The Bush League Critic

Amazon's product description:

The year is 2085, two decades after the great economic collapse that destroyed Western civilization. With its power broken and its cities ruined, life in the West continues in scattered communities. In rural Dorset Jake Reed lives with his 14-year-old son and memories of the great collapse. Back in '43, Jake was a rich, young futures broker, immersed in the datascape of the world's financial markets. He saw what was coming - and who was behind it. Forewarned, he was one of the few to escape the fall. For 22 years he has lived in fear of the future, and finally it is coming - quite literally - across the plain towards him. Chinese airships are in the skies and a strange, glacial structure has begun to dominate the horizon. Jake finds himself forcibly incorporated into the ever-expanding 'World of Levels' a global city of some 34 billion souls, where social status is reflected by how far above the ground you live. Here, under the rule of the mighty Tsao Ch'un, a resurgent China is seeking to abolish the past and bring about world peace through rigidly enforced order. But a civil war looms, and Jake will find himself at the heart of the struggle for the future.

Ok, first of all, Amazon's product description is incorrect. Unless Jake Reed was 10-12 years old when he was a rich, young futures broker, the year -- during which most of the book takes place -- is most definitely not 2085. it's 2065.

I'm a latecomer to David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series -- having just recently read the entire series pretty much straight through. So as I muse and ramble about this newly released prequel (Son of Heaven), keep in mind that the details of the original series are still quite fresh in my mind.

Also keep in mind that I had a love/hate relationship with the original series. What I loved, I loved unreservedly. But that which I didn't love... I loathed. Mainly I was pissed at Wingrove's penchant for "off camera" action. His plotlines would build and build and build towards obviously massive confrontations, but when things finally came to head, he would immediately skip the actual crisis and move directly to the aftermath. It was maddening. But at the same time, such rich characters and subtle political and social machinations made abandoning the books quite  impossible.

Son of Heaven represented quite a change in writing style, I thought. Not surprising really, since the last Chung Kuo book was published twelve years ago, or so. The story starts in 2065, twenty-odd years after the collapse of civilization. Jake Reed and a small community in rural England are living a bucolic, yet dangerous apocalyptic life. I like it. Other than that little thing where authors think it's a good idea to actually phonetically spell out a character's accent (or speech impediment) in normal dialog. That annoys the shit out of me if it goes on for any length of time. Just give me a taste of it, then stop it. I'm perfectly capable of hearing an accent in my head while reading.

Anyway... we meet Jake and get a good idea of what the current state of civilization is like. Then we flash back to just before the collapse (2043), and I hate it. I want to put the book down. But I suffer through the silly technological slang and the mind-numbing infodumps (that offer no insight that wasn't already given in the original series) clear up until nearly the half-way point of the book.

Then we come back to the "present" and things start to get good. Really good, in fact. We start flashing back and forth between different POV's (the first half was one POV for the most part) and shit finally starts happening. To be perfectly honest, the second half of the book is a bit of alright. I just wish I hadn't had to suffer through the first half to get there.

So in summary, if you've never read Chung Kuo (or don't remember anything about it), Son of Heaven may be a pleasant intro/refresher for you. Otherwise, I'm not really sure that it contributes much of anything to the series other than word count.