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BooksScifi

Transformation (book 3) by James Gunn (book review)

‘Transformation’ is the final book in James Gunn’s trilogy and Asha and her companions are exploring the Transcendental Machine and transversing the galaxy with the little problem of threat at the back of their minds that when they finally get home, the Federation is likely to have them killed. The last spaceship who volunteered and knew the consequences, the decision being to keep information away from the general public.

Essentially, what then happens is a couple of short stories. An alien species on order of the ‘gods’ who killed off their male folk and inequality on an avian planet. Hardly the means to discover the connection or creators of the Transcendental Machine, more so as these species don’t appear to even be aware of it. In fact, it’s quite the opposite and they are very insular.

I get a little worried when Gunn slips in some 20th century references into the story. Mostly, there are from AIs, but you would think they are too far into the future to have known them or what they meant.

By the end, I did think that Gunn had lost his way as to what to do with this story. Even the threat from the Federation was ignored and none of the characters were in any real danger which is often the motivation for

This doesn’t mean the book isn’t readable just maybe I was expecting more from a writer of James Gunn’s calibre to show current writers how to wrap up a trilogy.

GF Willmetts

June 2017

(pub: TOR/Forge. 208 page hardback. Price: $26.99 (US), $37.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-8666-3)

check out website: http://www.tor-forge.com

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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