Imre Bergamasc has been brought back to life from a storage drum containing his DNA and memories, and he has been remade as a women. That is just the beginning of his problems as as people start to see that he is alive again they want to kill him, properly. He is trying to remember what happened before he was almost killed last time.

This story is set on huge time scales, and across a vast galaxy. He seems to spend a lot of time just evading being killed again, and meets up with some characters from his past life. Whilst this is herd SF, and has all the appropriate factors for that, ships, derelict habitats, super advanced humans, and so on, the story line is not that strong, and i was not always sure quite what was going on and how he had got to that point. The other main characters in the book came across as complicated people with differing loyalties to Imre and other members of the story. I felt the ending was a little weak, as i was not sure how that guy fitted into the story.

Overall, I liked the writing, and the universe that he has created, but felt that plot let it down. ( )

Not sure about this one. Main character (Imre Bergamasc) is unloveable, even though there are strong themes of redemption (of him, maybe his other selves, and probably the galaxy) throughout the novel. The span of time that the action takes place over is just a little on the unbelievable side - I just can't bring myself to believe that the kind of things that take decades in other stories really take millenia. Plus, the story is on the slow moving side - yes, it is moving across galactic distances at sub-light speed, and the sory does manage to convey this well, but even so.

It feels like the first 3/4 of the book is set up - it takes about that long for all of the 'Corps' to have been located (at least, in one form or another), and then for them to have a purpose. There are several other bits of action prior to this, but really only give the impression of being scene setters. And the denouement was a let down. I'm hoping that it is preparation for the next book - it is certainly my impression of Williams' work that he doesn't write sections of series that work well as standalones. But on the negative side, I'm not going to go searching for the sequel, so I may never know. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/review-of-saturn-returns-by-sean.html ( )

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

This book coincidentally enough kicks off a little mini-series coming here to CCLaP this month; for, you see, by sheer dumb luck, I was able this month to get my hands on half of the ten science-fiction novels nominated this year for either the Hugo or Philip K Dick awards. This one here, for example, Sean Williams' Saturn Returns (book one of the coming "Astropolis" trilogy), was nominated for the PKD award, which honors the best each year in cutting-edge and experimental SF; but I have to confess that I simply didn't find it very well-written at all, and eventually gave up out of frustration around page 50. The storyline is serviceable enough, I suppose, although definitely enjoys wallowing in what's sometimes the most trite cliches of the entire genre; it is One Million Years In The Future!, where in true Accelerando fashion humans have become immortal, precisely through "uploading" their memories into digital storage and then "downloading" them into new bodies whenever they want. The actual plot, then, at least as I understand it, concerns a soldier from a now long-over war, whose digital backup is accidentally discovered in space almost totally destroyed, almost 150,000 years after the destruction originally took place; put back together by an alien race (except accidentally as the opposite gender), he/she basically spends the rest of the book trying to figure out what happened, why the war ended, and what caused the apocalyptic rift that has essentially destroyed what had been a galaxy-wide means of communications.

And I say "as I understand it," of course, because this is the single biggest problem with Saturn Returns: Williams simply takes on too much, too much speculative crap, and tries to cram it all into a story too small to hold it, using writing skills that simply aren't good enough to juggle it all coherently. The book as a result turns into a muddled mess very quickly, with just dozens of references to made-up terminology that still haven't been explained 50 pages into it, as well as constant allusions to a series of interchangeable-sounding galactic wars in this Million Years In The Future! past, a "Chaos War" and "Mad Times" war and "Slow Wave" war with differences that make perfect sense to the characters, but that become a giant headache-inducing chronological cloud to us. Plus, I have to agree with several other online reviewers when I say, "What's with all the pointless softcore pornography, Williams?" Pretty much the only reason to put the main male character into a female body, as far as I could tell, was so the character could regularly think to himself, "Holy crap, I've got titties!," then proceed to play with them; the only reason to have two of these soldiers date each other in the backstory, as far as I could tell, was so Williams could describe the violent sex they had on a regular basis. I was surprised this got nominated for a PKD award, to tell you the truth; it's the kind of book that makes non-SF people roll their eyes when thinking of the genre, not the kind of stuff you'd think the industry would want to celebrate.

Out of 10: 3.8 ( )

Dark and complex. But not that enthralling.

Imre Bergamasc awakeens in a body he doesn't recognise. This shouldn't really be a surprise to him - galactic technology has long long since been of the state where multiple forms of consciousness and indeed transcription of entire genomes and memories is a trivial task. But for all the eon's he's been alive / hard data, never once has he awakened female, and not without links to the Continium either. The grand data net spanning a galaxy - still limited by the speed of light, but when percieved temporal rates are adjustable at a whim, waiting 100 years for a reply isn't that difficult either. However as he slowly learns an event called the Slow Wave appears to have disconnected solar systems from each other. In an attempt to learn more he travels to what was once the base of his Corps, and gathers together the incarnations of his past teammates. But grand powers seem to afoot, although the highly evolved and fragments superbrains known as Forts have benn killed by the action of the Slow Wave there alos appear to more than the ordinary chance forces acting against humanity rebuilding itself from the fractional infighting of a decaying empire.

Irne isn't particularly likeable, although as he spends most of this book slowly re-gathering his memories of what has happened in the past 150000 it's difficult to get to know him well - which doesn't help thereader appreciate the moral dilemmas he is placed in. The various incarnations of his teammates aren't much better - very very 1D characters that just accept Irne's instruction. Lots of random sex, though if you've been alone for 150000 years even at a vastly reduced temporal rate you might still be fairly desperate for some company, a few battles and a mystery teasingly half eplained to provide the hook for the next in the trilogy. The only good points is the highly inovative galactic civilisation and in particular the social concepts and adjustments to the ability to modify bith body and time. Primes, singletons, Forts, frags and gestalts are never clearly explained (although there is a glossary) but the half remembered hints do very good job of describing such a complex society.

The pace is quick and the action and mystery fairly well interspersed, but the pervading dark mood, and occasional tense introspectives don't really capture the excitment that should be possible from such an empire. Alistair Reynolds does Space Opera much better, but this isn't too bad.

This particular edition from Orbit comes packed with "Extras at the end" - an explanation that one of the characters speaks entirely in Gary Numan lyrics. If like me you went who? then the fact that it's at the end won't make much difference. Why? well just because William's could. There's also an exert from Stross' Singularity Sky. Why - so that we buy more books from Orbit I suppose it's got nothing to do with this story. ( )