Past
Secrets
The
year is 2201. Hung Kuo, the great City that covers the globe, enjoys an uneasy
peace. But it is a peace that will soon be disrupted by the discovery of the
Aristotle File, which charts the real history of the world – a truth which has
been suppressed for centuries.
Present
dangers
Cold,
cruel and calculating, Howard DeVore is determined to end the rule of the Seven
T’angs and make way for his own bid for power. The harbinger of Change is the
starship The New Hope – and its destruction will force the rebel factions into
open warfare with the Seven
The
Fight begins…
Ice and Fire is the fourth book in the
Chung Kuo Recast series, I just started over a month ago reading this series
and was blown away with the introduced concept and how David Wingrove started
plotting this story of epic proportions. So far the prologues were a great
start to the series I learned a lot about the comings and goings of the
universe in which the series takes place, and even more so with The Middle
Kingdom, where the story really took off with in the “current” state of
affairs.
The Middle Kingdom was set almost a
decade after Daylight on Iron Mountain, and thus was quite crucial in setting
the story on the right track, which David Wingrove managed to do expertly
without a doubt. Ice and Fire takes place 5 years after the events of The
Middle Kingdom, where The Middle Kingdom had an emphasis on both the universe (which
was crucial since was set 100 years later) and a set of characters. In Ice and
Fire it felt like the focus was more on the characters and how they individually
are as a group were undertaking several actions and dealing with other affairs.
Shifting the focus towards the characters
was a definite plus. In Chung Kuo Recast you are being introduced to a lot of
characters. This focus allowed me to quickly recapture the important characters
of the series, what their history was and their place in the story. Next to
this recapture, David Wingrove takes all the important characters and takes
their development and their place in the storyline further. I must admit that
Ice and Fire was the book that I finished the fastest so far. Probably because
I’m so eager to find out how this story will unfold, but also because David
Wingrove now shows how interesting and well created every single major
character is and their, often perilous, navigation through the world.
Most of the characters in Ice and Fire
are recurrent from The Middle Kingdom like Howard DeVore, Kim Ward, Li Yuan,
Fei Wen and Knut Tolonen. Howard is one of the major characters that opposes
the Seven. (The Seven is a council of Seven people T’ang, who rule Chung Kuo).
Howard and his friend want to have Change, which the Seven are holding back.
With building The New Hope, a starship to venture into space, they hope to
achieve some of their goals. Howards character really develops into a rebellion
leader, that is brutal and vicious and has a hatred against the Han and the
Seven which is shown in bloody details at times. I’m even getting scared of
him. To counter the ploys of Howard, general Knut Tolonen comes into play, Knut
has a history with Howard that started in The Middle Kingdom. Knut is loyal to
the Seven and under the command of Li Shai Tung, the European T’ang. He is ordered
to do the dirty jobs. Overall Knuts character was quite stable from what I
learned from him in the third book, but his determination makes him utterly
dangerous as he tries to fulfil his order is the best possible ways.
There as one character that I was really
looking forward to read more about, the child prodigy, Kim Ward, rescued from
The Clay, the lowest of the low. He was said to be smart. Now that he is being
schooled, his life hasn’t become any easier as he is constantly being bullied
and driven to a point that his life is in the balance as well. But with his
terrible clever mind Kim, creates something that the Seven fear, the Aristotle
File. Something that will cause a disturbance if it will leak out, and could
possible topple their rule. Now I was very pleased with how this was introduced
and explained especially the impact and how it gave certain characters an
enlightenment and how others feared it. In the end of the book there happens
something to Kim that will change him, all the high tech stuff that came along
with it is really leaving me wondering what this all could mean. Now the tone
of heavy sci-fi elements come to show in the book, early on you were introduced
to androids but David Wingrove proves that he has much more in story for you!
Next to the recurring cast, David
Wingrove keeps on introducing new characters and one of them is Ben Shepard,
from some who have read the original series or books one to three, this name
might strike you as familiar. Ben is introduced in the first pages of the book
and then is kept out of the loop. It was actually quite funny, I was nearing
the end of the book, going through all that had happened and what I should
write about in my review and I came across Ben’s character and then all of a
sudden, he is followed up in the epilogue of the Ice and Fire! Ben is special
character, with a unique heritage, he feels a bit like Fei Wen when she was
first introduced. Introduced in a bit of a casual way but with a tone that he
will turn out to be someone important.
The character cast of the series keeps
on expanding and growing richer, with the recurrent and new additions to it.
David Wingrove, Even though the character cast is that large, manages to give
each character its own voice, great unique and interesting personalities.
Since there is a lot of emphasis on the
characters you might think that the story itself isn’t being taken further well
that is not the case, as you see be the hands of these characters where the
story is going. The Middle Kingdom introduced the start of the rebellion
against the Seven and how Howard and his friends were plotting to over thrown
them. These actions are being further undertaken in Ice and Fire but on many
different levels. A lot of the actions and the plotting takes place behind the
scenes, in the political court and between different characters, creating a
sense of a struggle and powerplay. There aren’t any major battles that go down
instead there are several carefully plotted and orchestrated encounters. Creating
the powerplay was done neatly and adds a lingering feeling behind the whole
story, which in my eyes is even more dangerous that armies going to battle each
other. It proves that you cannot trust everyone on the go...
David Wingrove has created a strong
character driven fourth book in the Chung Kuo Recast series with Ice and Fire,
directly to my pleasing. With the amount of you get to know along the series characters,
it was good to allow a zoom in on the current affairs and how they might be
starting to play out. And don’t think the storyline will falter by it, more on
the contrary of that, this strengthening only strengthened the characters
themselves and played its own positive effect on the storyline. David Wingrove
shows in a superb manner the character that he employs in his story. Showing
their believing and how they want to reach their goals. And creating thereby
quite the humanly characters: determined, compelling, bold and brutal at times.
As the book delve deeper into the future the sci-fi tech also becomes more
interesting like GenSyn, SimFic and now the androids and what is occurring with
Kim, very cool to read about. With the was now is declared in Ice and Fire… who
knows what will happen next…