Product Description

Nulapeiron: a world isolated for twelve centuries. Its billions of inhabitants occupy subterranean strata, ruled by a logosophically-trained aristocracy of Lords and Ladies whose power base is upheld by Oracles. But revolution has touched all of its many cultures - failing in its intent, yet changing everything. Now Lord Tom Corcorigan - the commoner-turned-noble who renounced his power, the poet, logosopher and holder of the key to understanding the myriad wonders of mu-space, the legendary one-armed warrior, former revolutionary and would-be peacemaker - lies fatally wounded. His survival is dependent on his meeting with a mysterious Seer whose spacetime-warping talents transcend the merely Oracular. It is a confrontation that will result in bitter tragedy and loss - can the woman he loves be truly dead, or can quantum mysteries lie beyond the grave? Turning his back on a society sliding once more into anarchy and chaos, a disillusioned and despairing Tom wanders this strange, stratified world in search of meaning, love and his own salvation. But it seems Nulapeiron is threatened by a vast, insidious and terrifying enemy whose origins may lie beyond their world, beyond their understanding. And now is the time for legends to be reborn...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #440387 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 469 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Context is a direct sequel to John Meaney's well-received SF novel Paradox, whose hero Tom Corcorigan sparked an impossible revolution in the teeming underground regimes of planet Nulapeiron. What next?

Tom's ingenious, paradoxical insight was how to short-circuit the ruling "Oracles" whose knowledge of unchangeable future facts held Nulapeiron frozen in slavery and stasis. Now it's AD 3418, and after that partly successful revolution, the logic of paradox rebounds on Tom. His lady love dies or seems to die, yet a Seer shows him a future in which he rescues her. His new path is shaped by the need to make this vision possible.

Meanwhile, an unpleasant force called the Dark Fire or Blight is grabbing power in one subterranean community after another. Initiates become non-people who work and fight with eerily perfect synchronisation. "They're part of the Blight, just components, and that means they're no longer human." Following his personal quest through the wonders and dangers of Nulapeiron's exotic deeps, Tom keeps colliding with the machinations of the Blight.

An alternate storyline in the far past, AD 2142, follows the early life of Ro--the first human Pilot to be born adapted for vision and flight in "mu-space". (Her mother Karyn's story formed a similar strand in Paradox.) This is partly a murder mystery featuring multiple assassins, a cryptic dying message, and the intriguing alien Zajinets from Beta Draconis 3 who know more about mu-space than they're letting on. Ro's father, lost in that strange continuum, may have become a kind of god...

Besides violence, battle, torture, martial-arts extravaganzas and nanotechnology, Context is pervaded by webs of mysticism. There seems to be another, more sinister man-made god behind the Dark Fire. A blue fire is central to the mystery of the Oracles--not to mention the Zajinets--and when Tom himself touched by this fire, the effects are awesome.

This is a big, demanding, compelling novel, full of rewarding complexities and alive with that quantum strangeness where hard science intersects with the unknowable. A third Nulapeiron volume is promised: Resolution. --David Langford

Steve Baxter
‘John Meaney has rewired SF. Everything is different now’

Starburst
'A worthy follow-up to PARADOX'

Customer Reviews

Disappointing follow up
When I learned that John Meaney was writing a sequel to Paradox I was pleased, unfortunately Context was a disappointment.

Context shares the worst features of the previous book with few of the best features. The main character, Tom Corcorigan, appears to move from situation to situation in an extremely disjointed fashion, with little justification ever given for why. Due to this there was little sense of the character ever developing or being anything other than a vehicle for plot events. Given the excellent sense of the character growing and developing in the first half of the previous book this was a sincere disapointment.

There are good aspects to Context, mainly the end sequences where issues are resolved. However I cannot really recommend this book unless you are a serious fan of his writing style and the Nulapeiron world

The Richest of Worlds...
In Context, John Meaney describes in terrific detail a futuristic world of classes and complex societies, with the finest in SF techo wizardry.

I really enjoyed this book, and it sets up for the even better sequel.

Gwan buy it...