David J. Williams

One last review trickles in. Or maybe I just missed it at the time. At any rate, I’d call this one “guardedly positive.” Nathan Brazil (!) of SFSite.com takes me to task for “wafer-thin back stories” (to which I plead guilty if you need everything spelled out for you all at once—c’mon Nate, there’s a reason this is a trilogy), and also for the fact that this isn’t (gasp!)  really cyberpunk:  the characters “aren’t punks . . .but [rather] representatives of the government.” I take this to be further proof that the genre’s become more than a little rigid; as I’ve said before, to me cyberpunk is fundamentally about alienation, and there’s no reason why servants of the government can’t experience THAT.

(And I realize there’s a taboo against “arguing” with a review, but I haven’t had my coffee yet this morning, so I’m feeling audacious. Besides, for hundreds of years writers were free to dialogue with critics; it’s only recently that authors are expected to be Good Little Scribes without the right to make any kind of meaningful comment.)

But anyone with a name like Nathan Brazil gets cut a lot of slack round my neck of the woods, especially when they close the review with something like:

I was entertained from beginning to end, and congratulate the publisher on finding a new talent. Take a dash of Robert A. Heinlein, season with early William Gibson, baste in Robert Ludlum, and what you get is The Mirrored Heavens. It is by no means an ideal combination, and some readers may not like the mix of influences at all. But I far prefer it to the alternative of the same old names with their same old characters and settings. I have a feeling that there is much more to come from David J. Williams.

Damn, I hope so.

You can pre-order the sequel BURNING SKIES on Amazon.  And tune in tomorrow, when Spartacus gives some shit away!!!!!!