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Red - Manticore Reborn
Durham Red -
Manticore Reborn
Peter J
Evans
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What to Expect:
Durham Red fights her evil future self!
Review by Richmond
Clements
11th
April 06
Another Durham Red novel already? It doesn’t seem that
long ago that I was reviewing the last one. But the obviously prolific Mr Evans
is back with the first in another cycle of novels, this one sporting a rather
nice original cover from Mark Harrison.
So where can Evans
take the character now, after already writing a trilogy of books? Fear not, he’s
got plenty of ideas, it seems. Having become more than comfortable with Red and
her cohorts and writing them with ease, here he spends time having a look around
him, as it were. We are introduced to fantastic new places and planets; Evans’s
clear writing effortlessly brings them to life. This is one of the book's strengths.
Evan’s is obviously enjoying himself, and is in no hurry to move things
along too quickly - to begin with, anyway, as the first act of the story builds
steadily from a sedate pace to a frenetic one that is sustained right through
to the end of the book.
Along the way, we are introduced to some new characters, with
the new ‘big villain’ being an interesting one with more depth than
your usual Iconoclast nutter. Equally well realised is Arua Lydexia, an Iconoclast
scientist, who comes into her own later in the book, and will hopefully return
in later volumes. I liked her.
Of course, there are things I didn’t like. The background
of Red’s previous encounter with her evil future self Brite Red was unclear
to me. I can’t for the life of me remember if this character appeared in
the comic previously, but if she didn’t then her introduction in this book
is a bit confusing. Indeed, if she did appear previously, then the introduction
is still confusing, with Red and her crew already being familiar with Brite Red,
and the assumption that we, the readers, are too.
I was worried about
the Manticore itself when we first encounter it. Initially, it reads to be similar
to Iain M Banks’s Excession in his novel of the same name. But as the Manticore
gradually reveals its secrets, this fear is proven unfounded. And this was another
- minor I grant you - niggle. For most of the book the Manticore is lifeless,
just hanging there doing nothing… but the title is kind of a spoiler, don’t
you think?
Iain Banks's sci-fi
work kept coming to mind, with Evans’s big sci-fi ideas reminding me of
some of the exotic places in Banks’s fiction. Not in their similarity to
anything Banks has created, I hasten to add, but in the confident and deceptively
easy way they both write.
Overall, Evans
is still hitting the mark in this, his fourth book with the same character. He
shows no sign of becoming bored with her so far, indeed, he seems to be growing
more at home in her universe with each book. This is a nice start to another series.
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