Book review: Helliconia Winter

Part three of the Helliconia trilogy by Brian Aldiss; now re-read after an interval of decades. I like it; it is well written and has a sweep and grandeur that most other books lack; the characters are real people.

Quick situational precis: the small sun orbits a big sun, leading to a Great Year of ~1.8kyr; we're heading into Great Winter; crops start to fail, the ice advances; the phagors grow bold.

We start with a young man joyfully arising after a long illness; leaving home and going into battle; the (northern) Sibornalese throw back the (tropical) Campanlatians; but then the settlement they've just defended is abandoned as no longer viable; and the returning army is itself destroyed because it may be carrying the Fat Death; and anyway, there are too many mouths to feed. So, I like that: the battle - nicely described - is multiply pointless and one gets a sense of people moving in the grip of inexorable forces.

The animals - hoxneys, yelk - are well imagined, as is the vegetation and the sweep of changes is managed much better than other efforts. The gossies are lovely, and the sinking into the Original Boulder which has become the Original Beholder, is excellent. The phagor equivalent of becoming keratinous, ditto.

The one obvious criticism I have is that the refuge of law-n-order is in their Arctic. It would be more plausible in the tropics. I really don't see surviving five centuries of darkness on fish as believable. Further, the natural thing to do for the northerners would be to invade the tropics.

Trivia: the Great Wheel is a lovely idea but it is hard to see how it could have been buildable.

The sub-plot of my-father-turns-out-to-be-the-oligarch feels unnecessary to me; it detracts attention from the sweep of the story. I'm also doubtful it could work. Also, if the oligarch is anonymous, why does it matter much if he is killed? Just replace him with another and don't tell anyone.

Oh yes and the twin sub-plots of Avernus and Gaia, which are both used to make commentaries on Helliconian and Earth mores, don't work for me; and the Gaian cod-philosophy would be better omitted.

This just makes it into my "top tier", for sweep-of-vision, quality of writing, and general inventiveness.