Somewhat foolishly, I read a number of reviews on this book before starting it. I did so despite knowing that I already wanted to read it, and that it had been on my reading list for a number of years. Reviewers give a lot of fours, primarily because of weak character development. Having read such reviews, I found myself looking for this problem as I read (hence the aforementioned foolishness). Truth be told, McMullen does have some weaknesses in this regard, but I would say his real weakness is...

I came into this serious with a hopeful positive outlook. The description of the novel got me hooked and I was looking forward to reading it. Out of the other reviews I had read the book seemed worth the read. Sadly, I was very disappointed. Right away the book throws a bunch of in terms and I was very confused. The book did not spend enough time explaining the many terms in its universe. I could not keep track. To add to that the names of all the lingo, characters, and positions were very hard

I almost gave up on this book. It just started slow for me and then, somewhere around 150 or 200 pages in, what a blast! Don't know why; maybe I took a while to get used to the world McMullen has created. Good post-apocalyptic sci-fi without the depressing edge that seems to pervade that genre. \I always loved the idea about a society governed by a library, or rather, a Library and fancied some day writing a story about that myself. McMullen beat me to it and did a better job than I ever could.

This book was a test of patience for me, I have to say. I feel bad saying that since the book was well-reviewed and a lot of effort obviously went into it but for whatever reason, I kept think "Well, this is certainly a list of events. And the characters certainly do have names. I guess it technically qualifies as a book ." Some really neat concepts (I loved the idea of The Call) but the book was so dry. I spite-read the home stretch. Just when I though it was winding down to a conclusion, it'd

Basically a fantasy novel with a post-apocalyptic veneer, set in south-eastern Australia (but it may as well have been anywhere) two thousand years after the collapse of civilisation, with society now having climbed back up to a semi-industrial scale of technology. There’s some interesting stuff in here (the Call is a particularly great concept) but it gets deeply bogged down in a pretty uninteresting story of politics and power – including a war with no apparent catalyst – and endless pages of

Just couldn't go on. My first dnf in ages. At about page 300 I started to get embarrassed at how awful the interaction between characters was. Especially the female characters, who by the way, started out as strong and resourceful and ended up standing in front of a mirror naked and scoring themselves out of 10. At some stage, it felt like the author stopped writing and his 15 year old son took over and suddenly all the powerful nation leading women suddenly needed to compare breasts and work ou...

A unique and wonderful read. The worldbuilding in this book is stunning. The author creates a world and the cultures that populate it with such vividness that you feel like you have actually been there. There is one awkward aspect where a character we had gotten to know well in the first half disappointingly gets pushed to the background in the latter half, but it is not enough to lower my rating.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: in Australia in the distant, post-apocalyptic future, a continent-wide Siren-like Call wreaks havoc on society, and electricity is banned by EMP orbital platforms. But an ingenious and ruthless librarian reinvents computers by using prisoners as components. With it, she...I'll stop here, not because anything in Souls in the Great Machine has been done before, but because discovering all the crazy and ingenious ideas put forth in this book are part of the

The book can be a bit of a slog in places--this is not a Michael Crichton, fast-paced beach read, and I definitely felt like the writing can be tightened up--but the world-building is strange and beautiful and the story so distinct, unlike anything else I've read, that I solidly recommend it. It's especially noteworthy because this was written before the current renaissance in genre fiction injected some much-needed newness into SF&F--I think in many ways Sean McMullen spurred this renaissance b...

This book starts out so spectacularly strong that the end can't match the promise. You have a post-apocalyptic, Australian, steam-punk novel set in a well-crafted world. The characters and narrative just can't keep up with the setting.Spoilers follow.One of the more unfortunate is on the book's cover. Knowing Lemorel Milderellen and Zarvora Cybeline will end up at odds with each other prevents the reader from fully committing to empathizing with Lemorel (although, to McMullen's credit, I came cl...

I think a younger me might have loved this book. It's got everything, most especially some very clever worldbuilding and some good lines ("people need to know that soldiers who love life are no less brave than those who love killing" stands out simply for being very late in the book), and I liked the female-character-driven plot. I love the world that has clearly been through several forms of catastrophe and desperate measures, and is now a low-energy civilisation, but a civilisation nonetheless...

This book is nutty, but I love it. Coolest title ever.

It's a wonderful feeling, re-reading a novel you loved as a teenager and finding it lives up to your memories entirely. Indeed, I think 'Souls in the Great Machine' was formative of my sci-fi tastes. There is so much to love about it! For one thing, it's the first in a trilogy yet stands alone brilliantly. Moreover, the characters, plot, and world-building are all distinctive and fantastic. If I had to pick my absolute favourite feature, it would have to be the characterisation. The women are am...

Liu,Cixin may have gotten the idea for a computer made up of human components from this author.This book had the potential to be a lot better, especially because women were the Overlords. But the dude just could not resist his breast-envy, and thus turned this fairly awesome imaginative sci-fi into a teenage boy's book.

"Souls" is a mix of interesting ideas, imaginative societies/cultures, war/battles, and unlikable characters. I quickly tired of the wars/battles, which I don't generally like anyhow and, in this case, found inexplicable. Why were two key female leads going to war at all? I never did understand. Moreover, there was not a single character about whom I gave a damn.

Pros: McMullen has a lot of really great ideas. This is a book set 200 years after the apocalypse, caused by a mysterious siren call that started luring people into the sea, leading to nuclear war and the placement of satellites that sweep the earth with electromagnetic pulses from time to time, prohibiting the use of electronics. The story, then, concerns the southern part of Australia (I think-the geography is hazy at best), where they have a produced a new calculating machine that uses people...

A sci-fi story set in a post apocalypic where computers don't technically exist. Instead, giant calculation machines are staffed by human slaves doing the math. The use of 'lo-tech' in the story is particularly interesting. Flintlock pistols, pedal trains and communication networks of 'beamflash towers'? Not a typical sci-fi read but still very much worth a read.

Daniel wrote a great review of it here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...as for me, this is my sixth or seventh time to read this trilogy, and it is as awesome this time as it has been for all the previous.if your idea of great sf is of sf with truly innovative ideas, wonderful plotting and characterization, and thoroughly memorable characters, you have come to the right place: Souls in the Great Machine has all of these. and this is only the on-ramp to a far more complex and involving fu...

Set in Australia after a cataclysmic event killed all technology and millions by cold weather. A young woman who was studying Mirrorsun (a silver band in the skies) and the Wanderers (spy satellites which destroy attempts at engines) designs in secret a computer (the Calculor) based on humans working a system of beads and levers. There are many interesting characters (e.g. Overliber Zarvora who challenges and shoots anyone standing in her way, Abbess Theresla who eats grilled mice on toast, John...

This book has a fascinating, seeable, steampunk world and interesting characters, but they are not developed enough to keep me hooked, and the writing absolutely plods. I couldn't get past the first 5 chaps because the writing put me to sleep! Two more volumes?! Please, not unless the writer improves on his craft.