Shrine of Stars:: The Third Book of Confluence (Confluence, Book 3)

I really don't envy any SF writer who has to come up with an ending to an epic saga. Because everyone who has been reading it for the past three novels has taken all the threads the author has painstakingly laid down and individually come up with his or her own unique ending that is totally awesome and completely makes sense. Who needs what the author intended? Our version rocks much harder. This puts the author in an awkward position of having to wrap everything up in a way that a) nobody can really see coming and b) trumps the ultimate awesome version that exists in all our heads. Oh, and explain everything of course because nobody really wants any lingering mysteries. Paul McAuley, I do not envy you one bit. What we've been introduced to over the past three novels is a world of unparalleled detail that manages to have the heft and weight of Arrakis from "Dune" without needing a degree in ecology or astrophysics for it to feel real. Every instance interlocks, the river goes through everything and McAuley avoids the novice mistake of having a world with only one culture . . . there's ten thousand bloodlines and every one feels different, possessed of its own internal logic and rules. Each time we've exited a book and gone back into another one, McAuley has effected a minor paradigm shift, not rewriting the rules of the planet so much as refining them, getting Yama one step closer to what it all means. The second book's cliffhanger threatened to upend the whole deal, with Yama captured by the people who were looking for him and getting caught in a mess of alliances, none of whom had his best interests at heart. It takes everything away from him so he can get it back and thus learn more about what the heck is going on. What McAuley has succeeded at is crafting a saga that feels both cosmic and chamber-operaesque, taking place in a universe that seems endless but really only focusing on a small sliver of it. It seems to span the width of time and yet it all happens in a relatively narrow slice of moments, even as the history of it seems to extend both forever forwards and backwards. It dabbles in myth even when the story itself is grounded in fantastic and gritty reality. But the meaning of it all hovers just outside our reach, like one of the unseen giant feral machines that watch the world, waiting for a chance to come back. Yama apparently has a destiny, like every character in a long epic novel, but what is it? The Preservers are invoked often but are ill-defined, like one of the endless stories that are told as myth but probably have a certain truth to how the world really operates, if we only knew how to look at it properly. And how to end it? That's the problem. McAuley zips us through scenarios fast enough to give everyone whiplash as the narrative speeds up, perhaps sensing that it's reaching the finale. He leaps from place to place to place, sometimes with his faithful squire, sometimes with a machine in his head, som

First, one must clarify and emphasis the total and complete dependence "Shrine of Stars" has to the preceding volumes of Confluence. For those of you that are considering reading this book, it will not make sense unless you read "Child of the River" and "Ancients of Days" first. In fact, I see little reason (except for girth) that these weren't published as a single volume with a few of the 'remember from the last volume' details edited out.On to the books. One reviewer commented that too much is jammed into this third volume, and I agree. What one ends up with is almost a series of intensely imaginative summaries. The locales change so frequently, as do the flora and fauna. Each environment is so different than the last, and eachis packed with enough loving details to support a novel of its own. The magic McAuley is able to display works its best in "Child of the River". There, the pacing is right for the language of description and the wonders of Confluence. In "Ancients of Days", one gets the sense that McAuley is rushing to the end... too excited and unable to withhold his 'big idea ending'. And as for that, the ending isn't really a big idea. It's an old, well-trodden idea. Upon the book's completion, I felt similar to many of the other reviewers: cheated by what felt masterfully tacked on; underwhelmed by what should have been explosively overwhelming. But upon reflection, I see the wisdom of it. The ending serves its on perfect purpose. It wraps the work and the place of Confluence up into an egg-like shell, giving birth to imagination and a galaxy ready for life.If there is such a thing as a premature opus, this is it. The moments of Confluence that are so terrible are only so because the rest is so good. No reader of imaginative and thought provoking fiction should go without reading this trilogy at least once. If anything, just for the beautiful writing that is so rare in the genre.

At the end of book two, we've left Yama, our hero, at the mercy of his heretic enemy Dr. Dismas, and seemingly without hope of escape, even as his faithful friend Pandaras struggles to find and free him. So begins the final volume of Confluence. The Great River continues to dry up, the factions of Heretic and Prefect Corin's Department continue their war...and Yama slowly changes from the pawn that he was, to a far greater importance on the "board". McAuley does a credible job tying up most of the loose ends and brings Yama's story full circle. We learn at last the nature of Confluence, and get a look at why the Preservers built it, and what its ultimate fate should be.Its a bit of a criticism on an otherwise magnificent work, but I think the last half of the book relies TOO much on tropes from Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun novels, especially URTH OF THE NEW SUN. By the end of the book, however, this reviewer was more than satisfied with the arc of Yama's story. Even with mining the same terrain as Wolfe, the Confluence series is a far easier read--more SF, less allegory. One last editorial bit. I bought the first and subsequent books of Confluence in hardcover since they were published in that "small, $14 edition" that made getting a hardcover practical. I wish more publishers would publish books this way. Confluence was a definite keeper and I look forward to re-reading it more than once.

Shrine of Stars concludes Paul J. McAuley's Confluence trilogy in very impressive fashion. These books have not quite got the notice I think they deserve, for a couple of reasons. Most important might be that the trilogy concludes with its strongest volume, for the best reasons.In the first volume, Child of the River, McAuley sketched a strange world with many wonders, and introduced an intriguing main character, Yamamanama (fortunately called Yama by most of the characters). This world, Confluence, is an artificial construct, built thousands of years ago at the behest of the Preservers (apparently descendants of Earth humans), by their servants the "Builders". The Preservers then populated the world with thousands of "bloodlines", apparently "uplifted" animals, as well as the "indigenous" races, apparently aliens of some variety. In the first volume all this is presented as mythic history, and the book has the feel of fantasy. Yama, it is hinted, is the last remnant of the bloodline of the Builders. He sets out on a journey up the huge River of Confluence to the capitol city, Ys, while a long war rages on between the Heretics and the established authority of Confluence. Over the first two books, Yama journeys to Ys, then back down the river to his home. He becomes involved in the war, and meets many of the bloodlines of Confluence, as well as remnants of humans from long before Confluence, and he learns much about his own, very considerable, powers.Many mysteries are introduced in the first two volumes, and they are slowly dispelled. But in Shrine of Stars, McAuley actually delivers on the implied promise of the first two books: the nature of Confluence, and the nature of Yama, and the answers to the mysteries of the first two books, are all revealed in logical and satisfying ways. In the end the three books are clearly, unambiguously, far future Science Fiction, in a way that for example such models as Jack Vance's The Dying Earth and Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun aren't, quite. This is both good and bad, but it seems to be entirely McAuley's intention. That is, the remaining mysteries, and the religious symbolism, of Wolfe's great tetralogy are a feature certainly intended by the author: and in many ways they enhance the book. It may be that that is the reason I still consider Wolfe's series better than The Book of Confluence, or it may be simply that as good a writer as McAuley is, and he's quite good, Wolfe is still better. But at any rate such comparisons, though inevitable, aren't quite fair to McAuley's work: in the end, he has written an individual work, with its own plan, its own intentions, and I think he succeeds marvelously.Shrine of Stars, thus, follows Yama and Pandaras after they are separated, as Yama begins to be possessed by a machine implanted in his body, and as Pandaras tries to find Yama, unwillingly bringing Prefect Corin back on Yama's trail. After many trials, Yama comes to full understanding of hi

McAuley's Confluence trilogy sets forth a new standard for SF to follow. Fully realized and philosophical, engaging and epic in scope, awe-inspiring and enigmatic. Shrine of Stars is remarkable and engrossing, and the Conflue trilogy has all the makings to become an SF classic, and required reading by SF enthusiasts everywhere. Gary S. Potter Author/Poet.