an interesting book
mccarthy brings us back to the world of the wellstone, where matter is malleable and a fax machine is used to make copies of humans
where a king and a queen from the Pacific islands reign over almost a hundred billion humans
where, because of the fax technology, humans are immorbid, meaning they can live forever but can still die if an accident happens and there is no stored copies of themselves, they are also always in perfect health and can be of any colour they want and have as many limbs as they wish
where armies of robots (or humans) can be instantly created as long as there is enough raw matter available and a fax nearby
where the prince, fed up with the fact that there are almost no chances he will become king because of the immorbidity of his parents, decides to start a revolution by affixing a balloon on top of a log cabin and travelling through the galaxy
i have mixed feelings about this book
i loved the ideas put forward in the previous book and used again with great success here. there are also some great characters involved
but the queen and the king are way too perfect and the revolutionary act, while interesting does not justify hundreds of pages
at the same time, there are 2 endings and the second one is really clever, an excellent link to the next book of the series (lost in transmission)
in fact the book suffers from one the most common ills of sci-fi, characters that are too perfect
still i really enjoyed the way mccarthy describes a society where people almost never die, where resources are unlimited and where young people have almost no hope of replacing their elders
plus, once again, a great ending
7.5 (out of 10)
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