In the Mouth of the Whale

by Paul McAuley

Overview

A novel of a savage future war, perfect for fans of Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton.

Humanity's future rests on the shoulders of a Child from the past, and she must never know of the battles being fought for her ...

In the system of Fomalhaut, a war is being fought. The Quicks came long ago, refugees from the Solar System. The True arrived later, to find a declining civilisation and a system ripe for the taking. Then the Ghosts appeared, no longer human, unknowable, powerful and determined to drive out the Quick and the True. The battle continues, but the outcome is uncertain.

Three lives will intersect, because there is something at the centre of their universe, something dangerous and growing and powerful. Something that is worth fighting for. And it will change everybody's life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780575100763
Publisher:	Orion
Publication date:	01/19/2012
Series:	Quiet War Series , #3
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	830,428
File size:	917 KB

About the Author

Paul McAuley won the Philip K. Dick Award for his first novel and has gone on to win the Arthur C. Clarke, British Fantasy, Sidewise and John W. Campbell Awards. He gave up his position as a research biologist to write full-time. He lives in London. You can find his blog at: http://www.unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com

Paul McAuley (Born 1955)
Paul James McAuley was born in Gloucestershire on St George's Day, 1955. He has a Ph.D in Botany and worked as a researcher in biology at various universities, including Oxford and UCLA, and for six years was a lecturer in botany at St Andrews University, before leaving academia to write full time. He started publishing science fiction with the short story "Wagon, Passing" for Asimov's Science Fiction in 1984. His first novel, 400 Billion Stars won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1988, and 1995's Fairyland won the Arthur C. Clarke and John W. Campbell Awards. He has also won the British Fantasy, Sidewise and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. He lives in London.

You can find his blog at: http://www.unlikelyworlds.blogspot.com

Editorial Reviews

03/30/2015
McCauley demonstrates his talent for complex and imaginative storytelling in this superior space opera set in the 22nd century, the third in his Quiet War series (after 2009’s Gardens of the Sun). One of the main threads concerns an unnamed child growing up in Brazil; she’s an enigmatic figure, a brilliant autodidact with a taste for genetic engineering, who’s being prepared by an unnamed, omniscient tutor for the war that lies ahead of her. A second narrative presents a quest for redemption by Isak Sixsmith, a librarian, whose lapses on a data-restoration assignment cost the lives of some colleagues. The third focuses on Ori, a pilot stationed on the huge space station known as the Whale, whose life changes after she witnesses something unusual. The prose can be dense at times, and the plots demand close reading; McCauley packs in so much information that it’s easy for readers to get confused if their attention strays for even half a page. Agent: Mic Cheetham Literary Agency (U.K.). (June)

Publishers Weekly

A writer of dazzling range, luminous intelligence and great humanity--Alastair Reynolds

Paul McAuley's balanced grasp of satire and literature, always a rare attribute in the writer of prose fiction, is combined with the equally rare ability to look at today's problems and know which are really problems, and what can be done about them--William Gibson

From the Publisher

05/15/2015
The third volume in McAuley's futuristic series is set millennia after The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun and is just as easily read as a stand-alone. Far away from the Homesun, in the system of Fomalhaut, a massive gas giant shares a solar system with thousands of terraformed worldlets. The original settlers of this solar system were the Quick, based on genetically modified human stock. But they were soon followed by the True, unmodified human refugees from the Quiet War who have since enslaved the Quick and consider them subhuman. But these are not the system's only residents; the Ghosts, a type of posthuman based around a hive mind, are desperate to gain access to the mind thought to be at the center of the gas giant. VERDICT With plenty of elements of cyberpunk as well as a solid dose of hard sf, this will appeal to readers who enjoy Alistair Reynolds.—Jessica Moyer, Sch. of Information Studies, Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Library Journal