His entry begins:
I am currently reading the A Song Called Youth trilogy by John Shirley (aka the Eclipse Trilogy). I bought the omnibus edition of this a short while back and have at last buckled down to reading it. Essentially, it's a cyberpunk, near-future story set in a dystopian world suffering from the consequences of political and international conflicts not too different from certain embryonic clashes we are seeing today. I had a copy of the first part, Eclipse, back in the late '80s but never came across the other 2 books so when I learned of the omnibus I got my order in fast. Re-reading it now I can scarcely recall my first reading, and it feels curiously unlike what I was kinda expecting. But the unapologetic grappling with political aspects, and its bravura drawing together of disparate plotlines has...[read on]About Ancestral Machines, from the publisher:
It was named Bringer of Battles, three hundred worlds orbiting a single artificial star, three hundred battlefields whereVisit Michael Cobley's website.different species vie for mastery and triumph. It is a cage where war is a game -- brutal, savage and sudden. In this arena, all must bend the knee to the Lords of Permutation and the ancient sentient weapons with which they have merged. Or suffer indescribable agonies.
Trapped in this draconian crucible of death, Brannan Pyke, captain and smuggler, must fight his way to freedom.
Because in the Bringer of Battles, the game of war is played to the death and beyond.
The Page 69 Test: Ancestral Machines.
My Book, the Movie: Ancestral Machines.
Writers Read: Michael Cobley.
--Marshal Zeringue
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