Helpful Score: 2
The story revolves around the members of the group mind, or cluster (in the novel's terminology), of Apollo Papadopulos, a five member cluster which is very rare in the post singularity world. Apollo is also a candidate for piloting a starship as well.
The world is one where the majority of the population had been involved in a technological group mind called the Community. The Community had built a ring around the Earth (thus the title) and then abruptly disappeared, leaving behind a nascent population of clusters (duos and trios) and singletons to pick up the mess. They also left behind technologies that almost no one understands, but still use, including a wormhole somewhere in the deep beyond.
OK, now, Apollo Papadopulos, a five members are all candidates for being pilots of the starship Consensus and are far along. Then, shit starts happening. One editorial review describes it as YA, and its close - the members are all late teens early 20's. And the stuff happening - a mysterious avalanche during a surivival exercise, an encounter with the one surviving member of the Community (who then mindrapes a member of Apollo Papadopulos). After that its off to orbital space where the quintet learns to live and get along with spacers as well as rescuing a duo from a very mysterious accident. After this, there's a return to Earth via the ring and an encounter with the Singleton preserves of the Amazon. Along the way a conspiracy is revealed (almost anticlimatically) and a grave threat to surviving humanity is also uncovered.
Its an OK read - the members of Apollo Papadopulos (Strom, Meda, Quant, Manuel and Moira) are engaging and you do care about them. I especially liked Quant and Manuel. Melko does a great job by making you care about them - even though they are posthumans. Or at least parahumans.
The concept behind the Clusters - biological hiveminds of greater than human intelligence communicating through pheremones is interesting. Its sort of a concept that should have been in Kathleen Goonan's Nanotech Quartet. And while one reviewer on Amazon complains about the bandwidth, I think it could work - assuming the sort of high information density metapheremones of Goonan's Flower cities - almost at the levels of DNA and RNA.
It's also what I'd call 'singularity light' with only the normals and luddites that survived the transformation of humanity into something post-human. It doesn't seem to tightly engage with that (like parts of Stross' Accelerando, Glasshouse and "Jury Duty") but does touch on the themes.
My other 'grump' is that Melko's Earth ought to be more scarred from the construction of the Ring, that or there should have been a HUGE off planet presence to build the thing, something that means light speed lag and may have preserved more of the Community.
I do recommend this book and think its worthwhile and that Melko is an author to watch.
The world is one where the majority of the population had been involved in a technological group mind called the Community. The Community had built a ring around the Earth (thus the title) and then abruptly disappeared, leaving behind a nascent population of clusters (duos and trios) and singletons to pick up the mess. They also left behind technologies that almost no one understands, but still use, including a wormhole somewhere in the deep beyond.
OK, now, Apollo Papadopulos, a five members are all candidates for being pilots of the starship Consensus and are far along. Then, shit starts happening. One editorial review describes it as YA, and its close - the members are all late teens early 20's. And the stuff happening - a mysterious avalanche during a surivival exercise, an encounter with the one surviving member of the Community (who then mindrapes a member of Apollo Papadopulos). After that its off to orbital space where the quintet learns to live and get along with spacers as well as rescuing a duo from a very mysterious accident. After this, there's a return to Earth via the ring and an encounter with the Singleton preserves of the Amazon. Along the way a conspiracy is revealed (almost anticlimatically) and a grave threat to surviving humanity is also uncovered.
Its an OK read - the members of Apollo Papadopulos (Strom, Meda, Quant, Manuel and Moira) are engaging and you do care about them. I especially liked Quant and Manuel. Melko does a great job by making you care about them - even though they are posthumans. Or at least parahumans.
The concept behind the Clusters - biological hiveminds of greater than human intelligence communicating through pheremones is interesting. Its sort of a concept that should have been in Kathleen Goonan's Nanotech Quartet. And while one reviewer on Amazon complains about the bandwidth, I think it could work - assuming the sort of high information density metapheremones of Goonan's Flower cities - almost at the levels of DNA and RNA.
It's also what I'd call 'singularity light' with only the normals and luddites that survived the transformation of humanity into something post-human. It doesn't seem to tightly engage with that (like parts of Stross' Accelerando, Glasshouse and "Jury Duty") but does touch on the themes.
My other 'grump' is that Melko's Earth ought to be more scarred from the construction of the Ring, that or there should have been a HUGE off planet presence to build the thing, something that means light speed lag and may have preserved more of the Community.
I do recommend this book and think its worthwhile and that Melko is an author to watch.
