≡ PDF Memory Linda Nagata 9781937197124 Books

Memory Linda Nagata 9781937197124 Books

Download As PDF : Memory Linda Nagata 9781937197124 Books

Memory Linda Nagata 9781937197124 Books

If you love Robert Bennett Jackson’s City of Stairs trilogy, or the movie Dark City, where the world can alter itself in an instant, then here is a story for you. Nagata creates a truly original alternate-world scenario that hooks you right away and keeps you wondering. The opening chapters delighted me with convincing world-building and characters.
This book has capital-I Ideas, and unforgettable poetry in its details. What a flavor.
Its rollicking momentum flags somewhat, about two-thirds of the way through, when characters just keep slogging around trying to avert disaster, but it pulls together and pays off well in the final sequences. A very imaginative story.


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Memory Linda Nagata 9781937197124 Books Reviews

As an author myself, I especially enjoy finding a gem like this one. I only wish there was more written in this story universe of Linda's.
Loved this novel. I think the characters are well fleshed, and I like them. I would love to have a second book, to follow three characters fully and answer questions three book brought out.
How could the mind come up with this world?. All I can say is what an imagination. This world of silver and reincarnation and of course "Memory". I enjoyed this adventure into self discovery and a world that was totally unique.
Linda Nagata's _Memory_ is the best coming-of-age novel I've ever read, and read, and read (I have several copies in different formats, and treasure the re-readings). It's also a deep blending of science fiction and fantasy that brings some of Roger Zelazny's works to mind (_e.g._ was _Lord of Light_ sci-fi or fantasy or another thing --- I like to think of LoL as a blending). It easily passes Ursula LeGuin's "Mrs Brown" test in that I can remember the protagonist's name "Jubilee" months and years later. Jubilee is "real" in all the senses of the word that matter here.

The gestalt is a strange almost pastoral world, not a sphere but a ring (unlike Larry Niven's _Ringworld_, this stage for her characters is on the outside surface), with no nations, no heavy industry, no flight, but possessing similar enough technologies (some from our future, some from our past) that they just "fit in", and do not distract from what counts, the story. There's an internet-like connectivity as well as nanotechnology. There are ordinary rifles, vehicles (a motorcycle that can adapt to and thus climb stairs is a nice touch), computers (but not what we have). And there's love, but it's not what we have either. And history _is_, not was, as the memory-of-the-world "silver" can bring back what once was, everything except for living creatures.

Nagata skillfully sets up this entirely believeable world, then proceeds at crucial points to break rules. This is hardly a new literary technique; she just does the breaking very skillfully and believeably.

And where does this world come from (I mean in the context of the characters and not from the obvious author)? Here Nagata begins to weave in a Zelazny-like mythology. And in this and other areas she gives enough detail for the reader to render mental imagery, but not enough to "explain".

That last point bears some discussion. What would the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" have meant if a voice-over "explained" it all? How much would such have weakened the conclusion? And HP Lovecraft's stories, could they really have been improved if he'd explained more? So I consider this one of Nagata's more subtle writing techniques that brings greatness to an already superb story.

It's hard to see how the story could have been either improved or extended (I don't believe there will be any sequel) or even imitated. It's the mark of a great book that it goes where no one else has gone, and so thoroughly plows new ground as to ensure no one else will be following. Just as Zelazny "owns" Amber, and Tony Hillerman owns the Navajo-detective genre, Nagata owns _Memory_.
Well worth reading, although I would have liked to see other books set in this universe. Nonetheless, the narrative does conclude and I wasn’t left frustrated by undeveloped themes.
This is a strange but wonderful gem of a story that is hard to decipher on the one hand until one gives up trying to understand it all and just follows the flow of the story. It has elements of a personal journey in both the physical and the character's sense and the setting of the story, on a ringworld built by either AIs or extremely advanced posthumans, where the characters were created to fill the world by its creators but develop into having more depth than their creators.
I had trouble getting into the feel or swing of the book. It started off interesting with the adventure of the children in the well and the taking of the brother then it sort of meandered for me. I just got lost sometimes like the sleeping goddess. I really couldn't believe that world or even the players who were copies of each other. So, I am sure others will enjoy it more but it wasn't really for me.
If you love Robert Bennett Jackson’s City of Stairs trilogy, or the movie Dark City, where the world can alter itself in an instant, then here is a story for you. Nagata creates a truly original alternate-world scenario that hooks you right away and keeps you wondering. The opening chapters delighted me with convincing world-building and characters.
This book has capital-I Ideas, and unforgettable poetry in its details. What a flavor.
Its rollicking momentum flags somewhat, about two-thirds of the way through, when characters just keep slogging around trying to avert disaster, but it pulls together and pays off well in the final sequences. A very imaginative story.