For some reason, Macmillan Tor Books has provided no major retailer with a cover image of In the Courts of the Crimson Kings that looks better than if it had been compressed for CompuServe circa 1993.
Since not too many people in the western world are still using 14.4 modems, I have to assume that simple incompetence is at play.
Which is annoying to me as a blogger, because I like to embed images but not crappy ones.
So no cover image.
Whatever the publisher's marketing shortcomings, author S. M. Stirling has done an exceptional job.
I can't give a full review because I'm only about halfway through, but let me share a paragraph:
The woman beside him made Jeremy's eyes go a little wider.
She was over seven feet tall, with even more of the big-eyed aquiline delicacy of features than most Martians, but looking more solid, somehow.
In the universe described by Stirling in Crimson Kings and his earlier book, The Sky People, Venus and Mars are populated by humans (or humanoids) whose ancestors were removed from Earth in the distant past.
So Martians are humans, sort of, and Stirling's imagining of them is very compelling.
Plus the major female character is a seven foot amazon who can kill people practically just by looking at them.
There's a fun, badass 7' tall amazon warrior woman in the Robert Silverberg novel Lord Valentine's Castle. Also, James Alan Gardner's sci-fi novels seem to have more than their share of physically tough, and/or outrageously muscular, women.
Jonno
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Registered
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2008-04-09 17:40:20
I finished it, and let me tell you it is even better than the first book, which I read after your recommendation. If there's a third one, it will be kickass.
Lingster
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Stayed up late
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Super Administrator
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2008-04-09 19:27:33
I'm almost done - I stayed up late last night reading it after writing this pre-review, and then was late for work after reading another chapter this morning while I 'waited for the iron to warm up'. (The iron does not actually take 20 minutes to warm up.)
that looks better than if it had been compressed for CompuServe circa 1993.
Since not too many people in the western world are still using 14.4 modems, I have to assume that simple incompetence is at play.
Which is annoying to me as a blogger, because I like to embed images but not crappy ones.
So no cover image.
