The Promise of the Child

Toner’s ambitious debut, which opens the Amaranthine Spectrum series, is a thoughtful, languid space opera. The several 147th-century cultures on display are fascinating, but the pace is leisurely. The characters are also odd and only gradually revealed to be post-human, both physically and intellectually. For example, Lycaste, one of the many protagonists, seems at first mentally limited, and he changes colors much like an octopus to express emotions. He lives naked in a deceptively peaceful world where almost everything he needs quite literally grows on trees—including meat and simple utensils—or can be scavenged from the wreckage of the deep past. Meanwhile, the centuries-long reign of the immortal ruler of the Amaranthine Firmament is being contested by another immortal, the mysterious Aaron the Long-Life, and the entire decadent empire is under attack by a number of mortal post-human species. The pace picks up as the tale moves toward its end, but this is the kind of book that will most appeal to cerebral readers who can appreciate its characters’ many verbal interactions even when they delay the plot. (Sept.)