I don't know if th TGA has been mentioned before, it having been around for about eight years, but I've just completed it and felt some compulsion to recommend it. The setting is a far-future earth utopia: sociologically complex, AI-governed, deeply virtual... and quite stagnant. The science and ideas are interesting, rewarding, and sometimes breathtaking. The language is of a science-heavy archaic style that well executed and rarely clunky.
Of more interest to the frequenters of this board is the obvious -and acknowledged- debt to Jack Vance. There are definite shades of To Live Forever (or whatever its correct name is); dialogue is very Vancian (though, as I said above, much more scientific than JVs ever is); the hero is typically self-assured and self-centred. Some of the colourful description is pure Vance, too.
Only one brief paragraph of self-indulgence marred the book for me (a laboured joke concerning The War of the Worlds that spoiled and was contrary to the overall authorial voice), and I otherwise strongly recommend TGA to all who read this. (John C Wright contributed to Songs the Dying Earth, too... needless to say, it was one of the better efforts.)
Of more interest to the frequenters of this board is the obvious -and acknowledged- debt to Jack Vance. There are definite shades of To Live Forever (or whatever its correct name is); dialogue is very Vancian (though, as I said above, much more scientific than JVs ever is); the hero is typically self-assured and self-centred. Some of the colourful description is pure Vance, too.
Only one brief paragraph of self-indulgence marred the book for me (a laboured joke concerning The War of the Worlds that spoiled and was contrary to the overall authorial voice), and I otherwise strongly recommend TGA to all who read this. (John C Wright contributed to Songs the Dying Earth, too... needless to say, it was one of the better efforts.)
