The Cusanus Game Book Review

The Cusanus Game

Wolfgang Jeschke

Macmillan-Tor/Forge

Pub Date: Oct 15 2013

3/5 Stars

 

             The Cusanus Game is like every movie or television show about hard science fiction you’ve ever seen.  There is a distant future where things have gone to hell.  There are time travelers, there are cross timelines, there is an oppressive government that is trying to purify the races.  There is an elitist church faction with seemingly unlimited funds and questionable motivations.  I was both surprised and disappointed by Cusanus Game.  I found the beginning of the book much too drawn out and the changes in perspective often lead to not knowing exactly what was going on for half or quarter of a chapter.  The book uses multiple points of view and even in those points of view there are some changes in perspective here and there.  This was very disorienting and while I certainly understand why the author did it.  This kind of thing should be seen as a lesson  to other authors who want to do this and perhaps teach them that when the voice changes it should be predictable or obvious from the chapter heading.  Such as George Martin’s names under his chapter numbers.

             I certainly appreciated what Cusanus Game was trying to achieve, I just feel that it took far too long to get there.  As someone who was writing about this book for review;  I had to continue reading even when the pacing slowed to a crawl.  Most readers won’t be in that position.