Reviews for Light on the sound

The average rating for Light on the sound based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-15 00:00:00 Paul Rathbun I first heard of Somtow over a decade ago when people would mention his book Vampire Junction as being one of the best vampire stories or even one of the best horror novels. A few years later I found out Somtow is a successful composer of operas and symphonies and that he's written quite a few fantasies. In more recent years I saw the fuller extent of his fantasy and science fiction books (unfortunately since he used write under the name Somtow Sucharitkul, sometimes databases divide his work between two different author pages), got a better sense of what he's done in music, film and television. Some of the reviews, titles and cover art for his books are intriguing, he's very likable in his public talks... I feel an obsession coming on. I start with Light On The Sound, first part of the Inquestor series (4 books in the series, a 5th book is promised and 2 supplemental booklets about the series came out recently). Theodore Sturgeon calls it "no less than the greatest magnitude of spectacle and color since Stapledon"! It's a story of an empire that travels the universe destroying utopias and creating extremely manufactured existences for the people they exploit. Most of the story is divided between three characters, the majority of it set on one planet, with a few brief trips to a couple of other planets. The dwellings of the Inquestors tend to be extravagant but the other characters live in very bare, deprived places which are nonetheless quite technologically advanced. There's an invented language (explained in an appendix in impressive detail); Somtow is especially fond of joining words without hyphenating them; the perceptions of people who cant see or hear is very cleverly described in many chapters. Then there's poems and folk songs. I absolutely adored this, I haven't enjoyed a book this much in quite some time. It's pretty close to the kind of thing I'm hoping for when I'm delving into semi-forgotten fantasy/science fiction from the 70s-80s-90s. It has the kind of scale and beautiful spectacle I to look for in fantastical weird fiction but also has these wonderful big rousing moments of a type that weird fiction authors usually don't do. This isn't weird/horror fiction but Somtow definitely can do that when he wants to. I was beaming with morbid glee at a couple of the things Lady Ynyoldeh does. One of the best things is getting a taste of amazing things we're unlikely to ever experience. I wish I could ride the gravity devices, Udara and the Overcosm. I also like the way it explores the mentality of the Inquestors, their ideas ingrained over centuries that even heretics have trouble shedding. Quibbles: Characters too often survive and progress through incredible luck. Why doesn't the girl recognize crying? What would have stopped her? And how did she learn to talk so fluently in such a short time? It seems like too many instances of risks being taken for the sake of action. Why were the Inquestors so careless in going to the Dark Country? Their soldiers have so much power and they could have easily avoided this. Why was the inexperienced boy left with the sensor panel? Some people have issues with the dialogue. It is a tad unnatural sounding at times but it's set in a very different time and place. Some parts of the big plan near the end are ridiculous, initially this dampened my enthusiasm but there's promise that it isn't all it seems. This is probably a hook for the sequel. One reviewer said it takes too much from Dune. I only know the Lynch film version. The brain whales are certainly similar and at one meeting with them, Dune is clearly referenced. Some of the villains are reminiscent of Dune villains but not that much. I thought there was a few other more muted references to other science fiction books. But I'd be surprised if that many of Somtow's other inventions have much in common with the Herbert books. Cant wait to read all Somtow's other books. I might go to the Riverrun trilogy, Vampire Junction, Jasmine Nights or a collection before I read the next Inquestor book. All his books are available from his print-on-demand company. A real buried treasure, should have a much bigger following.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-04-01 00:00:00 David Worthington I really enjoyed this when it was first published, and I was afraid it wouldn't hold up nearly 30 years later. It does, at least for me.