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Kay Kenyon

Bright of the Sky: Bk. 1 Hardcover – 3 April 2007

by Kay Kenyon (Author)

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Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme.

Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe--one where he himself may have been imprisoned--he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter's dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn's memories return, he discovers why. Quinn's goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire--to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family's redemption.

But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm.

This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, and Dan Simmons's Hyperion.

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Product details

Publisher : Pyr (3 April 2007)
Language : English
Hardcover : 454 pages
ISBN-10 : 1591025419
ISBN-13 : 978-1591025412
Dimensions : 15.85 x 3.1 x 23.55 cm

Customer Reviews:
159 ratings

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About the Author

Kay Kenyon, nominated for the Philip K. Dick and the John W. Campbell awards, began her writing career (in Duluth, Minnesota) as a copywriter for radio and TV. She kept up her interest in writing through careers in marketing and urban planning, and published her first novel, The Seeds of Time, in 1997. She is the author of numerous short stories, including those in I, Alien; Live Without a Net; and Stars: Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian. She lives in Wenatchee, Washington, with her husband. You can read a first chapter of her books at www.kaykenyon.com. .

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2 star		10%
1 star		6%

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Bibliophile London

Needs sticking with

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 November 2010

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I am an avid fantasy reader and have been disappointed recently by how obvious and bloodthirsty the genre is becoming. This, however, is a great book and very meaty indeed. It does take some getting used to simply because the plot is not as heavily signposted as with some books. By the end I was hooked. There are two protagonists and Kay Kenyon writes well from both points of view. The "baddies" are satisfyingly malevolent and oblique and whilst being hooked I have absolutely no idea what road the next book is going to take.

I would higly recommend the book and have only not given it 5 stars because it did take some getting into.

Fahrnbauer

strange ominous and thought provoking

Reviewed in the United States on 2 February 2014

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Usually I think fantasy a waste of time. This story kept me wrapped up until the end, wishing for more. I just found out there ARE sequel books... the idea in Bright of the Sky is ominous and real. Another world needs to grab energy from somewhere else and settles on Earth as the nearest and most promising.
This story gives me the creeps that it's telling a convoluted warning of what's going on right here and now between countries and societies that are bulging at the borders and can't survive without consuming their neighbors. Lebensraum
This story makes one THINK. The physics between Earth and the Bright are far fetched, wierd and intriguing but they relate - SpaceTime. Illusion of fixed, solid, dependable (?) Think state of being. Never fixed. Water for example - frozen solid, wet snow rain, vapor. Always in Flux. So is all. How to manage in this quantum physics world where the very structure between two worlds does not match and can grind our heroes in the InBetween? Add to these conundrums rivalries, suspicion, race and customs, and you are reading about Earth and Us and our own struggles for salvation.

The Bright's beings are monstrous tall. They demand subservience, and this is causing the familiar class warfare held under cover of fear and devious behavior. Hence - inside spying, help for our heroes. The Human Hero of our story has been here before. He's out to confound and defeat the "Tarigs" who are plotting to blowup and consume Earth with a Machine in development. A giant machine that rumbles constantly at the center of the Bright. This is where the Crisis is, the struggle to save Earth from destruction. Read on.... It's hard to stop until the end.

One bother - I keep feeling as I read that there are gaps in the story. That there ought to be a book before this one to introduce the reader to the characters, and to explain better why or who does things because... There ARE other volumes - AFTER this one, not before! You just have to figure it out. Also I don't "see" clearly enough how the surroundings are constructed. Sometimes yes, very well. But there could be more picture description.

However, the Beings are very real - sinister but believable. Very clearly defined are the rituals of behavior between different strata of the population from Tarig god-men to the Chalin (human like general population to slave type.) Our heroes also have to learn these customs to stay alive - deference to higher-ups, bowing, correct way to address someone, even extreme care not to insult not to even feel certain emotions because these beings can smell your subtleties. Good grief! Haven't you experienced this sort of thing at times? And feel like treading on coals until you can escape and get back to your comfort space with family and friends and few protocols?

rwake2

Interesting reviews... Now read mine.

Reviewed in the United States on 14 August 2012

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Ok, so I read several reviews of this book and am astonished by people's perspectives. Astonished enough to write my own review, which I normally do not do because I feel my opinions can be redundant to already posted comments. Not this time, apparently. So, here goes.

I actually liked the book, BUT (There is always a but, isn't there?), this book was SLOW SLOW SLOW until the last around 70 kindle-ipad-virtual-pages. Trying to keep this review pretty spoiler free, I'll speak in generalities. Begin: Sad main character and greedy manipulative corporation (really, again? enough with the corporation bashing in stories already). Sad man has no memory and is sent back to the area where he lost it. He spends tons of time relearning the language and culture. He spends tons of time traveling to get help. Spends tons more time traveling to the bureaucracy. Spends tons of time dealing with the bureaucracy to get his way. Gets his way. (sleeping yet? I was.). Prepares to leave to cash in on getting his way at the bureaucracy. Screws it up and flushes all the work done at the bureaucracy. Last 70ish pages: A big chase begins. The book ends.

I loved the idea of the other universe, very creative. Was a highlight of the book. The Bright, the river, the storm wall, the scholars studying the Rose, etc. Pretty creative ideas and it kept me reading this book. A universe not based on suns and planets--very thought provoking.

The side story about Sydney, yawn. Telekenetic-horseback-riding and herd politics, yawn again. I guess the author loves horses, I don't share that affinity and these special horned psychic horses didn't change my mind in any way.

I hated that I had to read 80% of the story before anything action-y happened. TOO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, with characters that had little to no depth and an unlikeable main character.

---Spoiler Alert---
All of the other reviewers who are complaining about him 'killing a kid' should put this behavior in CONTEXT and get over it.
1) People in this alternate universe live hundreds and hundreds or more years. This 'kid' could have easily been 50 or 100 years old or more, plus the 'kid' was fully aware of the sins of her people because she knew all about the character that killed her. (Still trying to keep it vague). This 'kid' was no innocent, and her people are far from benign. See #2.
2) This 'kid's' people have enslaved how many races and entities? Have killed how many people in their universe at whim? Just for not believing in their rules of conduct or saying anything disparaging they will kill any living thing at their leisure. And, they plan on killing every living thing in the Rose. And somehow Amazon reviewers think the main character's killing one of their species was an atrocity that ruined the book? GET OVER YOURSELVES. It's just a story, and under the circumstances he did the right thing. Too bad he couldn't kill more of them and free the myriad of other living things they terrorize.
---End Spoiler Alert---

I really thought about reading the next book, but... The word I keep thinking of is plodding. If 80% of this first book didn't plod along, I'd have started and probably finished the 2nd book by now. Be warned.

3 people found this helpful

almitchell

Very compelling, and an amazing example of world building.

Reviewed in the United States on 25 August 2012

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I must have read a different book from many of the reviewers, because I thought it was excellent. This is the first book I have read by this author, and I downloaded it for free. I have also immediately bought the second book of the series immediately after finishing it.

While the main character is not very likable, no, he makes a very good Hamlet. The characters are very broadly written at first, but for the first book of a series, that is forgivable. The Tarig, however, are at once enigmatic and terrifying.

Our universe, the human universe, glimpsed through shifting branes, is called the Rose, named after a flower the alien scholars have glimpsed on our Earth. Their parallel universe is called the Entire, part of the All, a multiverse that was sculpted into existence by the Tarig, the lords of the Entire, based on human evolution on Earth. Their world is powered by violent forces far beyond our comprehension.

Our Earth discovers the Entire after a human pilot, our hero, is accidentally drawn into the Entire when his ship is torn apart by a "wormhole", used for galactic travel. While he is gone from Earth for a mere six months, he existed in the Entire for ten years...but he doesn't remember it, though he does remember that his wife and daughter were left behind. Then, in one of the most fascinating parts of the book, humans discover a way into the Entire entirely by accident, as the powerful sentient AI that powers a space platform slowly goes rogue as it tangles with an impossible calculation - that there is missing matter than can be accounted for by mathematics we have never considered.

Our hero is, of course, lured into returning, for the purpose of negotiating travel rights through this new universe, but he also has his own agenda. He negotiates a dangerous path through the insanely mirrored world of the Entire, thirsting for his memories that are coming back all too slowly, and for any knowledge of his family. He gains allies and foes, of course, and the story flows nicely.

Let me say first of all that this is a blend of speculative fiction and sci-fi, but I didn't see it as fantasy so much as others did. Yes, there were fantastical creatures, but there have to be. But the Entire is built very well. The physics are shaky, and left intentionally vague - but even as a physics freak, it didn't bother me. I was able to suspend disbelief, because I wanted this world to work.

There are some weaknesses. At times, it was overly Shakespearean, overly derivative of other sci-fi works, and obvious. A secondary plot obviously meant to be developed further sometimes jarred against the rest of the story, but it feels like it was meant to. As I said, though, for the broad strokes needed to create worlds from scratch, it wasn't offensive. There is time for refinement.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi, or physics, or the idea of multiverses and parallel universes.

One person found this helpful

debeehr

Fascinating alternate world

Reviewed in the United States on 8 September 2013

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I think I got this for free on kindle during a promotion or something. This is apparently the first book in the series "The Rose and the Entire." It deals with the Entire, an alternate dimension to our world based loosely on Chinese society and populated with a staggeringly diverse array of intelligent species culled from various dimensions. The Entire has been discovered by a corporation from our world that wishes to exploit it for faster-than-light travel, and so sends one of the first scientists who discovered it, Titus Quinn, across the dimensional divide to make contact. Quinn has his own agenda about what he's going to do when he gets to the other side, however, and it's his agenda that drives the rest of the narrative.

IMO the Entire was the best thing about Kenyon's book; there's a real sense of wonder to it and IMO she really should have set the entire book there. The stuff in our world just can't hold up to the fascinating Entire. Not only that, but her characterization comes across as a little flat; which isn't helped by the fact that as a iron-willed Crusading Widower who will Stop At Nothing to find his lost wife and daughter, her main character, Titus Quinn, is a character type that I'm rather tired of by now. (The whole Small Girl incident certainly didn't help, though it wasn't quite the dealbreaker for me that it was for some other readers.) I found this book an enjoyable enough read, but probably won't continue to the rest of the series.

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