Rating: 
Summary: Great story, weak characterization
Review: I really liked this book, and I'm going to read the sequels; but I have one problem with it: the characters are a little wooden. For example, Zarvora is a cardboard cutout through most of the book; we know why she does what she does, but we don't really sympathize with it.What really brings the characterization problem into the foreground is the second time a trusted character turns traitor for no apparent reason. There's no buildup, no explanation after the fact, nothing; just a sudden discovery that he's been stabbing Zarvora in the back. It just doesn't ring true. Oh, and there's one other recurring irritation: the railroads are called "paralines", even though the railroad engineers have conciously modeled their work on surviving 19th- and 20th-century texts; there's no reason for them to have made up a new word...much less one that I keep misreading as "pralines". :-)
Rating:
Summary: There were too many neat ideas for me to actually dislike it
Review: I was a little torn on how to review this book. I can't even begin to tally the number of eye rolls it triggered, for a variety of reasons. The characters are not remotely believable, for the most part, only one or two even seem human, really. The writing, while pretty good in parts, occasionally degenerates momentarily into about 8th grade quality storytelling, with clunky scenes and lots of instances of "telling rather than showing". Quite a bit was predictable, and annoyingly, the characters seem to miss the predictable things that they would seem to have enough info to figure out themselves. There are sudden jumps in time, lots of pointless and uninspiring battle scenes (and some less pointless and more inspiring ones, to be fair), and something of a weird obsession with breasts. Despite all this, I find myself having begun volume two tonight. Despite all it's flaws, there are just too many interesting ideas here for me to resist, and I absolutely love the setting. I really wish they included a map...I'd like to see all the unfamiliar names superimposed upon the familiar geography. While this will never rank among my all time favorites, it kept me interested, which is really all I ask from a book. I'd give it a qualified recommendation to my friends...
Rating: 
Summary: Impressive series opening
Review: I'll own before I begin the review that SITGM isn't perfect-- there are more than a few coincidences and it can meander a bit. But these are really minor quarrels. An inventive and fresh look at a post-apocolyptic world which finally explains in a *believable* way how technology is lost. I loved the dueling librarians-- which managed to be funny and work at the same time. Dark, thought-provoking, moody. A should read book, if you like the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm, really not a novel
Review: I'm not quite sure why Sean McMullen is getting published. If that sounds harsh, imagine reading a book that reads like a French "New Wave" film. Isolated, incredible ideas that pull you in, and then it moves disjointedly to something totally unrelated. McMullen is very original. Ideas like the calculor, "the call" and a post-apocalypse society that makes due with no ability to make "electroforce" is quite a great world setting. Unfortunately, he seems unable to fill that world with characters that are believable, consistent, or even well-spoken. The dialogue is laughable. There are too many characters. They are introduced at odd times. The plot skips forward in time without any indication. Characters that have no purpose are brought in. That said, I would hire Sean McMullen in a second as an "idea man." He got some great ones. But I would bring in somebody else to fill out those ideas with a coherent plot, beliveable characters and a sense of structure. This book took me longer to finish than just about any that I've ever read, because I couldn't read more than a few paragraphs without getting so disoriented or bored that I had to put it down. And I was rarely engaged for more than a page. My advice to McMullen would be to become a consultant for Hollywood or the Australian film industry to "spice up" sci-fi and fantasy films, or to provide fresh ideas to tired settings. But to stay far away from any dialogue or character development tasks.
Rating:
Summary: Hmmm, really not a novel
Review: I'm not quite sure why Sean McMullen is getting published. If that sounds harsh, imagine reading a book that reads like a French "New Wave" film. Isolated, incredible ideas that pull you in, and then it moves disjointedly to something totally unrelated. McMullen is very original. Ideas like the calculor, "the call" and a post-apocalypse society that makes due with no ability to make "electroforce" is quite a great world setting. Unfortunately, he seems unable to fill that world with characters that are believable, consistent, or even well-spoken. The dialogue is laughable. There are too many characters. They are introduced at odd times. The plot skips forward in time without any indication. Characters that have no purpose are brought in. That said, I would hire Sean McMullen in a second as an "idea man." He got some great ones. But I would bring in somebody else to fill out those ideas with a coherent plot, beliveable characters and a sense of structure. This book took me longer to finish than just about any that I've ever read, because I couldn't read more than a few paragraphs without getting so disoriented or bored that I had to put it down. And I was rarely engaged for more than a page. My advice to McMullen would be to become a consultant for Hollywood or the Australian film industry to "spice up" sci-fi and fantasy films, or to provide fresh ideas to tired settings. But to stay far away from any dialogue or character development tasks.
Rating:
Summary: fascinating concept
Review: In 3931, technology is long gone, falling victim to the Great winter. The psychic Call dominates the Australian landscape. No one knows what it is or how to defeat it, but when the Call "sings" its siren song, any being not tied down or not living in the free city of Rochester is swept in its path. Once the Call has you, you mindlessly walk south into the sea to vanish forever. On the moon, machines are working on a long abandoned project to construct a colossal mirror that will reflect heat away from the Earth. That might have been needed during the alarming global warming threat, but in today's cooler climate will cause a pandemic disaster like has happened in the past. The Highliber Zarvora Cybeline is the last hope for humanity to stop the threats from above and below. She and her band of mathematical geniuses develop the Calculator as a means of controlling society and hopefully saving mankind from becoming as extinct as the dinosaur. However, the ruthless but brilliant Zarvora fails to calculate the threat from within mankind. With all the concepts and subplots that SOULS IN THE GREAT MACHINES contains, the story line should flop due to bloat. Instead the epic futuristic tale is a fast-paced, action-packed, and often satirical drama that captivates the reader. Zarvora is atypical of the heroes of SF because she seems human as she ruthlessly pursues her agenda while the Calculator appears so real that fans will believe in it. The audience will seek THE CENTURION'S EMPIRE and demand the publication of Sean McMullen's other works not published in North America. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting concepts but not a story
Review: In reading this book I got the sense that the author pulled some interesting concepts out of a hat and then struggled to tie them all together. The concepts although intriguing have rather flimsy scientific basis and are not very credible. I did not find the characters very believable or appealing. They were really very cliched and two-dimensional. Even though many of the lead characters were nominally female, they were really based on male models with a gender change. Unless you have a need for a mediocre science-fiction fix avoid this book.
Rating:
Summary: One Hundred Years of Australian Solitude!!
Review: It's about time someone in the Sci-Fi community wrote an original and interesting book. This book was a fantastic read, very thought provoking with a great cast of characters. The book is ambitious, and in the hands of a lesser author it might not have worked. But McMullen, unlike many of his Australian counterparts, pulls of this work magnificently. I can't wait to read the second book. Looking at some of the negative reviews here, I imagine that this book is a Love It Or Hate It type novel, so don't feel bad if you didn't get it. The novel is very reminiscent of books such as Destination Road, where the writing style and plot conveyances are not proscribed in a traditional fashion. If I had to compare McMullen's writing style, I would say it most like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and book has a real, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" feel about it. If you like a good book and are willing to try something a bit different, this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: One Hundred Years of Australian Solitude!!
Review: It's about time someone in the Sci-Fi community wrote an original and interesting book. This book was a fantastic read, very thought provoking with a great cast of characters. The book is ambitious, and in the hands of a lesser author it might not have worked. But McMullen, unlike many of his Australian counterparts, pulls of this work magnificently. I can't wait to read the second book. Looking at some of the negative reviews here, I imagine that this book is a Love It Or Hate It type novel, so don't feel bad if you didn't get it. The novel is very reminiscent of books such as Destination Road, where the writing style and plot conveyances are not proscribed in a traditional fashion. If I had to compare McMullen's writing style, I would say it most like Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and book has a real, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" feel about it. If you like a good book and are willing to try something a bit different, this book is for you.
Rating: 
Summary: Intense, unique epic
Review: Make no mistake about it--Souls in the Great Machine is a wonderful page turner. Although I have a few caveats, for the most part this novel kept me riveted. The worldbuilding is excellent. I felt wholly immersed in the world of paralines, the Call, and the Calculor (in essence, a modern computer mimiced by thousands of people doing the calculating functions rather than electronic processors). Too often in epics like this there is a monoculture, and everything is painted in Good Society vs. Evil Society. But everything, here, is blended in shades of gray. The heros have serious flaws and limitations, and you always at least understand the motivations of the villans, even if you dislike them. With that said, there were some places where I looked up from the book, quizzically, and had serious questions about the direction that McMullen was going. First of all--major characters CONTINUALLY kept bumping into each other, even after travelling great distances! This really stretched credibility at some points; I mean, come on, this is Australia, not Rhode Island. Secondly, the book has a weird take on slavery. I understand that the author is trying to depict a culture that is alien from our own, but...I don't know, it made me uncomfortable and squeamish at times when the underlying theme was "slavery is ok if it furthers the advance of society." I understand that this is fiction, and certainly the author is NOT advocating slavery, but--be warned. There is one point in particular where a particular group of slaves are released and they all say in essence, "No! We like being slaves! Take us back!" Now--would EVERY one of these particular slaves say this? I think not, but this is what McMullen writes. Kind of creepy if you ask me. Lastly (although this isn't a fault of the book per se), the jacket text has to be the absolute worst I ever read, and definitely cast a pallor in the beginning of reading the book. It was as if whoever wrote this jacket text had no clue what the book was about. Of course, I know some people ignore these altogether but I tend to use the jacket text as something of an anchor for the first few chapters of a novel. In some, I definitely recommend this book, and while I don't think the qualms I had with it will be shared with everyone, in my mind these flaws prevent this book from being rated a classic, a la Hyperion, Dune, or Book of the New Sun.
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