Graham P's Reviews > The Palace of Eternity

More Astounding Magazine than New Worlds, 'The Palace of Eternity' has so many wild ideas but little framework to hold them. You get the Egons - globes of spirit-light that provide the soul of the universe. Energy-sucking butterfly ships tearing at the fabric of interstellar travel. Bat-guided missiles, astral reincarnation, black sack-like bipedal aliens with mouths razored into their stomachs, and a mystical three-year-old who holds a secret power but comes across like a child actor in a sitcom pilot about divorce. Clearly, the sink overfloweth and Bob Shaw does little to connect these far-flung concepts. Cliche overpowers style, and the only characters that mean anything are not the humans, but their alien enemies, the Pythsyccan, foul creatures with a viscous appearance that betrays their clear & morally-clinical understanding of the universe. For all its bright and brief fireworks, I won't remember much of this jigsawed novel besides its spectacular cover by Leo and Diane Dillon (Ace edition). And I'm glad I didn't spend $50+ dollars on it lured out on the online market. Next Bob Shaw: Other Days Other Eyes.

A 'kind' 3 stars, more like a 2 1/2.