Subject: Review: Paul J. McAuley's _Ancients of Days_

From: "Paul S. Jenkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Feb 2001 14:33:59 -0500

Ancients of Days, Paul J McAuley
	Review Copyright (c) 2001 Paul S. Jenkins

[May contain spoilers for this book and for "Child of the River," the
previous novel in this trilogy.  --AW]

Confluence is not a planet. Though it hangs in space like a planet, it
oscillates rather than rotates, so that the sun rises in its sky, then
reverses and sets whence it rose. The Great River running down its length
falls off the edge of the world and is recycled by gargantuan hydraulics.

In _Child of the River_, the novel that precedes this one and begins the
Confluence trilogy, little of the artificial world is explained, though by
reading McAuley's short story "Recording Angel" one can get an idea of the
strangeness of the world. By the end of _Child of the River_, our
foundling hero Yama has left his stepfather and arrived in the city of Ys,
in search of his destiny, and more urgently his bloodline, which he thinks
could be that of the Builders, the race that first populated Confluence.

The opening of _Ancients of Days_ finds Yama, his self-appointed squire
Pandaras, and the intimidating female mercenary Tamora, about to
participate in a battle against the Department of Indigenous Affairs, an
organisation that seeks to control the city.

Yama's adventures read like fantasy: the tricks he performs with his power
to influence machines are seen as magical, not based on science or logic.
Throughout _Child of the River_ Yama remained a passionless protagonist,
without any hint of a sense of humour, and for the first half of _Ancients
of Days_ the detached narrative continues; we rarely get inside Yama's
head.

McAuley's prose is rich, with many unusual words depicting a densely
imagined world. There's a lot of description; at 320, the page-count of
this Millennium edition is marginally lower than _Child of the River_, but
here the print is much smaller. I'd guess that _Ancients of Days_ is half
as long again.

Towards the middle of the book Yama meets up with an old adversary from
whom he has previously escaped, and when he returns to his home town
things start hotting up. Relationships change, and the story takes on a
greater depth of characterisation.

As the novel reaches its final stages, we revisit the events depicted in
"Recording Angel" -- but from a slightly different viewpoint. By the end
of the book, everything is changed, yet Yama is in the same predicament as
at the end of _Child of the River_: he still doesn't know who he really
is; he's still in search of his destiny. Only this time, so many options
have been eliminated that the final part, the last book of Confluence, is
something to look forward to.

%A  McAuley, Paul
%T  Ancients of Days
%S  Confluence
%I  Millennium (Gollancz)
%C  London
%D  1999 (copyright 1998)
%G  ISBN 1 85798 892 2
%P  320 pp.
%O  paperback GBP 6.99

Paul S. Jenkins | More reviews at:
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