Felix GilmanRecensioni

I really liked this book but I admit that I am sucker for fantasy that is dark and twisted. Not as good as Mieville, or as dark, but along the same lines. A city that never stays the same. A dark corrupted god that stalks its' citizens. In the center one man in search of his lost god stalked by another. It had a few first novel problems but nothing that ruined the story for me. I can't wait to read the next one but I will. I think I will save it for my cruise.

The Revolutions has a slow start, a rousing middle, and a tremendously disappointing end. At its best it's reminiscent of Tim Powers, but never quite rises to that level, and ultimately it feels like two or three different stories awkwardly jammed together.

I am vexed with this book. The pacing was off—the word processor suggests offensive, and honestly, it was—the majority of the book seemed dedicated to establishing that no, you don’t understand, this world is REALLY desolate, this character is ENTIRELY bad and conflicted, this is ENTIRELY irredeemable. I understood that within the first few chapters, certainly, and the middle of the book was an incredible slog. Things did pick up toward the end, as we actually ran into new characters which enabled us most thrillingly to have new situations, information and interactions (imagine!). So when I was actively interested in the plot again, imagine my dismay when the conclusion of the book was an elaborate “watch next week!”
I will not be reading the sequel. Mr. Gilman has already stolen too much of my time. I even place a little of the blame on my younger self of however many years ago who added this to my to-read list.

Another weird Western of a sort, but this one takes the essential tensions of the western genre, mixes them with some of the unpredictability of Mieville, and throws the mess in a broken blender. Fun, cool, tense, and original.

I'm having a REALLY hard time rating this because I absolutely loved it but, to be extremely basic, I just didn't feel good about the ending. Everything about the characters and the world and the atmosphere of the book was gripping and incredible, and the horrors very real. In a struggle between Order and Chaos, a Wild West-esque setting is a good ones, and here it seems relevant that Order and Chaos are basically both amoral forces of total destruction, chewing up the world between them. It's a fantastic setting. I just wanted more closure at the end, more of a payoff to all that wonderful buildup.

After reading almost a 100 pages, I’ve given up on Gilman. I took up the book in the first place, because I do enjoy Victorian detective stories—including Lovecraft and Hodgson—but this book, and a few others, are just too depressing for me. No matter how broke the protagonists are, the antagonists are too seedy and malevolent to be accepted as a source of any kind of needy funds. The moment anyone—especially the hero and heroine—starts descending, both physically and emotionally, into degraded, if not degenerate, states I stop reading.

Maybe it’s a matter of “type” of evil: breaking the 10 Commandments is one level of evil (although I kind of think of those trespasses as “just” sins), where “evil”, for me, means something disgustingly sick…like intentionally twisting someone’s emotional state into total degradation. This book has that flavor for me and there are too many more uplifting tales of fantasy and science fiction for me to waste my time on anything the promises to be less so.

Meanwhile, I’ve read some of the other reviews and I accept that I may be crediting Gilman with more depravity than is actually there. But my sentiments remain: if the story doesn’t promise more than depravity, don’t waste time on it.

Surprisingly engaging, if a bit more open-ended/inconclusive than expected

I don't know how to categorize this. It was kind of a steampunk fantasy western novel about the problems with modern civilization. The world is a world much like this one, only the west is not only untamed, but un-made: the rules of physics don't yet apply there; there are monsters, and magic, and half-human (or twice-human, depending on your perspective) natives, and the world kind of ends at some point beyond which is only a sea of churning and undifferentiated matter. There are guns, and then there are Guns, with demons riding them; there is the Line, sort of a monstrous railroad that turns everything in its path into an industrialized wasteland; and there is the Republic, cowering in the shadows of them both. The heroine is an eastern psychologist with an opium habit.

It's almost meta-fiction, with the degree to which the author has taken points of history and philosphy and analogized them using solid concrete metaphors (eg. the Line and the Gun). If I know you in real life, expect me to tell you to read this one.

Wonderful. Felix Gilman's part fantasy, part western, part steampunk, part meta-fictional commentary on the european conquest of North America and our twin obsessions of industrialism and rabid individualism is also a fabulously written and well-characterized trip. Start with Half-Made World. Gilman proves that there is still something brilliantly original to be done in fantasy literature that is worth doing, a lovely escapist treat and intelligent at the same time. I can't ask for a single improvement. Can't wait for #3.

Late 19th century spiritual travel to Mars in doubtful company. Nobody has any fun. The Martians are kind of interesting, but they don't have much fun either and all of the landscapes tend toward dreary at best. I do wonder why he bothered with this and I can't recommend anyone else should.

This book was mechanically adequate, but I just found myself completely uninterested in finding out how it was going to turn out. Perhaps unfortunately, I finished it because I only realised how little I cared about what happened next about two thirds of the way through.

Quite dull, with boring characters and mediocre to decent prose. Some decent ideas, but the plot was a mess overall.

Mixed up, fantastical, story woven through other story. Not sure how I feel about it now, but I was gripped throughout unable to imagine what new strangeness could come next.

Great world, not particularly sympathetic characters, and an ending that never properly resolves. Still, worth reading.

In this book as with the book "The Half-Made World" that precedes it, Felix Gilman is writing the fiction I wish I was. Gilman has filled his weird steampunk Old West-style world with delicious and unique details that I found utterly compelling. In "The Rise of Ransom City," we follow -- through a first-person narrative -- an inventor and showman-style salesman whose account of events are not entirely trustworthy (as contrasted with the fictional editor that supplies a forward and afterward to bookend the tall tale).

Gilman returns to the 'Half Made World, telling the exploits of the inventor of the marvellous 'Ransom Rrocess', which provides energy and prosperity for all. Possibly.

The American West meets steampunk.
Doctor of psychology Liv Alverhuysen is caught between the forces of the Line and the Gun, seeking out the mental wreck who might be the fabled General of the Red Republic, who may hold the secret to a weapon which can bring victory to its user.

I loved the beginning ...the hints of supernatural presence and powerful, magical enemies that are watching...the world within the world. I found Podmore and his minions creepy and unique, and I especially loved the magical duel in The Savoy. It was brilliant and creative and wonderful! But ... I found the second half, especially the last third of the book really dragged for me. I feel like it kind of lost it's way and became tedious and unfocused, and the main focus shifted so much away from all the mysterious and creepy things I enjoyed in the first part of the book that I found it hard to maintain interest. It just dragged for me, and I didn't really like how it all wrapped up.½

In a world rather unlike this one, human settlers to a new continent found that as they went West, natural laws began to twist and transform. Two sides sprang up: the Agents of the Gun, who are larger than life, and unpredictable, and the Linesmen, who began creating train Engines to serve them and now serve the Engines. Although it's never stated outright, the Gun stands for individualism and chaos, the Line for industry, standardization and hierarchy. They battled throughout the western territories and Rim, destroying everything in their wake. This is the tale of Harry Ransom, as collected by former newspaperman Elmer Merrial Carson. Ransom is a self-made man, who invented a new form of energy creation called the Ransom Process. After trying unsuccessfully to sell it, Ransom is caught in a firefight with an Agent of the Gun and uses the Process to kill the Agent and destroy the town. From then on, he is a fugitive, sought by all sides of the wars.

This is mostly set after [b:The Half-Made World|8198773|The Half-Made World|Felix Gilman|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312035395s/8198773.jpg|13045676], with appearances by Dr. Liv Alverhuysen (former psychiatric patient turned psychiatrist) and John Creedmoor (former Agent of the Gun). Ransom is an engaging character, but his patter grows tiresome after a while, especially once it becomes clear that the plot will forever be a tangle, without particular villains or heroes, without goals or anything in the way of a climax. The book just sort of peters out. The world building is very interesting, a fantastical deconstruction of 19th century views, but the book was just too disorganized to engage me.

Really fantastic, imaginative adventure set in something a bit like America's Wild West of old. Like many Westerns, the main characters are damaged people in pursuit of their own interests, demonstrating occasional bursts of heroism. But unlike most Westerns, people are queer, female, and not necessarily white. And of course, there is the magic: the Line, with their noise-bombs that tear at the mind and their sentient engines; and the Agents of the Gun, whose weapons confer superhuman power but can also control the minds of their possessors; and the indescribable magics of the First Folk, to whom names are anathema. The characters are interesting, the adventure thrilling, and the world absolutely enthralling.

I can't wait to read the next book!

I gave up after 55 pages. It has an evocative title and and the author knows how to turn a phrase, but the main character is a blank slate who is difficult to care about: no memory, no family, no friends, and no motivation. He simply runs from various dangers, meets random people, and wallows in his problems.

Granted, I didn't read the first book in this series. Perhaps those who did will enjoy this more. Personally, as a SF fan, I get tired of never being able to pick up a book that interests me because it's book 3 of 7 or some such. I've decided to rebel by treating all books as stand-alones. Apparently, my rebellion was ill-advised.

I gave it two stars for the beautiful writing style, but unfortunately I can't enjoy a book for style alone.

Arthur Shaw is not the most interesting man in the not-quite-historical Victorian London of Felix Gilman’s The Revolutions. That’s a problem, since he’s one of the main characters in the book. Thankfully, Shaw’s very mundanity – he needs a job and is willing to do just about anything for money – leads him into something very interesting indeed.

Oh, and there’s his fiancé, Josephine, who makes for a considerably more interesting companion.

This London is one where the kind of quasi-scientific spiritualism that was popular in our reality was not just popular, it was actually true. In particular, Arthur and Josephine find themselves bound up in a group trying to astral project to other planets, particularly Mars. Doing this requires not only the right people (sort of – the group gets less selective as things progress), but massive calculations produced by a massive machine with countless human parts. Babbage’s engine writ large.

The book takes a while to set all this up, which is either fascinating world building (for me) or dull sluggishness (for others). Things really kick into high gear when one of the astral flights is interrupted by Arthur, leaving Josephine trapped – in spiritual, if not physical form – on one of the moons of Mars.

What Gilman does next is a clever sleight of hand. The book focuses on Arthur for a bit and how he and the rest of the society plan to get Josephine back. Just when you think she might be nothing more than a damsel in need of rescue, the POV shifts and we’re treated to Josephine’s lengthy observation of (and, eventually, interactions with) the Martians and their society. This is the best part of the book, harkening back to the days of science fiction before science itself killed off the chance of finding life on Mars. Reminds me of some of the more esoteric parts of The Martian Chronicles.

Naturally, a rescue mission is mounted and while it has its own charms as an adventure story, it can’t match the peak that is Josephine’s experience with the truly alien. But all stories must end and I’d be lying if I said that the ending ruined all that came before.

So Arthur might be kind of dull. Don’t let that put you off. He’ll lead you into some very neat places.

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sci-fi, steampunk, alternate history, magic, occult, space, Mars, aliens, plot, mystery, mathematics, spiritualist, martians, fantasy

Felix Gilman unbeknowingly become one of my favourite authors at this point in time and Thunderer was the first novel I read. I later picked up The Half-Made World completely by accident and didn't realise it was the same author until halfway through!
It was an odd little novel, and quite the slow-burner. It may well have been in danger of not making it to the end, but there was enough there to keep me going. But when the main character starts exploring the city towards the end, I found the story really took flight (excuse the pun) and I wish there had of been more of that. That part really filled me with wonder.
It's been a while since I read this now, and most of the details have since fled. I guess a re-read is in order!

4.5 stars.
Goodreads really needs to put the "1/2-star" widget on their site. It's bizarre to read so many books and to have to shoehorn them into five categories. At least with half-stars we get 10 categories ... 11 if zero stars is possible.

This book ... exciting, charming, engaging, not quite science fiction not quite fantasy not quite magical realism not quite a historical novel (turn of the 19th-20th century England), but a wonderful story with VERY interesting characters ... I'm sure I'll be rereading this book someday.