Robinson, Kim Stanley

Average customer rating:

Climate Change Saga
A Good Read
Whew, What a Trip!
Better than its predecessor
Disappointing Finish to the Series

Sixty Days and Counting
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Fifty Degrees Below
Forty Signs of Rain
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The Years of Rice and Salt
The Last Colony

ASIN: 0553803131
Release Date: 2007-02-27

Book Description

By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world’s climate is far on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages, diminishing medical care, and vanishing species are just some of the consequences. The erratic winter the Washington, D.C., area is experiencing is another grim reminder of a global weather pattern gone haywire: bone-chilling cold one day, balmy weather the next.

But the president-elect remains optimistic and doesn’t intend to give up without a fight. A maverick in every sense of the word, Chase starts organizing the most ambitious plan to save the world from disaster since FDR–and assembling a team of top scientists and advisers to implement it.

For Charlie Quibler, this means reentering the political fray full-time and giving up full-time care of his young son, Joe. For Frank Vanderwal, hampered by a brain injury, it means trying to protect the woman he loves from a vengeful ex and a rogue “black ops” agency not even the president can control–a task for which neither Frank’s work at the National Science Foundation nor his study of Tibetan Buddhism can prepare him.

In a world where time is running out as quickly as its natural resources, where surveillance is almost total and freedom nearly nonexistent, the forecast for the Chase administration looks darker each passing day. For as the last–and most terrible–of natural disasters looms on the horizon, it will take a miracle to stop the clock . . . the kind of miracle that only dedicated men and women can bring about.

Customer Reviews:

Climate Change Saga.......2007-05-12

This is the first great work of what will surely be a new sub-genre. Its not alternate history, its predictive future. Robinson is a master of this set. His best-selling (brilliant) Mars trilogy followed much the same path before anyone was ready to accept that "terra-forming" may be something that we very much needed on earth. This trilogy, of which Sixty Days is the third, brings it all down to earth.

Robinson is a master story teller that is able to take macro-techinical ideas and put them to paper in a systematic way that makes them not only understnadable but altogether probable. On the downside, he tends to fall in love with his characters a bit too much. I am one that really enjoys the science of science-fiction. While Robinson delivers this, I sometimes find myself "fast-forwarding" through a page or two of excessive character building.

Which is not to suggest caution. This trilogy is very important reading.

A Good Read.......2007-05-12

I have enjoyed reading several of Mr. Robison's book. "Sixty Days and Counting" was another pleasure to read. I tend to diasagree with his conclusions that capitalism is the cause of all climate problems and socialism is the fix. That said, I still enjoyed getting to know the characters and Mr. Robinson's way of telling a tale.

Whew, What a Trip!.......2007-04-02

A bad one, sadly. I am very interested in climate change and global warming, but there is very little in the three book series which is new from a science perspective. Further, Robinson has a tendency to include all kinds of distracting details that do not add to the story line. He is not as bad (or as blatant) as Tom Clancy in this regard; but that is cold comfort.

Robinson's characters are another problem. We don't really care about them. And the romance storyline that runs through all three books is actually preposterous. In fact the actions of Frank Vanderwahl are totally unbelievable. A scientist lives in his car or in a treehouse in a park, spends most of his time with homeless people or chasing lost animals, has a romance with some sort of secret agent, and STILL works in the Executive Office Building right next to the White House? Come on! Such a person would never be allowed anywhere near a president of the United States! Further the news media would have field day with him.

As usual, Robinson's science is good. Furthermore, the problem of global warming is real. But I really tired of kayaking trips, backpacking trips, etc. And where were the stories of the people who did not survive climate change? To read Robinson's trilogy, you wouldn't think there were any.

Better than its predecessor.......2007-03-31

I liked this book much better than Fifty Degrees Below, the second book in the trilogy, because it concentrates more on the overall climate change crisis and what should be done about it. The problem with Fifty Degrees Below was that it spent too much time on the exploits and personal problems of climate scientist Frank Vanderwal and not enough on the climate change theme. Frank is still present of course but more as a spectator and doesn't seem to take the book over so much. I would have still liked to see the book concentrate more on the climate change science and less on the personal interactions though.

In Sixty Days and Counting, the gulf stream crisis seems to have been at least temporarily solved but there are still major problems with acidification of the oceans and sea level rise due to the imminent breakup of the West Antarctic ice sheet. A mass extinction is a definite possibility. Phil Chase has now been elected president and Frank and his boss at the NSF become part of his science advisory team while Charlie Quibler finds himself working extremely hard in a presidential advisory capacity and has less time than he would like to look after his family.

Phil Chase's inaugural speech incidentally is a classic and every aspiring US presidential candidate should read it. It's exactly what a US president should be saying in a time of crisis.

Mostly the book consists of Phil Chase's people attempting to engage other countries in massive engineering projects to help with the problems but there are frequent interludes involving Frank and Charlie. Frank is still trying to sort out his relationship with the mysterious woman introduced in the first book. There is also a fair bit of Buddhist philosophy from the Khembalis liberally sprinkled throughout which may have a point but was mostly just irritating to me.

In general, the scientist/politician interaction is handled very well and plays out exactly the way I think it would in real life. The only problem though is that Robinson is perhaps too optimistic and I can't see the type of international cooperation described in the book happening in the current environment.

In any case, politicians and other stakeholders in climate change would do well to read this book. Its philosophy may be our only hope. Four stars is probably a bit generous for the book itself but you can't argue with the overall theme.

Disappointing Finish to the Series.......2007-03-12

For Kim Stanley Robinson fans, like me, who have read ten of his novels, Sixty Days and Counting is a big disappointment. For Robinson himself, the book may be worse than that -- perhaps heralding a career crisis.

Robinson has two main problems. First, he has no new things to say. Second, for what he DOES want to say, the novel is not the best vehicle -- and so Sixty Days is awkward and ineffective, like flutist who blows upon a screwdriver.

But first, the good. Robinson is a great writer who combines powerful expressive skills with a passionate and insightful understanding of politics and philosophy. Moreover, he is a meticulous researcher who presents science by lifting the reader up, instead of dumbing the science down.

In addition, Sixty Days presents a detailed and compelling portrait of how a real President should behave, at a time when people are craving such a model. In fact, much of Sixty Days is simply political advice to a future Democratic Presidential administration. It is good advice, and that is perhaps the best that the book has to offer. You normally expect a Robinson book to offer loads of "Gee Whiz!" science, but because climate change has become so much more prominent in the public discussion than it was when this series began, most of what would have been fascinating science is now old hat.

Except for the politics, and without the science, Sixty Days is quite empty. The book might best be seen as a victory lap, or perhaps a "greatest hits" compendium from all his prior work. The first clue that Robinson was more interested in re-hashing prior work than introducing something new came when he started gratuitously recycling major character names like "Frank" and "Spencer" from the Mars series. But it turns out that nearly everything is recycled. We see again an uncontrolled experiment involving genetically modified lichen (as from Red Mars), a sexually loaded look at women's softball (as from Pacific Edge), home-made designer drugs (as from Gold Coast), primitivist living in an urban environment (as from Blue Mars), accounts of the Bardo (as from Rice and Salt), and of course all the themes from Forty Signs and Fifty Degrees, pounded endlessly.

Deemed by Robinson his "Science in the Capital" series, this book might originally have been intended to explore the possibility that the world would be better if scientists took over politics. Sixty Days is the culmination of this fantasy, in which scientists fill the White House, are amply funded, and drive all the key policies. However, a serious look at the potential pros and cons of a scientocracy this book is not.

Missing from Sixty Days is plot. The narratives carefully built in the prior books, such as election fraud and violence emanating from secret government programs, simply murmur in the background of Sixty Days, until suddenly resolved in a few pages (pp. 353-356, don't blink), without much detail about what was actually happening or how it was ended. The book's other conflicts are resolved as easily -- without giving away too much, the boy gets the girl, nobody dies, and everyone lives happily ever after. Robinson appears impatient to get to the movie-like ending, which features scene after scene of teary reconciliation.

Sometimes the passion comes through. What Robinson really wants to talk about is why primitivism is the best way of life, why outdoorsy people are the only completely realized humans, why rock climbing is so interesting, and why Californians should be infinitely more snobby about their state than New Yorkers could ever be about New York. These themes interrupt Sixty Days so frequently, and at such length, that they essentially hijack whatever the book was trying to be.

I would like Robinson to go back to his word processor and give Sixty Days a fair shot, dispensing with the kayaking, backpacking, rock climbing, and feral life. That book would be more like a novel -- but unsatisfying, I suspect, to Robinson. And thus we are left with this question: if Kim Stanley Robinson's main priority is to preach primitivism and impress upon us the virtues of the California landscape and outdoor sports, does he really want to be in the business of writing novels, or is there a better way to communicate this?

Average customer rating:

Mediocre at best.
Forty Signs of Rain
Narrative Excellence
All about Scientists, Science, and Global Warming
Forty Signs of Rain

Forty Signs of Rain
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Fifty Degrees Below
Sixty Days and Counting
The Years of Rice and Salt
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ASIN: 0553585800
Release Date: 2005-07-26

Book Description

The bestselling author of the classic Mars trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salt returns with a riveting new trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of global warming as they are played out in our nation’s capital—and in the daily lives of those at the center of the action. Hauntingly realistic, here is a novel of the near future that is inspired by scientific facts already making headlines.

When the Arctic ice pack was first measured in the 1950s, it averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year.

It’s an increasingly steamy summer in the nation’s capital as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler cares for his young son and deals with the frustrating politics of global warming. Charlie must find a way to get a skeptical administration to act before it’s too late—and his progeny find themselves living in Swamp World. But the political climate poses almost as great a challenge as the environmental crisis when it comes to putting the public good ahead of private gain.

While Charlie struggles to play politics, his wife, Anna, takes a more rational approach to the looming crisis in her work at the National Science Foundation. There a proposal has come in for a revolutionary process that could solve the problem of global warming—if it can be recognized in time. But when a race to control the budding technology begins, the stakes only get higher. As these everyday heroes fight to align the awesome forces of nature with the extraordinary march of modern science, they are unaware that fate is about to put an unusual twist on their work—one that will place them at the heart of an unavoidable storm.

With style, wit, and rare insight into our past, present, and possible future, this captivating novel propels us into a world on the verge of unprecedented change—in a time quite like our own. Here is Kim Stanley Robinson at his visionary best, offering a gripping cautionary tale of progress—and its price—as only he can tell it.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

When the Arctic ice pack was first measured in the 1950s, it averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year.

It's an increasingly steamy summer in the nation's capital as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler cares for his young son and deals with the frustrating politics of global warming. Charlie must find a way to get a skeptical administration to act before it's too late—and his progeny find themselves living in Swamp World. But the political climate poses almost as great a challenge as the environmental crisis when it comes to putting the public good ahead of private gain.

While Charlie struggles to play politics, his wife, Anna, takes a more rational approach to the looming crisis in her work at the National Science Foundation. There a proposal has come in for a revolutionary process that could solve the problem of global warming—if it can be recognized in time. But when a race to control the budding technology begins, the stakes only get higher. As these everyday heroes fight to align the awesome forces of nature with the extraordinary march of modern science, they are unaware that fate is about to put an unusual twist on their work—one that will place them at the heart of an unavoidable storm.

With style, wit, and rare insight into our past, present, and possible future, this captivating novel propels us into a world on the verge of unprecedented change—in a time quite like our own. Here is Kim Stanley Robinson at his visionary best, offering a gripping cautionary tale of progress—and its price—as only he can tell it.

Customer Reviews:

Mediocre at best........2007-06-23

I found the slow pace hard to get through. It seemed like it took forever to get anywhere and when it did there just wasn't much for me to get excited about. I felt mislead in that the book is shelved in the Sci-Fi section of bookstore but this is far from being sci-fi. I was looking for a good apocalyptic story but instead got a lot of political ramblings which were a little misguided.

Forty Signs of Rain.......2007-06-09

I feel like I really ought to finish this book before I say anything.... but gee, do I HAVE to? It's like pulling teeth.

Let's be brutally honest, Stanley's strength is the story, plot, and his imagination. Literary pinache just ain't there - never was. Not in the same league as SF writers like Gibson, or Simmons. But his stories CAN be a lot fun. I mean, the Mars Trilogy was a real triumph! But if the story sort of stinks, (and I don't have a problem with his political-scientific perspective) then the bland writing becomes very conspicuous.

So, I wasted my money, but worse, my expectations were dashed. And some time was wasted.

Narrative Excellence.......2007-05-13

Kim Stanley Robinson has mastered the art of producing fully three dmensional characters. Even the minor characters appear as fully vivid human beings.

The scenes are described with a vitality that gives you the impression of experiencing the environment first hand. The air is vibrant and alive with the fragrance of the moment os Robinson describes an Autumn scene.

The narrative is a real page turner. It is difficult to close th book and turn off the lights to go to sleep.

All about Scientists, Science, and Global Warming .......2007-04-05

"Forty Signs of Rain" is what I suppose could be called a "didactic" novel in that the author tries to teach us something -- in this case the imminent danger and consequences of global warming. Didactic novels have a tendency to be wooden. Robinson avoids that problem with some interesting characters and situations: a stay-at-home dad and his hilariously recalcitrant child and a mountain-climbing scientist and his rather hopeless love life.

The story concerns several scientists in Washington DC and San Diego who are working on bio-chemistry research. We perceive them in action in the lab and in the bureaucratic corridors of the National Science Foundation. The theme is that -- their work to the contrary -- the politicians are not ready to accept the reality of global warming. Robinson tosses in some mini-essays on science to make sure that we get his point. The novel sort of drifts along but near the end we get -- suprise! suprise! -- an environmental disaster just like the scientists have been predicting.

I enjoyed the book, although the didactic was a bit heavy, the forays into Buddhism boring and unnecessary, and the story sometimes seemed rudderless. This is the first installment of what will be a trilogy, or longer. I doubt that I will continue reading the next installments -- although if I find myself bored and sitting around waiting for a delayed airplane I would probably choose a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson before that of most best-selling authors.

Smallchief

Forty Signs of Rain.......2007-03-17

I purchased this for a reading group that was assigned the topic, "Global Warming". It is an interesting take on what the author sees as possible damage from global warming in a few years time. As I understand it, the book is the first of a series of three books. I think I'll see if the library has the next one.

Average customer rating:

Great follow-up
Installment 2 in the prophetic global warming disaster series
Great premise but poor execution
Poorly written waste of time
Followup to the Critically Acclaimed Forty Days of Rain

Fifty Degrees Below
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Similar Items:

Forty Signs of Rain
Sixty Days and Counting
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Icehenge
The Years of Rice and Salt

ASIN: 0553585819
Release Date: 2007-01-30

Book Description

Bestselling, award-winning, author Kim Stanley Robinson continues his groundbreaking trilogy of eco-thrillers–and propels us deeper into the awesome whirlwind of climatic change. Set in our nation’s capital, here is a chillingly realistic tale of people caught in the collision of science, technology, and the consequences of global warming–which could trigger another phenomenon: abrupt climate change, resulting in temperatures...

When the storm got bad, scientist Frank Vanderwal was at work, formalizing his return to the National Science Foundation for another year. He’d left the building just in time to help sandbag at Arlington Cemetery. Now that the torrent was over, large chunks of San Diego had eroded into the sea, and D.C. was underwater.

Shallow lakes occupied the most famous parts of the city. Reagan Airport was awash and the Potomac had spilled beyond its banks. Rescue boats dotted the saturated cityscape. Everything Frank and his colleagues in the halls of science and politics feared had culminated in this massive disaster. And now the world looked to them to fix it.

Whatever Frank can do, now that he is homeless, he’ll have to do from his car. He’s not averse to sleeping outdoors. Years of research have made him hyperaware of his status as just another primate. That plus his encounter with a Tibetan Buddhist has left him resolved to live a more authentic life.

Hopefully, this will prepare him for whatever is to come....

For even as D.C. bails out from the flood, a more extreme climate change looms. With the melting of the polar ice caps shutting down the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, another Ice Age could be imminent. The last time it happened, eleven thousand years ago, it took just three years to start.

Once again Kim Stanley Robinson uses his remarkable vision, trademark wry wit, and extraordinary insight into the complexity between man and nature to take us to the brink of disaster–and slightly beyond.

From the Hardcover edition.

Download Description

I

PRIMATE in FOREST

Nobody likes Washington D.C. Even the people who love it don’t like it. Climate atrocious, traffic worse: an ordinary midsized gridlocked American city, in which the plump white federal buildings make no real difference. Or rather they bring all the politicians and tourists, the lobbyists and diplomats and refugees and all the others who come from somewhere else, often for suspect reasons, and thereafter spend their time clogging the streets and hogging the show, talking endlessly about their nonexistent city on a hill while ignoring the actual city they are in. The bad taste of all that hypocrisy can’t be washed away even by the food and drink of a million very fine restaurants. No—bastion of the world government, locked vault of the World Bank, fortress headquarters of the world police; Rome, in the age of bread and circuses—no one can like that.

So naturally when the great flood washed over the city, wreaking havoc and leaving the capital spluttering in the livid heat of a wet and bedraggled May, the stated reactions were varied, but the underlying subtext often went something like this: HA HA HA. For there were many people around the world who felt that justice had somehow been served. Capital of the world, thoroughly trashed: who wouldn’t love it?

Of course the usual things were said by the usual parties. Disaster area, emergency relief, danger of epidemic, immediate restoration, pride of the nation, etc. Indeed, as capital of the world, the president was firm in his insistence that it was everyone’s patriotic duty to support rebuilding, demonstrating a brave and stalwart response to what he called “this act of climactic terrorism.” “From now on,” the president continued, “we are at a state of war with nature. We will work until we have made this city even more like it was than before.”

But truth to tell, ever since the Reagan era the conservative (or dominant) wing of the Republican party had been coming to Washington explicitly to destroy the federal government. They had talked about “starving the beast,” but flooding would be fine if it came to that; they were flexible, it was results that counted. And how could the federal government continue to burden ordinary Americans when its center of operations was devastated? Why, it would have to struggle just to get back to normal! Obviously the flood was a punishment for daring to tax income and pretending to be a secular nation. One couldn’t help thinking of Sodom and Gomorrah, the prophecies specified in the Book of Revelation, and so on.

Meanwhile, those on the opposite end of the political spectrum likewise did not shed very many tears over the disaster. As a blow to the heart of the galactic imperium it was a hard thing to regret. It might impede the ruling caste for a while, might make them acknowledge, perhaps, that their economic system had changed the climate, and that this was only the first of many catastrophic consequences. If Washington was denied now that it was begging for help, that was only what it had always done to its environmental victims in the past. Nature bats last—poetic justice—level playing field—reap what you sow—rich arrogant bastards—and so on.

Thus the flood brought pleasure to both sides of the aisle. And in the days that followed Congress made it clear in their votes, if not in their words, that they were not going to appropriate anything like the amount of money it would take to clean up the mess. They said it had to be done; they ordered it done; but they did not fund it.

The city therefore had to pin its hopes on either the beggared District of Columbia, which already knew all there was to know about unfunded mandates from Congress, to the extent that for years their

Customer Reviews:

Great follow-up.......2007-05-15

This was an excellent book and a great follow-up to 40 Signs of Rain. Can't wait for the last in the trilogy!

Installment 2 in the prophetic global warming disaster series.......2007-05-13

This is Robinson's second book in his global warming trilogy. Here in the real world, the disaster scenario from book 1 has already come to pass, albeit in New Orleans rather than in Washington [Forty Signs of Rain]. In book 2 [Fifty Degrees Below] the lead characters are government scientists and minority party politicians who are clearly disturbed by America's self-destructive response to global warming. We treat it like the national debt and Social Security: we leave the problem for our kids to solve in 30 years. As with the Mars trilogy, the amount of background research that went into these books is staggering. At the same time, the science is easy to understand and very interesting. This is essentially a story about science trying to save the future of the world from a Washington political establishment owned by Big Oil. These books are certainly entertaining and interesting, but I believe that they are also intended as a wake up call.

Great premise but poor execution.......2007-04-04

If there is a subject that is capable of capturing the imagination these days, it's the impact of global warming on the climate, landscape and people. That is the premise of the second installment of a global warming trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Unfortunately, the author chose to tell this story from the perspective of bureaucrat/scientist Frank Vanderwal, who can best be described as a human yawn. With the world climate falling apart around him, Frank sets an alarm for 5 pm as a reminder to avoid working late, lest he put in overtime solving the global warming crisis. He also spends an extraordinary amount of time thinking about his (completely boring) love life instead of work. The plot goes virtually nowhere for the first two-thirds of the overly-long book, with dozens of pages often going by that contribute absolutely nothing to the story or character development. All in all, this book was a disappointment to me.

Poorly written waste of time.......2007-03-17

Is is amusing how many people are giving this more than one star simply because of its trendy subject. Global warming aside, this is quite possibly the most poorly written, contrived and boring novel ever committed. Stupid plot, unbelieveable characters and actions. Living like a forest primate? I couldn't take any more after the ridiculous frisbee runner sequence. Idiotic.

Followup to the Critically Acclaimed Forty Days of Rain.......2007-01-25

Fifty Degrees Below continues the story begun in Robinson's 2004 book Forty Signs of Rain. This author is well versed in the finer points of series writing (all his previous successes have been series), and the plot continues seamlessly from the first book to the second, with enough stylistic differences to make it interesting--at least for the first two-thirds or so.

In Forty Signs of Rain, Washington, D.C. was hammered by the storm of the century, resulting in a flooded Potomac and an underwater capital. In the sequel, the world sees more evidence of global warming, as the Gulf Stream shuts down in response to melting polar ice caps and the earth enters a new ice age.

Anyone who has seen 2004's blockbuster movie The Day after Tomorrow is familiar with the theory that the first real sign that global warming has reached its tipping point will be record cold temperatures. Robinson apparently believes Al Gore on this point. But he's a good enough writer to make the rather alarmist theory seem menacing and plausible, not to mention entertaining.

Where the first book in the series focused primarily on Charlie and Anna Quibbler and their lives in the political world, Fifty Degrees Below is primarily the story of Frank Vanderwal, another character from the first book and a friend of Charlie and Anna's. We see Frank's new life in the aftermath of the big storm, including his problems finding a place to live now that he's decided to stay in the D.C. area instead of moving back to California, as he planned to do at the end of Forty Signs. We also see a sinister conspiracy unfolding, as the identity of Frank's mysterious elevator make-out partner is finally uncovered and a plot to neutralize the National Science Foundation's political influence is set in motion.

As with the first book, the most interesting aspect of Robinson's writing is the character development, which draws heavily on scientific studies having to do with supposedly evolved social patterns and behaviors. In the first book Frank thought a lot about the so-called "prison game study," wherein prisoners were given rewards or punishments depending on how they interacted with each other in positive or negative ways, and he concluded that the "always generous" lifestyle yields the most consistently positive results (though only when interacting with others utilizing the same strategy). In this book Frank spends a lot of time reflecting on man's relationship to nature and how humanity's millennia-long struggle with the elements has shaped our perceptions and reactions to nature and each other. It's very interesting, if a bit pedantic, and if you can get past the purely secular nature of the presented philosophy, you can learn quite a bit about the author's theories of sociological evolution.

The book's weakness is that the author focuses so much on the science behind the plot that the plot itself is at risk of neglect. Though it's interesting to see how Frank, living outdoors by choice, survives the bitterly cold winter, it would be more so if the cold temperatures were incorporated into a literary climax rather than simply an interesting scientific development. With the cold snap coming halfway through the book, the last hundred pages have nothing to carry the reader through other than more of the same quasi-scientific ruminations. Still, there are some dramatic moments, such as the Quibblers and Frank witnessing the final destruction of the island of Khembalung, threatened in the first book by rising sea levels.

This book contains more sexual content than the first one, and there is enough profanity to seem realistic, given the characters' secular worldview. For some Christian readers, the more offensive content may be the author's apparent support of evolution and unintelligent design. The primary religious references in the book are of Tibetan Buddhism; God as a Creator is not present.

The book would be better if it were more of a story and less of a science course (liberal-leaning science at that). Still, the author's skill in making even dry scientific theory seem interesting and compelling (for a while) make it a worthwhile read.

Average customer rating:

Slow paced journey runs out of steam
Ruined by one sentence!!
The Years of Rice and Salt
ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES
Robinson's Pedantic Tendencies Overcome Him

The Years of Rice and Salt
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Forty Signs of Rain
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ASIN: 0553580078
Release Date: 2003-06-03

Amazon.com

Award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them. How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics.

At the heart of the story are fundamental questions: what is the purpose of life and death? Are we eternal? Do our choices matter? The particular achievement of this book is that it weaves these threads into a story that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. This is a highly recommended, challenging, and ambitious work. --Roz Genessee

Book Description

With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author KIM STANLEY ROBINSON boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know....

The Years of Rice and Salt

It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur–the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe’s population was destroyed. But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been–a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of rice and salt.

This is a universe where the first ship to reach the New World travels across the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. This is a universe where the Industrial Revolution is triggered by the world’s greatest scientific minds–in India. This is a universe where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions and Christianity is merely a historical footnote.

Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson renders an immensely rich tapestry. Rewriting history and probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power, and even love on such an Earth. From the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Western Hemisphere, from the age of Akbar to the present and beyond, here is the stunning story of the creation of a new world.

From the Hardcover edition.

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With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know....

It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur -- the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed?

This is a look at the history that could have been -- a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of rice and salt.

This is a universe where the first ship to reach the New World travels across the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. This is a universe where the Industrial Revolution is triggered by the world's greatest scientific minds -- in India. This is a universe where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions and Christianity is merely a historical footnote.

Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson renders an immensely rich tapestry. Rewriting history and probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power, and even love on such an Earth.

From the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Western Hemisphere, from the age of Akbar to the present and beyond, here is the stunning story of the creation of a new world.

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"Hugo winner Robinson follows three characters over seven centuries on an alternate Earth in which Islam and Buddhism are the dominant religions... Blessed with moments of wry and gentle beauty as friends and antagonists rediscover each other under different guises in exotically dangerous locales."    KIRKUS REVIEWS

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Customer Reviews:

Slow paced journey runs out of steam.......2007-06-08

For the most part this is a well written story of an alternate history where Europe is taken off the map figuratively. Made even better by the device of 3 main characters and some minor characters reincarnating through history. The novel focuses primarily on China and Islam, i.e. the middle east but some time is given to the natives of North America becoming a power unto their own and the influence of India. For the majority of the book it is a very interesting revealing of how things may have gone.

Even the best of the book though is slow-paced and for the final portions the pace becomes glacial. Progress stops, history does not move forward very much and page after page is devoted to speechifying by two of the main characters in one incarnation or another. In this way the book just runs out of steam and stops. A tightening up of these sections and showing progress up through the space age would probably have made for a better novel.

Was it worth reading? Yes.
Did it require effort? Yes.
Was it enjoyable? Mostly.

I feel happy and mostly rewarded that I finished the work, but I would not consider it to be pleasure reading. If the premise intrigues you give it a shot but be prepared that getting through might be a bit of work.

Ruined by one sentence!!.......2007-02-26

I was entranced by this novel--up to the section "Nsara" and the final section, "The First Years", although it began to tire me in the chapter called "Widow Kang" where I noticed the accumulation of certain historical and political assumptions that seemed dubious.

Robinson quite obviously relied on China-centered historians, and is far too complimentary to both Medieval East Asian Buddhism and Tokugawa Japan. He should have studied Korean historians like Lee Ki-Baik for an entirely different perspective on East Asian and Buddhist history--and learn that the Buddhist monks formed a sinister, self-serving political party dedicated to its own accumulation of wealth, and in Japan, Korea and China to military conquest. Nor did the Chinese win the late 16th century war with Japan; Korean military leader Yi Sun Shin did. If China managed to come out of its self-imposed isolationism to resume trading I wish the author had given reasons for it. Discovering America won't suffice. Chances are that in our world several Chinese traders made occasional landfall up and down the West Coast, but founded no colonies. In fact, I thought Robinson's understanding of colonialism was not as convincing as L. Sprague de Camp's in THE WHEELS OF IF, written over sixty years ago.

Robinson's choice of the Iroquois League (Hodenosaunee) as a democratic(!) unifier of North America, while barely possible, is implausible. Read Allan Eckart's weighty biography of Shawnee leader Techumseh, A SORROW IN THE HEART, and you will learn the low opinion of the Iroquois League by surrounding tribes who suffered from the League's self-serving collusion with white settlers. The other tribes, led by the Shawnee, called them "Snakes." To bring the independent Shawnee into the Hodenosaunee confederacy during the 18th century, even as newcomers, seemed ridiculous. In fact, the "-saunee" of Hodenosaunee means "people", so that the Shawnee, who scattered the same word from western Pennsylvania as far south as the Sewanee River, were the original "people" who needed no qualifier like "Hodeno-" ("of the long house").

What happened to the Mayans and Aztecs in this book, other than an occasional brief mention? What of the Native American Mound Builders, Pueblos, and the Pacific Northwest Haida, Tlingit and related tribes--all of them highly structured agricultural societies. Were most of these so easily assimilated by the Hodenosaunee? I doubt it, even if we assume, since British Columbian art shows affinities with Polynesia and coastal Asia, that China or Japan colonized the whole West Coast up to Alaska. As others have asked, what happened to the Polynesians? Where did the Australian aborigines go--a people who are closely related to the Dravidians of Robinson's high Travancori culture?

The 14th century in Europe is my specialty area, and for the previous two centuries Europe had been enjoying a Renaissance--not only in agriculture but in physical science (especially optics, mechanics and prime movers), in vernacular literature, and in the pre-plague 14th century, in revolutionary political thinking, like Marsiglio of Padua's treatise on representative democracy, DEFENSOR PACIS, and William of Ockham's even more radical DIALOGUS. Could all these important writings disappear? That seems doubtful, considering the eagerness of European intellectuals to read Islamic texts. Yet there is no mention of any European written material except perhaps the Latin texts of chant in "Nsara".

As other reviewers inquired, why are there no Jewish protagonists? The Ashkenazi might have expired in Europe, but most of the Sephardim probably would have lived and they were People of the Book, protected by many Islamic scholars and rulers. I kept expecting European Christians to reappear somewhere; they too were People of the Book and no longer dangerous. Since a pocket of Caucasoids survived in the Orkneys--why not also in the Azores or Canaries, on isolated Baltic and North Sea islets? Laying aside the unlikelihood that disease, whether bubonic plague or anthrax, would single out fair-complected people, if 10% surivived we could expect the far north from Russia to Iceland to be rapidly repopulated by persons of fairer skin--even if they were reduced to the stone age. The Saami apparently survived. Robinson evidently doesn't realize that before our era of processed vitamins, the easy assimilation of Vitamin D through fair skin gave light-colored people a survival advantage in the cloud-covered far north, where darker ones succumbed to rickets--just as dark-skinned people prevailed in the tropics because, before artificial light and air conditioning, pigmentation that blocks lethal overexposure to sunlight and UV was very useful.

And that brings me to Robinson's strange avoidance of Africa. The first chapter seemed promising, introducing us to an interesting, rebellious protagonist from East Africa, and Robinson seems to have admired Moshesh (more correctly, Moshweshwe), the brilliant, unifying king of the Basotho, although he does not understand the category prefix system of the Bantu languages. But what happened to the powerful late-Medieval West African nations--Mali? Ghana? Ife? Benin? Senegal?--many of them protected from slavers by having converted to Islam? Without Portuguese raids they should have thrived, as they had been doing. We need to remember that the University of Timbuktu in black Africa predates any university in Europe, or for that matter, in Asia.

I could have accepted the author's neglect of Africa, but the entire book collapsed for me on page 650 in the most racist statement I've seen in a mass-market novel since I read Buchan's PRESTER JOHN sixty years ago! This is when Madame Suriri, the Zott (Gypsy) fortune-teller goes into a lecture on reincarnation that sounds a lot like Robinson preaching his own themes. She ends by saying, ". . .on the streets of the city I see Africans, or other peoples from across the sea, who are very clearly more animal than human." I was shocked. A decent editor surely would have noticed that, so it is probably no error caused by text omission.

How anyone could read such nonsense and ever again take any of Robinson's opinions seriously, is beyond me. Although well-written and interesting, even gripping in certain chapters, this book is primarily a soap-box and megaphone advertisement of Kim Stanley Robinson's opinions!

The Years of Rice and Salt.......2007-01-19

The Years of Rice and Salt is one of Robinson's best efforts. I enjoyed it much more than 40 Signs of Rain.

ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES.......2006-12-27

I bought the book because of the premise, and the historical viewpoints were nice, too. But what I enjoyed most was the stories of reincarnation - humans struggling over several lifetimes to better themselves and the world while constantly living in amnesic ignorance of their past efforts. It really made me think how I can better my own self in this lifetime. I'll admit, I'm no huge Kim Stanley Robinson fan. His Mars Trilogy felt like a never ending sterile description of geographic locations. But this is a book I will own forever and enjoy giving as a gift.

Robinson's Pedantic Tendencies Overcome Him.......2006-11-13

It's not much of a stretch to say that the premise of this book is, to put it mildly, fascinating. The Black Death, getting just a tiny bump from Fate, or God, or Satan, or you-pick-it, actually wipes out Europe, allowing the Eastern and Middle Eastern civilizations to evolve and move in more or less independently over the next 500 or so years. This is a tremendous, thought-provoking starting point, and Robinson deserves credit for the breadth and scope of his vision, and the attempt to realize his vision.

Additionally, Robinson's framing device--that of a group of souls that travel through lifetimes together--is truly fascinating, at least to me, and helps draw the reader into and through the various lifetimes more easily.

And yet, there is too much here that just doesn't work. For one, as many have pointed out, the story bogs down severely in the last quarter of the book, which seems to become merely a platform for the author to sound off on topics near to his heart, rather than telling his story (a problem that all Robinson's work suffers from to a degree, in my opinion).

For another, I have to say that while I understand some of Robinson's choices from a dramatic perspective, from a historical and developmental perspective, I find it *extremely* difficult to believe that a civilization that developed from East to West (as it were) would end up at almost the same technological place that we are in now, in the same space of time. Damascas had a street lit by electric lights 1000 years ago; could not an empty Europe, and a lack of pressure forced against it by Crusaders, have allowed a Rennaisance to blossom 200 years sooner, with all that that would imply? Is it reasonable to think that the 20th century was ordained to have a World War, no matter what had happened in Europe during the Plague Years? And so on. The very close correspondences between our world and the world of the book from a development standpoint just made it too difficult for me to sustain my disbelief.

Also, as others have noted, many of the characters were not very well developed. In a book organized like this, it is inevitable that some sections will be more "alive" than others (I found the sections taking place in central Asia during a Renassaince-like period particularly fascinating), but given that these characters are all supposed to share characteristics from section to section, it was surprising to me that I would enjoy spending time with a character in one section, and then find him (or her), comparitively, dull as dishwater in a following section.

And finally, the almost total absence of various groups of peoples on the world stage is, I think, inexplicable (not to mention unexplained). Africa would *still* have only produced slaves without colonizing European powers? Nothing would have happened in Australia? The Polynesians were travelling all over the South Pacific between 1000 C.E. and 1800 C.E.; they didn't develop any civilizations *at all* on, say, New Ireland or New Zealand or Hawaii with no Europeans to rob them of their natural resources? And as one myself, I find it absolutely astonishing that Robinson did not once address Islam's (arguably) largest bugaboo--the Jews. Did the Jews disappear during the Black Death as well? Or, given that they are/were Middle Eastern in character, did they survive and cause the usual amount of trouble by their perpetual resistance to assimilatation? (Now wouldn't *that* have made a fascinating tale? What if the *Jews* had managed to repopulate Europe before the Muslims got there? 20 million Jews spread throughout a non-Christian Europe, coming into contact with Muslims for the first time after a couple hundred years? *That's* a story waiting to be written, baby!)

Overall, I cannot recommend this book. Which is a shame, because the premise, parts of various sections, and some of the characters stayed with me for a long time after I put it down. But overall, my frustrations with the books negatives outweighed my enjoyments of its positives.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Bantam Classics)

Average customer rating:

Not quite what I was expecting
Better than all the movie versions
An Enjoyable and Charming Read that has Earned its Place Among the Classics
SF AudioBook...it rules
Vernes' Vision of a Subterranean World

Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Bantam Classics)
Jules Verne
Manufacturer: Bantam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Scholastic Classics)
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ASIN: 0553213970
Release Date: 2006-04-25

Book Description

As irascible scholar Professor Lidenbrock pores over a rare Icelandic tome, he discovers a scrap of parchment with cryptic writing tucked away between the ancient pages. And when his nephew, Axel, finally breaks the writing’s secret code, he learns of a hidden underground passageway that may lead deep into the center of the earth.

Despite Axel’s misgivings, he and the obsessed Lidenbrock travel to Iceland and, with a guide named Hans, set out on a perilous expedition in the course of which the trio will encounter an extraordinary new world of extinct yet living species, an underground sea, and gigantic, battling monsters.

Filled with the authentic detail and startling immediacy Jules Verne labored to bring to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth is the fantastic adventure that secured Verne’s reputation as the premier writer of speculative fiction.

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The "Voyages Extraordinaires" of M. Jules Verne deserve to be made widely known in English-speaking countries by means of carefully prepared translations. Witty and ingenious adaptations of the researches and discoveries of modern science to the popular taste, which demands that these should be presented to ordinary readers in the lighter form of cleverly mingled truth and fiction, these books will assuredly be read with profit and delight, especially by English youth.

Customer Reviews:

Not quite what I was expecting.......2006-11-21

A Journey to the Center of the Earth did not turn out to be quite what I was expecting; I can't say quite why, however, because I'm not entirely certain what those expectations were. I hadn't read the novel previously, but I thought I knew what it was about. As a result, I think I was expecting more drama than Verne delivers, or perhaps I simply wanted the book to be more than it is. Most likely I was conflating Verne's novel with other texts: movie adaptations of the novel itself, for instance, in which considerably more in the way of actual antagonism--as opposed to the perils of nature itself--occurs; or hollow world stories, in which entire societies thrive on the inside of the earth's crust beneath the rays of a sun that lies at the planet's center. A Journey to the Center of the Earth is neither of these things, of course, and if I underwent any disillusionment, it was purely of my own making.

Understood on its own terms, the novel is, at the very least, interesting, but, truthfully, not much happens. The narrator's speculations (as well as his fevered dreams during times of travail) suggest a much wilder adventure than actually takes place. Much of the action involves the trio of explorers stumbling around in caverns and tunnels, and much of the impediment takes the form of hunger, dehydration, or equipment loss. In fact, as best I can judge, they really don't approach anywhere near the center of the earth, although they do travel quite a distance laterally before resurfacing.

The real joy is the interactions between the characters, primarily the trio of protagonists: the young narrator, his scientist uncle, and their silent, idiosyncratic guide. The expedition leader is an archetypal nutty professor, whose words and actions seem nonsensical to those not privy to his thought processes; his nephew, the narrator, alternates between sheer wonder at his surroundings, and sheer terror at the likelihood of spending the rest of his short life surrounded by them; Hans, the guide, says almost nothing but performs his duties in an exemplary manner, and insists on being paid weekly rather than all at once, even while under the earth (a square deal, in his eyes). Their interactions with each other, and with the variety of Icelandic folk they encounter on their way to the volcano which is their means of ingress, are wittily and cleverly depicted. These character moments are the high point of the novel; one wonders how much of their clever interplay originates with Verne and how much is an invention of the translator (who, in this edition, remains sadly anonymous). Whether the novel's tone in its English version is added or simply preserved in translation, full marks to whomever this perceptive soul is.

Though one reflexively considers Jules Verne a "science fiction" writer of a primitive sort, this is really more of an adventure tale and, taken as such, it is generally successful. The adventurers don't explore a strange new world so much as become more intimately acquainted with the world they already know, but if the reader doesn't go in expecting flights of pure fancy, the novel is rather satisfying.

Postscript: I should point out that this review refers to the Signet Classic mass market paperback edition of the novel, which features an afterword by Michael Dirda. Knowing Amazon, it's possible that this review will surface under several different versions, and without clarity, we have nothing.

Better than all the movie versions.......2006-11-09

This short book is one of the founding classics of science fiction literature. It details the story of a German scientist who comes across a map to a place that leads inside the Earth. He puts together a crew, and of they go to Iceland to find the volcano that serves as the entrance. From there, he and his crew journey into the Earth and encounter environments with their own plants, animals, geography and weather. They collect samples, evade dangers, and have hair-raising adventures. The group travels back to the Earth's surface, but lose much of the samples to prove their trip.

The book moves along quite quickly, and has fewer dinosaurs and other animals than seen in the various movie versions. Instead, the book focuses more on the internal dynamics of the group, and how they react to their discoveries, and to each other. All in all, a book that is easily read in a couple of hours, and more worth the time than watching any of the movies.

An Enjoyable and Charming Read that has Earned its Place Among the Classics.......2006-10-16

When Professor von Hardwigg discovers an ancient parchment suggesting a journey to the center of the Earth is possible, he wastes no time dragooning his dubious nephew and ward, Harry, into an expedition, first to Iceland, and then into the Earth. Harry, a young man, sees no good that can come of this expedition, but dutifully agrees.

So begins one of the most beloved classics of science fiction ever published, Jules Verne's "A Journey to the Center of the Earth". I'm hardly a Verne expert, but I've read many of his other classics. "Journey" is unique among his work. It's one of the few books to feature a first person narrator in the form of Harry. Moreover, unlike his other books, "Journey" is less grounded in science and more interested in the fantastic. Verne, through his various characters, slyly implores his readers' indulgence, reminding us that there is plenty about the center of the world we don't know.

Verne was an author who dealt in archetypal characters. From "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas" on, Verne generally concentrated on three types of characters as his protagonists: the brilliant and calm professor; the professor's loyal apprentice, and; the non-scientific, cantankerous, pragmatic, but steadfast man of action. Here, Verne mixes and matches these traits, making for a more interesting cast. Hardwigg is a brilliant scientist, but he's also a ball of barely restrained emotion and energy, demanding his fellow travelers press on, perhaps beyond all reason. The man of action, the Icelandic Hans, is loyal, but by no means cantankerous. He simply does what must be done, and is steadfastly loyalt. Finally, Harry, rather than the unquestioning apprentice, is quite skeptical of this expedition. Hardly steadfast, he proves to be quite cowardly and panics at inopportune times. Thus, with these interesting characters in the mix, the plot of the novel proves frequently unpredictable.

While the premise is fantastic, the action of the novel is far less concerned with monsters that might be found at the center of the earth than the more realistic, albeit more mundane, threats of natural disaster. Rather than being chased by dinosaurs or hidden cave-men, our heroes must deal with being lost, the threat of starvation, underground lakes, exhaustion, and exposure. Naturally, just as all hope seems lost for our heroes, fortune takes a hand. Obviously, if Harry is narrating, they probably get out okay. Still, there are some moments of true white knuckle tension, as Harry is lost in the caverns, or the trio finds itself on a raft with only a piece of jerky as their food-supply.

Wisely, Verne lets the scientific explanations he used as the basis of his other novels go here. He's less interested in giving his reader an education in the latest discovery, and concentrates instead on a great rip-roaring read. Admittedly, the conventions of Victorian-era fiction don't always allow the book to rip or roar. The first third of the book is actually dedicated to getting Harry and the Professor to Iceland and recruiting an expedition. It's more of a travelogue than an adventure tale, which makes the book more realistic, although not consistently exciting. Once our heroes are underground, however, the book takes off.

In the grand scheme of things, "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" is probably not my favorite Verne book. It lacks a remarkable character, like Captain Nemo. It also lacks some of the sharper satire Verne brought to his other books, like "From the Earth to the Moon." It doesn't quite have the pacing of "Around the World in 80 Days." Nonetheless, it is an enjoyable and charming read, and certainly has earned its place among the classics.

SF AudioBook...it rules.......2006-09-01

Narrated by Spock & Q?
Can life get any better than that?
Cheers

Vernes' Vision of a Subterranean World.......2006-08-15

A Jules Vernes classic, this is one of those novels that has stood up well against the test of time. True, there are some items that may seem a bit dated, and of course the whole scenario of the fantastic adventure to the depths of the earth is impossible. Yet, this novel is still a joy to read.

With a stoic Icelander as their guide, a renowned professor and his reluctant and skeptical nephew descend into the depths of a volcano in the vast frozen tundra of the Arctic, as the adventurers attempt to retrace the steps of a renowned alchemist. Contrary to popular belief (and scientific reality), the party descends deeper into the bowels of the earth, which is remarkably of a mild climate and not a boiling inferno. I won't serve as spoiler, but sufficed to say, that they uncover vast new worlds and creatures living in the subterranean world hundreds of miles beneath the terrestrial crust of the earth.

Vernes does attempt to make their descent seem plausible from a scientific standpoint. Their instruments, a crude electric light and others, would be considered state-of-the art for their time. Vernes also goes in great detail to describe the geological formations and fossilized remains contained in the earth. Vernes also attempts to explain how it is possible to travel so far under the surface of the earth without increased pressure harming the body. And if you take Verne's theories to heart (although modern science refutes them), their journey is plausible.

However, I do have a couple minor gripes. Vernes goes into great detail describing fossils and rock formations, which no doubt lend scientific credence to his novel. Although this may interst a geologist or paleontologist, the rest of the masses (myself included) probably find this too tedious and distracting from the main story line. Also, there is one glaring scientific discrepancy with Vernes logic. During their rapid ascent (the details I won't reveal), the adventurers would have surely perished from decompression sickness (a.k.a., "the bends"). Although it was still a new phenomena at the time, I believe Vernes should have taken into account the rapid change in pressure, as he did during their slow descent into the abyss.

The nitpicking aside, this is a superb novel that has withstood the test of time. A modern reader will no doubt be entertained and enthralled at Verne's vision of a subterranean world. Nearly a century and a half later, Vernes' works still inspire awe and imagination.

Average customer rating:

lots of loose ends, disappointing ending
I spent years of my life on Mars...
Can't touch the classics
Unreadable dreck
Get out the Big Scissors

Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)
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ASIN: 0553573357
Release Date: 1997-06-02

Book Description

The red planet is red no longer, as Mars has become a perfectly inhabitable world. But while Mars flourishes, Earth is threatened by overpopulation and ecological disaster. Soon people look to Mars as a refuge, initiating a possible interplanetary conflict, as well as political strife between the Reds, who wish to preserve the planet in its desert state, and the Green "terraformers". The ultimate fate of Earth, as well as the possibility of new explorations into the solar system, stand in the balance.

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Get <A HREF="/product/detail/15881"> Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars</A> for $13.47.<hr>

Winner of the 1997 Hugo Award, Blue Mars joins Hugo Award-winning Green Mars and Nebula Award-winning Red Mars to complete one of the greatest science fiction sagas every written. As Mars reaches its final transformation, Earth is in peril. Political upheaval leads to new explorations into the solar system and to choices that will decide the ultimate fate of Mother Earth.

The red planet is red no longer, as Mars has become a perfectly inhabitable world. But while Mars flourishes, Earth is threatened by overpopulation and ecological disaster.

Soon people look to Mars as a refuge, initiating a possible interplanetary conflict, as well as political strife between the Reds, who wish to preserve the planet in its desert state, and the Green “terraformers.”

The ultimate fate of Earth, as well as the possibility of new explorations into the solar system, stand in the balance.

<HR>

“A richly detailed vision... Robinson adds a new and believable world to stand alongside the imaginative Mars creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury.”    THE DENVER POST

“A complex and deeply engaging dramatization of humanity’s future... exhilarating.”    THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

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Customer Reviews:

lots of loose ends, disappointing ending.......2007-02-05

Considering how much time you invest in reading the first two, this one just comes to a slow and painful anticlimax. What a disappointment. Tons of loose ends, threads unanswered. It's as if he was planning on writing a fourth book (Purple Mars?). This book just goes off on a lot of long and boring tangents that really have nothing to do with the underlying story. And then there are those loose ends that should have been included, like the mysterious Hiroko- what did happen to her? And Nirgal, Jackie and her trek, and oh so many other story lines. Personally, I thought Red Mars was the best. Green Mars was good, but not as good. This one, I wouldn't even waste your time unless you feel compelled to complete the trilogy.

I spent years of my life on Mars..........2007-01-12

...because of these novels. I'm not sure I can add much more than has already been said. I finished the book last night, after having picked up the first one four years ago. I found the closing of the story very emotional. I feel a bit lost now that The First Hundred are no longer out there, building worlds. At the final line in the book, I felt I was actually there with Ann on the beach: on mars, on mars on mars, on mars, on mars.

I will miss it.

Can't touch the classics.......2006-11-30

Robinson is overly political, proponent of a Marxist/Utopian Mars, unwilling to face many of the issues that would likely face a potential Martian settlement. At times she is overtly, self-conciously liberal- pro gay, pro personal liberty in general- as if she is trying to convince herself more than her audience. If the juvenile, mediocre politics is ignored, the story itself is good, with engaging characters and interesting dynamics. It is easy to be drawn into the complicated world of many living generations and differing views, though Robinson seems to expect that we will take the politics with us as the "greater message" of the work, which, since the politics are unsound, leaves us without a "message" and a book that leaves feeling unfinished and unresolved. On the whole, not a bad book (especially used for $1!) but can't touch Asimov, Heinlein, Tyers, Zahn, and the rest of the truly great sci-fi writers.

Unreadable dreck.......2006-11-14

Unless you need a cure for insomnia, don't bother with this book. It's the third of his Mars trilogy and no better than the first two. The characters are flat, the viewpoint drifts all over and rarely if anything happens. They all talk and talk and something that seems important is completely ignored and forgotten later.

If you made it through the first two books, you can maybe make it through this one. Nothing however happens that you couldn't already figure out.

Get out the Big Scissors.......2006-10-20

This third book of the incredibly bloated Mars Trilogy has the fascination of watching a train wreck. There is actually some suspense: how many pages will I skim before something actually happens?

I have to admire the thoroughness with which KSR created a world and made Mars real. He has described every valley, crater, canyon, caldera and dune--and invented a lot of geographical features that aren't there yet, such as rivers and oceans. He has catalogued the lichens, fir forests and alpine vegetation that will someday live on a terraformed Mars. (These details are actually interesting... to a point. But KSR went waaay beyond that point.)

Most of all, he has described the society that will live on Mars. It will be a sort of free-flowing California in which eternally young Martians will flit from tent city to underground commune to coffeehouse to free-sex bathhouse. (I'm still not sure who is paying the bills, growing the food or creating the oxygen for them to breathe. I think a planet of artificial habitats would be tightly controlled, even tyrannical.) They will discuss politics until your face turns blue. Martians will all be utopians and anarchists of various stripes. But when the subject of immigration (from Earth) comes up, watch them turn out as xenophobic as any America-Firster. (yes, there is a group called Mars First.)

Why did I read this series? There is a fascination to the topic. Imagine terraforming and colonizing another planet! I hoped I would learn something. The most interesting chapters were the ones where humans colonize Mercury, Venus, the moons of Jupiter, and even places like Uranus' moon Triton. Imagine humans growing gills and genetically modifying their eyes for the low light of the "sun-deprived moons". That's science fiction! Although I was disappointed that there is not one mention of any sort of extraterrestrial life. The moons and planets are merely real estate to be exploited--making this trilogy a platform for the hubris of mankind.

I also liked the chapters where Nirgal visits Earth. What would a Martian think of Earth? Good stuff there.

As for the rest of the chapters, the editor should have chopped them out with a big scissors. Why oh why does KSR pack hundreds of pages with self-indulgent ramblings, travelogues and descriptions of sailing, hiking, racing, parasailing...ok, KSR is living out his outdoor sports fantasies. But Please! Novels are supposed to have Stuff Happening! Lord of the Rings was the same size as the Mars trilogy... but at least that book had a plot!

Even worse are the passages about the senescence of the First Hundred (now about 220 years old). I can see that space colonization and longevity could go hand in hand. Likewise, the longevity treatment was a plot device so KSR could keep the same characters through the whole trilogy. But why bother? I'm sick of those characters. Nirgal was the only character I really liked. Maya, Ann, Sax etc. are tiresome, whiny old farts and frankly I was glad when they finally started dying off. In fact I can't buy the whole concept of a longevity serum being widely spread through overpopulated Earth. (Which then wants Mars as an immigration safety valve.) A society that would go for such a thing is so stupid, they almost deserve whatever happens to them.

After I waded through this whole mess, the ending was a fizzle. Nothing happened. You will feel as if you are aging 220 years yourself, as you read this series.

Average customer rating:

Saturn
Very beautiful book
Breathtaking Visualizations of the Lord of the Rings
An Entirely Subjective Review
Wonderful Book, Breathtaking Photos

Saturn: A New View
Laura Lovett , Joan Horvath , and Jeff Cuzzi
Manufacturer: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc."
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Postcards from Mars: The First Photographer on the Red Planet
Hubble: 15 Years of Discovery
Astronomy: 365 Days
Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet
Beyond : Visions Of The Interplanetary Probes

ASIN: 0810930900

Book Description

After a journey of seven years and 2.2 billion miles, the spacecraft Cassini, with a probe named Huygens aboard, reached Saturn in July 2004, beginning a four-year tour to observe the remote planet, its rings, and its moons in depth. As a result of the spectacularly succesful Cassini-Huygens mission, photographs of astounding beauty have come streaming back to Earth, together with enough data to keep hundreds of scientists engrossed for decades. Reproduced here, in unprecedented detail and exquisite, high-quality format, are 150 of the best of those images, among them rings from the unlit side never visible from Earth and panoramas of the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. This breathtaking volume, including authoritative essays on the planetary system and the mission, reveals the planet, its ethereally beautiful rings, and its 40+ moons in ways never before seen or recorded. “Astonishing, amazing, and personal.” — Dr. David Livingston Host, The Space Show

Customer Reviews:

Saturn.......2007-06-08

For anyone who is interested in astronomy, especially when it relates to the planets in our solar system, this is a must have. The book beautifully describes and illustrates this elegant planet, providing detailed photos of it's body, rings and moons. I purchased this as a gift for my boyfriend and he absolutely LOVES it!

Very beautiful book.......2007-01-09

This book presents some very beautiful views of the Saturnian system as captured by the Casinni Spacecraft. It also provides some inciteful essays detailing the design, construction and operation of the spacecraft as well as the physics of the planet itself, its atmosphere and fascinating ring system and moons.

Breathtaking Visualizations of the Lord of the Rings.......2007-01-07

Lovett's Saturn book is a tribute to the Cassini mission science team in images. The visualizations tell so much about the new knowledge now being acquired from the spacecraft in orbit of the planet. While the book is short on scientific detail, it is not designed to be a scientific treatise. It will take years to digest what is now being witnessed. The many Saturnian moons hold so much new knowledge yet to be understood. The images only begin to tell the story but each is worth seeing while the experts struggle to explain their meaning. I HIGHLY recommend this book to the astronomer and the lay person alike. It is well worth every penny to share in the spellbinding images contained on nearly every page with a brief text description. This is a display of The Lord of the Rings!

An Entirely Subjective Review.......2007-01-06

My disclaimers up front. First, I have worked for JPL for close to 20 years; half of my career (including currently and during the entire period these photos were taken) has been spent supporting Cassini directly or indirectly. So there is no way I can even pretend to have an objective perspective. Second, this is my personal review and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cal Tech, JPL or NASA.

I love this book. It is so exciting as one small cog working on a mission to see the fruits of my labor being so prominently and publicly displayed. I put out semi-regular "astropics" newsletters to a group of family, friends, and now friends of friends who similarly love astronomy and JPL's missions. If I were to compile my favorite pics out of the years that I have been doing this, many of my favorites would be ones included in this book. I highly recommend this book to any lover of astronomy, old and new to learn the latest that is being revealed by this wonderful mission.

Chuck Kirby
Cassini Spacecraft Systems Engineer

Wonderful Book, Breathtaking Photos.......2006-12-27

Saturn, A New View

This book is perfect for the armchair scientist. I can't add much to the other reviews here, but will certainly add to the chorus of praise. This book is excellent. It is well-written, well-executed, and well-organized. Needless to say, it's the pictures that make the book so special. I get goosebumps thinking about the fact that there is actually a man-made spaceship orbiting Saturn RIGHT NOW. It's hard to describe the feeling. It's even cooler, of course, that we have a probe sitting on Titan!!!!!

Anyway, if you did nothing but bought the book for the pictures, it would be worth it. It's sort of designed as a "coffee-table book", but this one is actually worth reading and returning to. Thank you Lovett, Horvath, and Cuzzi! But mostly thank you Cassini and Hugyens for your fantastic, dangerous journey to Saturn [hey - if you can't anthropomorphize Cassini and Voyager and objects like that, what's the point of reading about science? :-) ].

My Rating System for Amazon.com
---------------------------------
5 Stars -- The best of the best. Made a real impact on me and/or represents a classic of the genre. Would read it again and recommend it without reservation.

4 Stars -- Very good. Loved it, recommend it to all. Some issues and/or doesn't rise to the level of "classic of the genre".

3 Stars -- Okay. Wouldn't read it again, but enjoyed it. Usually some major flaws or just very pedestrian.

2 Stars -- Not good. Don't recommend it. Some redeeming qualities. May be desired by some.

1 Star -- No redeeming qualities. Will never touch again. Warn people away.

Average customer rating:

A realistic portrayal of what a human expedition to Mars would be like
So-so science fiction
incredible piece of work
Rich and insightful portrayal of the colonization of a planet
Tediously detailed

Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
The Martians
The Years of Rice and Salt
Forty Signs of Rain

ASIN: 0553560735
Release Date: 1993-10-01

Amazon.com

Red Mars opens with a tragic murder, an event that becomes the focal point for the surviving characters and the turning point in a long intrigue that pits idealistic Mars colonists against a desperately overpopulated Earth, radical political groups of all stripes against each other, and the interests of transnational corporations against the dreams of the pioneers.

This is a vast book: a chronicle of the exploration of Mars with some of the most engaging, vivid, and human characters in recent science fiction. Robinson fantasizes brilliantly about the science of terraforming a hostile world, analyzes the socio-economic forces that propel and attempt to control real interplanetary colonization, and imagines the diverse reactions that humanity would have to the dead, red planet.

Red Mars is so magnificent a story, you will want to move on to Blue Mars and Green Mars. But this first, most beautiful book is definitely the best of the three. Readers new to Robinson may want to follow up with some other books that take place in the colonized solar system of the future: either his earlier (less polished but more carefree) The Memory of Whiteness and Icehenge, or 1998's Antarctica. --L. Blunt Jackson

Book Description

In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that will chronicle the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death.

The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planets surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces--for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.

Download Description

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Get <A HREF="/product/detail/15881"> Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars</A> for $13.47.<hr>

Winner of the 1993 Nebula Award for Best Novel

<hr>

In his most ambitious project to date, award-winning author Kim Stanley Robinson utilizes years of research and cutting-edge science in the first of three novels that chronicle the colonization of Mars.

For eons, sandstorms have swept the barren desolate landscape of the red planet. For centuries, Mars has beckoned to mankind to come and conquer its hostile climate. Now, in the year 2026, a group of one hundred colonists is about to fulfill that destiny.

John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic “alchemists,” Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life... and death.

The colonists place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planet’s surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces—for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Brilliantly imagined, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity, Red Mars is an epic scientific saga, chronicling the next step in human evolution and creating a world in its entirety. Red Mars shows us a future, with both glory and tarnish, that awes with complexity and inspires with vision.

<HR>

“An absorbing novel.... A scientifically informed imagination of rare ambition at work.”    THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Promises to become a classic... This is epic science fiction in the best sense of the term—thoughtful, provoking and haunting.”    ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

“A staggering book... The best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written... It should be required reading for the colonists of the next century.”    <A HREF="/author/detail/3808">ARTHUR C. CLARKE</A>

“The best tale of space colonization—a lyrical, beautiful, accurate legend of the future by one of the best writers of our time.”    <A HREF="/author/detail/4459">DAVID BRIN</A>

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Customer Reviews:

A realistic portrayal of what a human expedition to Mars would be like.......2007-04-26

This book is about an expedition of 100 scientists from all over the world sent to colonize/terraform Mars for a permament human colony in the year 2026. These scientists left everything behind on Earth (they'll never go back), and they are chosen (after extensive pyschological testing) to go to Mars.

It doesn't have much action in the story. It is more a look at human behavior and actions, a plausible scenario of what could happen when you get a group of people together to colonize Mars. How they adapt and change to their new surroundings, the realization that things aren't the same as on Earth.

There is a lot of human drama and political/power moves within the group. Everyone has a different idea of how to go about colonizing Mars. Some, the geologists, want to keep Mars pure and don't terraform or disturb the planet. When it comes to society, some want to start fresh and leave all the human baggage behind on Earth.

The book is slow moving, and was a bit boring at times but it is an interesting look at human interactions within a group. This book is part of a trilogy. Green Mars and Blue Mars are books that come after this one.

If you have always been fascinated by Mars colonization stories, this is the story for you.

So-so science fiction.......2007-04-09

While not the best science fiction I've ever read, its not bad. The first two hundred pages or so are quite good, but after that point it goes down hill at a moderate grade.

incredible piece of work.......2007-03-19

It's mind-boggling to imagine the work that went into writing this book. There is a ton of information here, but that point doesn't seem to be in dispute. There are two major (and one minor) complaints about the book I think are completely bogus:
#1) characterization: The characters are complex, realistic, and compelling. You won't find many books, and perhaps ANY sci-fi books with more in-depth characterization than Red Mars
#2) depth: Though much text is spent on technical details and descriptions, the subtext continually transcends the literal. There is a lot to think about in this book if you're willing to, well, think about it. Those who take literature of any kind at face value get what they deserve. I'm not going to get into it, but there is a tremendous amount of philisophical, social, political, interpersonal and intrapersonal depth. Here's a hint, though: when he's talking about the landscape, he ain't just talking about the landscape.

And the minor complaint, that would be the length. Please. Give me a break. Go read a comic book, they're only about 30 pages with lots of pictures, so those complaining about the length might not find them too taxing. For people who really enjoy reading, we can handle it.

The one beef I had, personally, was the prose itself. It's a bit awkward and clunky. Nothing new, though, if you read a lot of SF. They're not all poets, that's for sure. But it's good enough for the purposes of this book.

For people who enjoy 'hard' sf, I might reccommend this except for two highly skeptical scientific developments: the anti-aging treatment which is a deus ex machina to allow the protagonists to remain primary players throughout the novel's decades, and the robot-manufacture factories which allow the colonists to create functioning robots out of, basically, dirt and rocks on mars. Other than that, the author takes great pains to make the rest of the technical aspets of mars colinization highly believeable.

This novel is just awesome.

Rich and insightful portrayal of the colonization of a planet.......2007-01-16

This is a complex, thoughtful and thought-provoking book. The science (what I can judge of it) is relatively plausible, and very thoroughly researched and presented in multiple fields. But beyond the science, the human drama that unfolds is absolutely riveting.
Robinson develops a large number of characters without ever losing the narrative thread of her story. The plots and sub-plots all intertwine and interact beautifully. And the story she unfolds, showing the growth of different philosophical groups, the financial and political struggles, and the human level of impact, is absolutely riveting.
Big and complex as the book admittedly is, I could barely put it down. I will necessarily be finishing the entire trilogy, and will definitely look at anything this author has written...

Tediously detailed.......2006-12-11

I'm still trying to read this one. It's got just enough story that I want to find out what happens, but there's so much boring detail to drag through that it's taking forever. I try reading a paragraph, but then get distracted by a speck of dust on my desk that's tremendously more interesting than reading yet another two-page description of yet another crater. Which, boringly enough, is exactly like the last crater, except this one's a little bit bigger. Or maybe it's smaller. Or has a different mineral composition. I'm really not sure, as I'm learning to skip ahead as soon as anyone drives into or flies over a crater.

If the science part of sci-fi appeals to you more than the fiction part (far, far more), this is a great book. But if you like the fiction aspect better, or even just want a balance, you're probably best just skipping this one.

Average customer rating:

Another classic
The worst propaganist BS I've ever read!
Unbelievable tedious, boring
Classic science fiction in the best tradition
Get the Blue Pencil out!!

Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Kim Stanley Robinson
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy)
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy)
The Martians
The Years of Rice and Salt
Forty Signs of Rain

ASIN: 0553572393
Release Date: 1995-05-01

Amazon.com

Kim Stanley Robinson has earned a reputation as the master of Mars fiction, writing books that are scientific, sociological and, best yet, fantastic. Green Mars continues the story of humans settling the planet in a process called "terraforming." In Red Mars, the initial work in the trilogy, the first 100 scientists chosen to explore the planet disintegrated in disagreement--in part because of pressures from forces on Earth. Some of the scientists formed a loose network underground. Green Mars, which won the 1994 Hugo Award, follows the development of the underground and the problems endemic to forming a new society.

Book Description

In the Nebula Award winning Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson began his critically acclaimed epic saga of the colonization of Mars, Now the Hugo Award winning Green Mars continues the thrilling and timeless tale of humanity's struggle to survive at its farthest frontier.

Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planets hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.

Download Description

<hr>

Get <A HREF="/product/detail/15881"> Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars</A> for $13.47.<hr>

In the 1993 Nebula Award-winning Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson began his critically acclaimed epic saga of the colonization of Mars. Now the 1994 Hugo Award-winning Green Mars continues the thrilling and timeless tale of humanity’s struggle to survive at its farthest frontier.

Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun. The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planet’s hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Frasier, and Sax Russell.

Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.

<HR>

“Robinson’s is one of the most impressive bodies of work in modern science fiction.”    THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Yet another masterpiece.... I can’t imagine anybody else staking out any portion of this immemorial dreamscape with the same elegant detail and thoroughness. It’s [Kim Stanley Robinson’s] now, and for a long time to come.”    SCIENCE FICTION AGE

“One of the major sagas of the [latest] generation in science fiction.”    CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

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Customer Reviews:

Another classic.......2007-05-31

I'm not sure I liked it quite as much as Red Mars, but it's still amazing. It's just a totally immersive, thought-provoking work of tremendous detail. It's definitely not escapist or super-being type of sf. I enjoy those two, but this isn't it. It's unsettling, brutal... it's a very 'hard sf' kind of book.

Allow me to address the complaints with this book:

1) Too long/boring: This is ridiculous. Every page contributes to the book. The pacing is rapid compared to what the characters experience. If you find yourself bored, or that it's going on too long, consider the characters. Perhaps Robinson wanted you to feel a little of their conflict. Personally, I was riveted, even at the parts with less action and more dialogue. See, I like books. I enjoy reading. 600 pages weren't a chore, they were a treat. I think people making this complaint would be better served reading novelizations of Star Wars or other action-packed space opera tripe. This one is for serious readers. Don't order espresso if what you really wanted was weak tea.

2) Political propoganda: This one actually cracks me up. See, whatever your political viewpoint, there are characters in the book who would sympathize with you. Unfortunately for our more myopic critics here, that means there will also be characters who disagree with you. They disagree