Sean Williams with Shane Dix Geodesica Descent

Geodesica Descent

Sean Williams with Shane Dix

Ace, Feb 2006, $7.99, 400 pp.

ISBN 0441013783

The Archon, an artificial intelligence created by the Sol system, bred the Exarch to rule over the humans in the Arc systems. The Archon does not want the Geodesica, a hyperspatial network, to allow anyone entering the various entrances to the ancient maze, and when people try it, whole systems of colonized planets, including Bedlam and Sublime are destroyed. The humans, or Naturals as they are called in the year 2438, want their independence from Sol, the Archon and the Sol system.

Melilah, a Natural, a fragment of Exarch Isaac Deangelis, and cell pilot Eogran Palmer, journey in Geodesica where they see wondrous sites, dead zones and exits, that lead far from where they want to be. They find no weapons to use against the Archon and wonder how they will get out. Meanwhile, in real space, the disenchanted Exarchs, including another fragment of Deangelis, Palmer Horsfall, inhabited by another rebel Exarch, unite the system to rebel against the Archon. Ironically, another fragment of Deangelis, along with the help of Sol and the Archon, fight the rebels until he is instructed to sue for peace with a people who neither trust him or his allies, or the Archon's promises.

Sean Williams and Shane Dix create a future that is so technologically advanced that readers feel that they are visiting a foreign country, with a culture so alien that other humans would have no place there. The authors are great world builders, their prose is lush, visual, and so descriptive, that the audience can actually picture it, especially Geodesica. There are many surprise twists so that the audience never becomes bored as they peruse this enthralling space opera.