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The Miocene Arrow (Greatwinter Trilogy) | 
 enlarge | Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Tor Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 1567901
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0312875479
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780312875473
ASIN: 0312875479
Publication Date: May 11, 2001
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Product Description
In a fortieth-century America of ancient kingdoms with opulent courts, hereditary engineering guilds, and rigid class distinction in warfare, a centuries-old balance of power is shattered by a few dozen Australian infiltrators. Against a rich backdrop of war, chivalry, conspiracy, and a diesel-powered arms race, a dangerous secret alliance has formed. Now the unlikely trio of an airlord, an abbess, and a fugitive are joined together in a desperate race against time to stop the ultimate doomsday machine from being launched:
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Like the first book but more . . . northern September 11, 2008
Michael Battaglia
"Souls in the Great Machine" was a book that succeeded but did so more on the strength of its premises, as McMullen was able to construct an extremely fascinating future Australia in the wake of a nuclear war, a world so fascinating that you were able to overlook that the characters sometimes did things that made little sense and why the heck did that war actually start anyway. But just when you start to ask those questions you get to another bit with the giant calculators made of people and it's like . . . "Whoa, cool."
The calculators are more or less gone from the sequel but the locale has changed drastically and demonstrates that whatever you else you can claim about the author, a lack of imagination isn't one of his shortcomings. Shifting things from Australia to North America is a step in the right direction as we'd pretty much taken the below the Equator plot as far as it could go. Instead he postulates an entirely different culture, with the siren-like Call (literally, you hear it and it makes you want to walk out to the sea) operating much more continously so that the communities are much more isolated. Cultures have sprung up around chivalry and flying and conflicts are handled all very properly. It's all going well.
And then the Australia crew shows up. Turns out that the aviads from the first book (people who can resist the Call) are up to no good and some entertaining cast members who survived the first book arrive to infiltrate and complicate the plot. As usual McMullen's ability to weave new cultures and make them seem believable is in full force here and it's fun to see the contrasts between the North Americans, who have no idea what's going on and the Australians, who are pretty on top of things.
Things get more confusing when the war breaks out and at times it threatens to become a hodgepodge of names of countries and people that you can't tell apart (as people elsewhere have pointed out, a map would be real helpful here). He keeps the action moving but it sometimes just becomes so much static. Anyone confused by the plethora of events happening in the beginning would do well to stick it out, the plots simplify fairly quickly to a sort of co-A plot, with anti-aviad teams taking up one branch and a group of young flyers holding down the other half.
But it's telling that the most entertaining portion of the book is an extended journal entry detailing exactly why there's a Call and why some people are capable of not marching into the ocean. Then the most charismatic character dies partway through and believe me, his absence affects that portion of things, leaving the flyers to do the heavy lifting and they're not totally up to it. His characters still aren't terribly deep, falling in and out of love/hate or changing their minds very quickly and not everyone stands out as people.
Still, it never drags and his pool of interesting ideas (or at least new spins on his old ideas) seems endless, so even when you're asking "Why are they at war, again?" or "Who just shot down who?" the sheer inventiveness of it all will keep you involved. And in a genre that sometimes forgets its sense of wonder, it's something to encourage at the very least.
 Australian SF Reader August 1, 2007
Blue Tyson
The Miocene Arrow takes a look at North America in this Greatwinter world. This society has air travel of a sort, and a fedual type of system based around this. The Call affects most of the country most of the time, unlike Australia, so they have a lot more problems.
There is a mutant race in the world too, called aviads, and they, having some bird genetics, are immune to the Call and its siren song for mammals.
The main characters here are a couple of young pilot types, but the major players from Australia in terms of the bird-gene people do make their way here on an urgent mission.
stands on its own August 4, 2006
J. Bright
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i read this book *before* having read the first one
in the series. after 150 pages or so, i loved it,
but was getting a bit lost with all of the geography and
characters, so i quickly reskimmed from the beginning.
then it all started to make sense again, and i enjoyed the
rest of the book a lot.
i'd say this book stands on its own quite well, though
perhaps someone who read the first book might have an easier
time keeping up with all of the characters.
If you are looking for something new and original, here it is! June 30, 2005
Lincoln Griffith (High Point, NC)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Sean McMullen is a fellow Aussie but I won't let that cloud my judgment. The book is a page turner from the begining. It is fast paced and broad in scope. Sean has a rich imagination and has created a fascinating and very dangerous post apocalyptic (is there such a word?) Australia.
This is one of a 3 part series. The other two novels are equally as good and if you read the first one you will have to get the others.
Also read "The Centurians Empire" and "Voyage of the Shadowmoon" by the same Author.
The Call in North America. October 21, 2004
C. Gilbert (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In The Miocene Arrow, McMullen shifts focus from Australia to North America. The political situation on this continent is significantly different and with a few exceptions the characters and issues are also different. As a result, Souls and Arrow read like related books rather than a sequence. While you may get a richer experience from reading them in order, it would be safe to read this on its own and go back to Souls later.
I missed the librarians and the calculator and the other great stuff from the first book-- some of the grand inventiveness is missing here. But at the same time, I thought that the character development was a lot stronger and deeper. Serjon, Alion and Bronlar are complex and fascinating characters who offer a personal level that should appeal to most readers. This book may well have a wider potential audience than the first specifically because of the personal and political fulness.
The Aviads stayed opaque enough in this book that there's a lot of room left over for further development in a subsequent book. I can only hope, and run out and buy Eyes of the Calculator to see what he does.
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