Transformation: A novel (The Transcendental Machine) Hardcover – June 20, 2017

TRANFORMATION (I'm going to drop the "A novel" for purposes of this review) concludes SFWA Grandmaster James Gunn's "The Transcendental Machine" trilogy begun in 2013 with TRANSCENDENTAL and continued in 2016's TRANSGALACTIC. The trilogy started on a high note but took a dip with TRANSGALACTIC. Unfortunately, the decline continues in the final novel, and a trilogy that started with a lot of promise ends in disappointment.Riley and Asha return have been through a lot. They were part of a voyage the purpose of which was to find the Transcendental Machine. They found that machine, stepped into it, and ended up on opposite sides of the galaxy while being transformed into something greater than they were--something Transcendent. They spent TRANSGALACTIC trying to find each other in order to unite against the Pedia, an AI which wanted the Transcendental Machine destroyed.In TRANSFORMATION, we learn that planets on the edge of the Federation have gone silent. Members of the Federation council agree to send Riley, Asha, Tordor (the Dorian leader of the Federation council, Earth's Pedia, and Adithya, a member of a group that is out to destroy the Pedia since they believe it has hampered the growth of humanity, out to the fringes of Federation space to investigate the cause of the planets going silent and report back if possible. Only Riley and Asha trust each other, while various permutations and combinations of the other three travelers do not trust each other--other than the Pedia, who is incapable of mistrust, I would suppose. Tordor has the galactic coordinates of the silent planets, and off the group goes to investigate.The novel turns into a travelogue, as the crew visits several planets, each one different than the last, with different societies, physical characteristics, stages of decline. Other than the first planet, on which everyone had died, the societies on the other planets had one thing in common: they had regressed in one manner or another, with the result being that each society had lost what knowledge they had, especially of the Federation. The travelers eventually determined the path of what they believed was an alien force destroying each civilization. And of course, the path leads directly to Federation Central. The result is a race to the next planet in the hope of encountering the malevolent force and stopping it before it continues its path of destruction.I don't think it's going to be much of a spoiler to say that they do indeed catch up with the invaders and have the confrontation they are looking for. While the result of that confrontation is, in essence, satisfying for the characters, it certainly isn't for the reader.This is a book--check that, a trilogy--of big ideas. The problem is that this book, and the trilogy as a whole, doesn't live up to the potential of those big ideas. The Transcendental Machine transformed those who went through it into something more, but that idea seemed to be abandoned, at the very least pushed into the background. It really didn't come into play in TRANSFORMATION. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying. Gunn reveals to the reader the nature of the invading force, but never follows up on it. There's a whole lot more that is begging to be said about the invaders and what the Federation should do about them. Instead, the story abruptly ends with no satisfying resolution to the problem.Another problem I had with the trilogy as a whole and TRANSFORMATION in particular is that there is no real thread tying all three books together. The trilogy is entitled "The Transcendental Machine", but while the titular machine plays a big part of the first novel, its influence in the later novels decreases to the point where it is almost non-existent. While Riley and Asha appear in all three novels and do play major parts in the narrative, it's not clear that the first book really has much of anything to do with the third.I enjoyed TRANSCENDENTAL, was disappointed in TRANSGALACTIC, and felt cheated by TRANSFORMATION, especially the ending. Overall, The Transcendental Machine is a disappointing work and quite possibly a sad end to the brilliant career of a giant in the field.

The third installment in Gunn's Transcental series met all my expectations. He is a science fiction master from the old days and it's great that he is still writing.

This was truly awful, and a grave disappointment after the excellent first book in this trilogy, even after the mediocre second book dimmed my expectations. The book is structured around three of the main characters from the prior books visiting a series of planets that were active members of the galactic community but had mysteriously gone silent. Even though these weren't previously unknown worlds, most of the "action" involves these characters overcoming situations that they would have been prepared for with a modicum of preparation. For example, on each new world they have to learn the local language before they can communicate. The resolution of the central mystery is profoundly uninteresting. And in a particularly lazy bit of writing, the novel ends with the characters (who have saved the galaxy but now have no way home) being saved by a deus ex machina that is both ridiculously contrived and completely boring. More than the cost of this book, I resent the small part of my life that I wasted reading it and hope that this review may save someone else from the same experience.

Great follow up to Transcendental

The trilogy started on a high note but took a drop with transgalactic big ideas felt cheated by transformation ending