Product Description

A gripping sf adventure from the acclaimed author of The Pliocene Exile series. 'I was living in pleasant anonymity under the name of Helmut Icicle, taking smartass sport-divers out on holocam trips around the reefs of Kedge-Lockaby. Fourteen thousand light years away from civilization, K-L's a freesoil planet way out in the boondocks, and that's the way I like it: it makes life easier if no-one asks nosy questions. 'So one minute there I was, subbing around Brillig Reef; the next thing I know, some giant sea-toad has eaten my house and I'm caught up in a galactic conspiracy! From gently coaxing an ageing submersible around the shores of K-L to piloting a state-of-the-art Javelin starship may seem like a big jump: but when it looks as if the future course of human civilization is under threat, it's a hell of a motivator.' Perseus Spur delivers everything readers have come to expect from worldwide bestseller Julian May: galactic scope, high adventure, humour, and complex political intrigue in a finely worked balance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155965 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Julian May is noted for her two long, complex and interlinked science-fantasy sagas, the Pliocene Exile and Galactic Milieu series. Perseus Spur opens the more light-hearted Rampart Worlds sequence, full of colourful planetary descriptions and slam-bang action. This future galaxy is dominated by Earth's megacorporations who have carved up space between them. The hero, who fought corporate corruption, has been framed and discredited. But not forgotten, as shown by bizarre murder attempts: a giant alien sea-toad gobbles his house and soon he's staked out to die on a lonely comet. With help from his eccentric friends and estranged family of entrepreneurs, he sets off James Bond-style to smash an ugly galactic conspiracy of companies treacherously selling human secrets--including our DNA--to hostile aliens. Like Bond, he's repeatedly captured by the same bad guy and barely survives awful fates. Negotiating exotic, deadly jungles, he must penetrate a fortified enemy cave complex then escape before the inevitable time bomb blows everything to hell. Will he nobble the villain and get the girl? Need you ask? Fast-moving, tongue-in-cheek adventure, with sequels to come. --David Langford

Review
'Julian May is a writer of perception and power' Jean Auel 'Julian May has irrevocably placed herself amongst the greats of fantasy and science fiction' Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

About the Author
Julian May published her first story -- the sf classic Dune Roller -- in the 1950s, and then wrote non-fiction and children's books for many years before the phenomenally successful Saga of the Exiles. Prolific, thoughtful and ever imaginative, her novels have been published for years to wide acclaim around the world. She lives in Seattle.

Customer Reviews

Disappointing and predictable
Julian May's "Saga of the Exiles" series beginning with "The Many-Coloured Land" was fantastic and inspired my in so many ways, but I cannot say the same of the "Rampart Worlds" trilogy. I read these 3 books during a holiday this year and was really disappointed with all of them. In short, I found the characters shallow and the plot to be unimaginative and somewhat predictable.

Perhaps I've been too spoilt by the writing styles of other authors such as Stephen Donaldson and Iain Banks, where you really get to know the characters good and bad sides, and you can't say for sure who is going to be left standing at the end. In contrast, my overall feeling of this particular trilogy is that the good guys were too good, too polarised and there were no real surprises. Its difficult to describe, but I found the same problem with recent books from Raymond Feist - the early books, especially the "Empire" series, were great, but the later books are devoid of depth.

When I completed the third book I honestly felt that I had wasted all those countless hours. I left them all at the holiday resort not wanting to bother bringing them home, and that's a first for me.

I would recommend to anyone to read the "Saga of the Exiles" and the "Galactic Milieu" series from Julian May though. Then try Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series.

Very poor science fiction
To be quite honest, I thought this book was just stupid. It's written in first person narrative, and the informal style of the writing makes the character come across as sounding like a gunslinger in a bad Western film, and despite this I could still not get over my initial impression of the protagonist being female. It's full of nonsense science and weak plot devices, and the plot and characterisation are too feeble and silly to be compelling. I don't know if this was intended to be a humorous book because of this, but I did not find any of it funny either -- the protagonist was called Helmut Icicle, an unappealingly stupid name, and the whole of the book is littered with similar cringeworthy idiocy. It looks as though the author has come from another genre, probably fantasy, and decided to write SF without doing any prior research into what SF is. I did manage to read it to the end, hoping to get something out of it which never happened. It's just cowboys in an implausible fantasy space adventure.

Bit dissapointing
Being a die-hard fan of Julian May's earlier work, I must say that this book is quite dissapointing! Instead of a massive plot and a whole host of interesting characters you get one main character in a vague and quite dim world. It is interesting to read an entire book as it is seen by one person, the main character, but like Zelazny's Amber, this can get quite boring. Luckily, the plot is rather fascinating and it will be interesting to read the second volume to see how everything turns out. In comparison with her other stories, this book is quite a light read!