Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell-- Review

Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell-- Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is the first book in the Ragamuffin series. Ragamuffin was the second book. There is a third book in the series which I am hoping to read soon. I thought this book was better in many ways than Ragamuffin. The setting is wonderful. It is set in the country of Nanagada, on a planet in the far future. Caribbeans and South Americans settled the planet originally creating two distinct cultures, the Azteca and the Nanagadans. There are also the Tolteca who are mentioned briefly in the story who have fled the Azteca homeland.

The story is set around one John De Brun, a fisherman who has lost his memory. He is also the hero of the story who has to make a long journey to recover a fallen starship. He must escape the Azteca, and save the day. There is escape, capture, intrigue, fighting, and all the good stuff that makes an adventure story. I like the soldiers of the Nanagadans, the Mongoose Men.


The Azteca are a group of humans who are ruled by the Teotl, aliens who have taken on the role of cruel gods from humanities past. The aliens are trying to keep humans in a fallow state as worshippers and soldiers. They have reshaped human culture along ancient lines to be cruel and ruthless. The aliens are masters of biological engineering and have created a few monsters to add some spice to the story.

There is a counterpart among the Nanagadans, the Loa, a group of aliens who have taken on religious purpose of their own. When the humans arrived on the planet, they became involved in an ancient conflict between the Loa and Teotl. Humans became unwitting pawns in the initial conflict. There is a faction of humans, the Preservationists who have driven the Loa underground and redeveloped human technology.

The technology in this story is interesting in addition to the Caribbean and Aztec style cultures. Most of the fighting occurs using steam age technology. There are battles in airships, in the jungle, on the ice, and on ships. You see glimpses of a bygone cataclysm. There are rusted hulks of ships in the oceans, in the north, there are frozen over cities with glass office towers.

As the story advances, we learn John De Brun is more than he seems. He does not age, and sometimes he has uncanny skills of survival.

An intriguing story with a unique setting. I really enjoyed reading this book.

Morning Thoughts

Some things don't change that much. The Standard Oil Octopuss from 1904



Morning Thoughts

I started reading The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria on the train last night. It has been interesting reading so far. I think he misses some important points. There is too much emphasis on BRIC (Brazil India China) and not enough on some of the European countries and Australia which are quickly rising to become leaders in standard of living and quality manufacturing. Still, it is quite interesting to read.

Things are changing at a face pace in the world. Hopefully, we will have leaders who can create a situation where a rising tide of economic and social benefits helps all over the world. This is of course a dream. Despite what people are seeing on television, there are a lot less despots and a lot less wars.

I spent more time weeding the 650-659 dewey number collection this morning. I am going to order books to fill in many of the gaps I am finding in the collection. Part of the issue with ordering business books, especially accounting and finance books is many of them are very expensive and very academic. Some of the academic business titles are too complicated for lay readers. As a public library, we don't actively purchase textbooks. Even some of the non-academic material is in the hundred plus dollar range per book for business which is out of our budget range.

On the train home, I finished reading The Post American World.  I have mixed opinions about the book.  In some ways it is interesting.  I think it is a bit predictable and clearly aimed at an American audience.  I think there was a lot missing from the view he was presenting.

I also started reading Crystal Rain.  I rather like the Caribbean style future culture clashing with an Aztec future culture.  It makes for some interesting science fiction.

Tobias Buckell-- Ragamuffin-- Review

The Chupacabra

Tobias Buckell-- Ragamuffin is a science fiction novel. It is his second novel. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the first book in the setting, Crystal Rain from the library. I had reserved it at the library, but it never came.

In a way, this novel is quite hard to review because of its non-traditional structure. It is a novel in three parts. The first part is the opening sectin of the novel, Nashara, the main heroine of the novel is on a human reservation, she assassinates an alien Gahe breeder for the Human League so she can earn passage off world. The opening is a bit confusing because it immediately jumps into action sequences without explanation.

The second part of the novel is set on Angade, a human world which has been cut off from the wormhole network which links the different worlds in the story. The world is very interesting, it contains two cultures, a kind of Caribbean island culture led by the original settlers, and a proto-Aztec culture controlled by the alien Teotl. The action starts in the second part when the alien Teotl reopen the wormhole leading to Angade. The Teotl are the last remnants of their species fleeing genocide by the Satrapy, the masters of the wormholes. The Teotl have a message, the Satrapy wants to wipe out the human race.

The third part brings together the first two parts in a climactic battle between the human agents of the Satrapy, the Hongguo who are charged with suppressing human technology and the Ragamuffins, a group of human pirates of caribbean island descent. The setting is around the world of Angade.

This is a difficult complex books in many ways. There is use of dialect, and presentation of cultures not normally seen in most science fiction settings. The different factions, the Human League, the Ragamuffins, the Angade, the Hongguo represent different human cultures. The Hongguo appear to be Asian, the Angade a mix of Aztec and Caribbean, and the Human League might be Russian. Add to the mix the alien Teotl and the alien Satrapy and you have a very complex world.

The best part of this book is the world and culture building. The setting is quite unique. Humans are not on top. They live at the edges of the Satrapy on reservations, on backwards worlds, as second class citizens on space stations. Earth has been cut off from the wormhole network so they develop their own civilization. Technology is suppressed by the Hongguo so there is not a lot of super technology.

The alien Teotl are convincingly done. They are well described as aliens. The Satraps are in the background acting as puppet masters, so their presence is felt as a kind of hidden force.

There is a lot of action in the novel. This could have been done better. Some of the fights are quite confusing. I thought the fight sequences should have been edited better. Sometimes what is happening is lost in the action.

I will read the first novel, Crystal Rain because I like the setting. I don't know of any other authors with a Caribbean viewpoint in science fiction. It really is a unique book. He also is unique in writing science fiction with multiple human racial backgrounds in his stories. Most people do not do this. They tend to make the aliens the other races.

I found the novel on the web while reading an interview of Tobias Buckell. Tobias Buckell has his own blog. http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/ . There is a lot of material on what it is like to write a novel and how you sell your first novel.