and comprise a while story.

I ended up with a somewhat disjointed story that never seemed to find closure. there were a lot of different characters that I found unmemorable and, consequently, hard to differentiate between. There also seemed to be clear visualizations in the authors mind which I couldn't capture in my own.

Most frustrating was the final description of humanity. I had a hard time understanding exactly what had happened, even after a re-read of certain sections, and the closing seemed to be quickly composed. A final coda is included to describe the lives of each of the main characters and explain the current state of humanity, but this still remained elusive to me and I've come away not really understanding, or even wanting to understand, the authors premise.

If the story had been more engaging I could have overlooked the confused closing. I'm also sure there are many other people who would find the story interesting, it simply didn't hold my attention and seemed to push too much against hard science without explaining how things have happened nor how events will end.

January 1, 2008