The Gollancz Future Classics Range

[Werthead]

Gollancz in the UK have reissued several books they believe are 'Future Classics', novels people will be talking about several decades from now. The books have interesting minimalist covers and are being marketed nicely. The titles are:

 

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

Morgan's debut novel, a cyberpunk noir ultraviolent thriller starring Takeshi Kovacs. Co-stars a sentient hotel. Brilliant. *****

 

Blood Music by Greg Bear

Scientist inadvertantly dooms the Earth and the human race to utter annihilation. Or does he? Basically Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End rewritten for a later generation (Bear does this a lot). It doesn't stop it being utterly superb. Bear's best novel by light years. *****

 

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

The opening salvo in the very good Revelation Space Trilogy, and the first novel in a wider universe now encompassing five novels and two collections. Chasm City - a standalone in the same universe - is Reynolds' best book and a better candidate for the range, but Revelation Space is still relentlessly readable and entertaining, despite echoes of Fred Saberhagen's Beserker novels coming through towards the end. ****

 

The Separation by Christopher Priest

Jaw-droppingly clever. Original. Startling. Difficult to describe, almost impossible to review, with a series of plot twists at the end which may cause the reader's brain to implode, but it all hangs together and makes sense. One of the very best SF&F novels released this century from the author of The Prestige. *****

 

I haven't read the other books in the range:

 

Evolution by Stephen Baxter

Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley

Hyperion by Dan Simmons (yeah, I know)

Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan