Sheffield, Charles

Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Bantam Spectra Book)

Average customer rating:

Thought-provoking, Sheffield at his best!
A mind-boggling scifi romance of epic proportions...
This book goes beyond time and science...
Very good but not perfect..
An Epic Tale

Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Bantam Spectra Book)
Charles Sheffield
Manufacturer: Spectra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0553378082
Release Date: 1996-12-01

Book Description

A man from Earth's distant past is humanity's only hope for a future...

Drake Merlin's wife, the love of his life, is dying of a rare, fatal disease for which there is no cure. Not now, in the 21st century. But surely in the future...

For Drake there is only one solution: have Ana's body frozen until she can be cured. And he will go with her into the cryowomb. It is a desperate gamble born of folly, obsession...and love.

Thus begins an epic journey across eons, as Drake is revived again and again, only to find that Ana is beyond help. Millions of years past his first sleep, he learns there is hope for her restoration--at the Omega Point, where the universe collapses, merging past and present. But first he will be awakened to become humanity's unwilling savior. For an alien menace is laying the solar system to waste, and only an anachronism from the days of human barbarism can save an enlightened race....

From the Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Thought-provoking, Sheffield at his best!.......2005-07-15

I love this book! Currently, I'm reading it for the 4th time, which is what prompted me to write this review. I rarely read a book through twice; four times is unprecendented. In addition to a likeable main character, and a colorful supporting cast, Sheffield skillfully weaves in numerous scientific concepts regarding the nature of matter, time and space. Fortunately, the scientific concepts are developed in a manner accessible to the layman. The appendix was especially helpful, presenting a synopsis of current theory and speculation regarding the eventual fate of the universe, and providing a framework for the story. Very entertaining from cover to cover.

A mind-boggling scifi romance of epic proportions... .......2004-08-01

Charles Sheffield is a very unique author. Though in this story there is a lot of "techno jargon" and theories about space and time, the inner plot and underlying story presented in this novel are as pure and fresh as any love story, regardless of how strange the words may seem. Drake Merlin's quest to revive his beloved Ana and the sacrifice he endures to save her life, evokes an extraordinary feeling in the reader. You pass over the technological aspect and scientific descriptions and are left with the same feelings that Drake is going through. His obsession with Ana may seem to most a bit drastic, or maybe even on the verge of insanity, the way he puts away everything in his life and gives up his dreams just so he can see her face again. However, I found it touching. This is a very unique love story, in that it differs, in part, from the sterotyped love stories, and at the same time is something that everyone can enjoy. I rate "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" five stars and recommend it to anyone who is looking for something out of this world.

This book goes beyond time and science..........2004-05-09

This book is amazing, reminding me slightly of 'Last And First Man' by Olaf Stapledon and also 'The Time Machine' by H.G. Wells. It's not just a science fiction book, but a book about the human spirit, the human soul, the human mind. Yes, it has aliens, and strange planets, and mankind's many different forms in the future, but at a certain point it goes beyond the hard science to explore our dreams and what the future may bring. Love and death, waste and power, peace and war. No matter what body we may create, no matter what mind we may think in, no matter how we evolve, we can't give up. We may give up our forms and even link our minds, but in the end we are all searching for something that only WE need and only WE can understand. Drake is after something that is special only to him.
Yes, there are a few weak ideas, like when future man turns to Drake for help, because thy don't know how to fight against an 'alien menace'. Yet I found it funny, and even refreshing, because Drake was just as useless when it came to fighting a war as they were. My only complaint is that after 387 pages the ending was also kind of weak. I wanted something more, something solid. Not a re-read, if you get my drift. Check it out of the library or get a used copy.

Very good but not perfect.........2003-05-27

This was a well written book, however, it did have flaws. The best part is the start of the book. The author does an exellent job of creating a bond between the reader and the book's main characters. As the book continues, it loses focus a bit and drifts from topic to topic. Sheffield's gift for creating clear and poignent mental imagery is all that holds it together in the last chapters. It is an interesting and quality reading, but don't expect to be held by the plot elements described on the back cover.

An Epic Tale.......2003-04-13

Charles Sheffield does a fine job here in this eons spanning tale, to me at least it mostly appears plausible. Here you will read of cryonic suspensions, control of matter at the atomic level, downloading of minds into other vessels of thought, a universe of post-humanity, and many other amazing things, it was page-turning material for me. The primary character is Drake Merlin, his wife died of an untreatable condition and he had her cryonically suspended, willing to do practically anything to bring her back to him, an obsession indeed. He goes through many trials and tribulations along the way, all of this is believable in the hard science fiction tradition. I could relate to the refreshing world-view permeating this novel, no myth filled views here, this is a journey into unimaginable stretches of time, well worth reading. The only real criticism I found in this book is how Sheffield treats the subject of cryonic suspension, he does seem to present many inaccuracies, a minor point here, but I do take one star off for it. For a better description of how cryonics actually works in real life read "The First Immortal" by James Halperin, or "Tech Heaven" by Linda Nagata. These two are very fine novels and not to be missed for the science fiction aficionado.

Average customer rating:

good read about building a space elevator
Interesting but gets sidetracked.
Sheffield is Kirkwood?
Tense, stretched, he spins a good yarn...
Good charecters, weak plot.

The Web Between The Worlds
Charles Sheffield , and Arthur C. Clarke
Manufacturer: Baen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0671319736

Book Description

"WHAT SF SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT." -- Kliatt

Rob Merlin was the best engineer who had ever lived. That was why "The King of Space" had to have him for the most spectacular construction project ever -- even though Rob was a potentially fatal threat to his power...

Thus begins a breakthrough novel by the former President of the American Astronautical Society, about an idea whose time has come: a shimmering bridge between Earth and space that mankind will climb to the stars!

Sound like fantasy? The concept has been in the literature of physics for over three decades, but only a writer with the scientific background of a Sheffield or a Clarke could bring the idea to life.

Customer Reviews:

good read about building a space elevator.......2006-01-01

This book tackles the engineering and manufactoring effort required to build a space elevator. Nice intro by Arthur C. Clarke saying that his idea was not plagarized. The story also delves into bioengineering and some of the possibilities thereof. Including some severe issues about the moralities of bioengineering.

Interesting but gets sidetracked........2005-10-02

Some good info on building a space elevator complete with mad industrialist with more money than god. There are misc other subplots though which were completely unecessary and uninteresting. Worth reading at a used price but not full retail.

Sheffield is Kirkwood?.......2005-03-11

"mybluemake" says in his review that "Charles Sheffield is (or was) actually pulitzer prize winning author James Kirkwood." I don't think that that's true. Sheffield did use "James Kirkwood" as a pen-name a few times, but there's another author of that name who did win a Pulitzer for "A Chorus Line" and died in 1989. Sheffield died in 2002.

As for the book itself, GREAT. However, it was wrong about how the Space Elevator will be built. It'll be a thin ribbon a meter wide and the thickness of saran wrap, not a cylinder the size of a Sequoia. Not a big deal, as far as the story goes.

Tense, stretched, he spins a good yarn..........2002-02-02

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that burning vast quantities of combustible fuel to move an object from here out into orbit, let alone out into the solar system, is phenomenally expensive and dangerous. Science Fiction authors have, for decades, tried to come up with all manner of workarounds, from gravitation drives to Star Trek style transporters.

One proposal that, until the late seventies, didn't attract a lot of attention was the idea of a cable stretching from the Earth into space, held in place by some form of geosynchronous structure. It's probably the least sexy technology available, nothing more than a really, really, strong, long, cable with objects climbing up and down it using whatever means fit the designer's imagination.

Two science fiction authors, Arthur C. Clarke and Charles Sheffield, decided to raise the idea of such a cable at roughly the same time (Clarke's book, The Fountains of Paradise, was published two weeks before Sheffield's), and at once the obvious simplicity and advantages of the idea captured the public imagination. Well, sort of, currently there is no known material strong enough to withstand the tension a useful cable would carry, but we're probably not far off.

This book is a treat. As well as the story itself, mostly a thriller centered around an engineer (who builds the cable, 'natch), a billionaire solar system miner, and a dubious amoral biologist, the book comes with a contribution from Arthur C Clarke on the history of the how the idea was brought to press, and a long appendix detailing the physics involved in building a "beanstalk" (Sheffield's name for the thing.) It was this part I personally found most interesting - it covered how such a thing would be built, other designs centered around the same principle, advantages the cable would have such as the ability to slingshot ships from the end, using the Earth's own rotation to move objects to anywhere in the solar system.

The novel itself is a multi-layered story which is centered so much around a sub-plot that the beanstalk itself is almost an afterthought. In a pinch, Merlin, the main character, investigates the death of his parents and why they were murdered, after the new project he's hired to lead unexpectedly brings him into contact with people who were involved or knew the reasons. The Science in the Fiction includes the beanstalk (obviously), genetic engineering, the mining of asteroids and other trips around the solar system. About my only grouse is that the characters are a little wooden and come across in that kind of pseudo-machismo usually associated with salesman culture and office politics, something that ought not to have irritated me to the extent that it did.

A wonderful book though, proposing a wonderful idea that, if ever implemented, will probably mean more for mankind's eventual exploration of space than the moon landings themselves.

Good charecters, weak plot........2001-08-29

First of all - don't mistake this book with "Between the strokes of night" which deals with life-prolongation by altering the body's metabolic speed and time sense. Now, the reason everybody are so dissapointed, I believe, is that the book lacks Sheffield's usual giant scope, and therefore highly advenced thechnolegy, with the setting in the far future. (allthough thet description is'nt compatiblle with the wonderfull "Proteus" series). But the plot did waver a bit. the climax was not all that. I do think though that all the charecters were excellent, and developed through the book. Not a bad story, it's only the higher expectations of the readers from sheffield.

Thor's Hammer (The Future at War Series Volume 1)

Average customer rating:

The Future of War

Thor's Hammer (The Future at War Series Volume 1)
Robert A. Heinlein , Gregory Benford , Dean Ing , Charles Sheffield , Poul Anderson , Roger A. Beaumont , Joe Haldeman , Jerry Pournelle , and Michael G. Coney
Manufacturer: Baen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0671653946

Customer Reviews:

The Future of War.......2004-09-09

I read this book, along with its two sequels, over 20 years ago and was greatly impressed by its scholarship. The stories selected all had a pertinent point to make about the future of war for man. This first volume dealt with future war on earth. It included stories such as "The Man in the Gray Weapons Suit (future air combat)," "A Scenario for the Fall of Night (A successful Soviet invasion of the US in the 1990s)" and "The Screwfly Solution (Alien invaders use a unique biological warfare solution to rid Earth of those pesky humans). Well developed and insightful in its day, and still a good read for those who like military science fiction.

Average customer rating:

A look into the future.
Interesting ideas, but poor execution
Superb, full of wonderful ideas and an entertaining plot
It is simply one of the best 100 sci-fi books ever writen.
from here to eternity - book your seat

Between the Strokes of Night
Charles Sheffield
Manufacturer: Baen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0743488245

Customer Reviews:

A look into the future........2005-07-22

Sheffield's writing style and use of current scientific facts to create a plausible future is present in all his science fiction books. BTSON is a fresh take on immortality, like his similar book, Tomorrow and Tomorrow. If you are interested in neurology, sociology, or just science fiction, this is a great book.

Interesting ideas, but poor execution.......2001-02-03

This is a fairly easy book to read, and the author has a fair following. The ideas that he puts together and his ability to tie together such diverse concepts as he does in this work is beyond question.

People read science fiction for either the ideas or the story or both. For those who read it for the ideas, this will be a book that delivers. For those that are looking for a bit more...

The dialogue tends to be long sermons on particular subjects not delivered through story, and the story itself tends to be fairly predictable save for the spots where new concepts are introduced. For the reader looking for more in terms of reading, this will leave you a bit dry after.

Although the critical acclaim is not that easily ignored, and should not be, do not expect the same kind of fabulous experience that comes of the classics.

Superb, full of wonderful ideas and an entertaining plot.......2000-11-11

One of my favorite science fiction books, the sort of book I think back on every once and a while that has stuck with me (I read it around 10 years ago).

Really a fantastic set of ideas!

It is simply one of the best 100 sci-fi books ever writen........2000-05-26

I dont why i've always thougt that BTSON is writen in the same style of Larry niven. Exellent science, cool charecters ( the kind that can take care of themselves in any situation ), and really amzing ideas about big things like immortality, and about small things like the fact that in s-state everything looks a bit different because of pseudo-red shift. Anyway, allthough im a big Niven fan, this time Sheffield took Niven in his own style. get this book. Its really a masterpiece. Its a shame that sheffield is not acknowledged as the giant he is.

from here to eternity - book your seat.......2000-02-12

It's not often that a book can start here and now and finish at the end of the universe, and keep the same characters.

If you want to know how to travel faster than light (and forget all that Star Trek warping nonsense) this is the book. The way to the stars is really shown, this really could happen. Charles Sheffield demonstrates the only way the human race could ever venture beyond the solar system, and with a wealth of belivable and sympathetic characters and plot. For and sci-fi fan this is an absolute must read.

Dark as Day (Cold As Ice)
Average customer rating:

good but not great read

Excellent and highly entertaining hard science fiction novel

A Fine End -- or Entrance -- to This Series

Buy this book! It's the best of the hard SF

i love you uncle

Dark as Day (Cold As Ice)
Charles Sheffield
Manufacturer: Tor Science Fiction
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0812580311

Amazon.com

The Great War is over and humans have spread across the solar system, but mathematician Alex Ligon's complex computer model has just predicted that humanity is inexplicably doomed within a century. At the same time, scientist Milly Wu has identified what appears to be an extraterrestrial signal, and the idiosyncratic genius Bat searches for weapons from the Great War to add to his collection, finding much more than he bargained for. Their stories and others are intertwined in this tightly plotted and thoroughly engaging follow-up to Sheffield's Cold as Ice.

Nebula Award winner Sheffield distinguishes himself as a writer of intelligence, humor, and a pleasing balance of hard science and interesting, engaging characters. Fans will be particularly delighted to renew their acquaintance with Bat, but readers new to Sheffield's work should take the plunge enthusiastically--this novel easily and gracefully stands alone as a story of people, science, and the puzzles that both can produce. --Roz Genessee

Book Description

The Solar System is finally recovering from the Great War - a war that devastated the planets and nearly wiped out the human race - and the population of the outer moons, orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, is growing. On one of those moons, Alex Ligon, scion of a great interplanetary trading family has developed a wonderfully accurate new population model, and cannot wait until the newly reconstituted "Seine," the interlinked network of computers that spans the planets and moons and asteroids, comes back on line. But when it does, and he extends his perfect model a century into the future, it predicts the complete destruction of the human race.On another moon, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence goes on, undaunted by generations of failure. And to her amazement, Millie Wu, a young genius newly recruited to the project, has found a signal . . . a signal that is coming from outside the solar system.And in his new retreat on a minor moon of Saturn, the cranky genius Rustam Battacharyia is still collecting weapons from the Great War. He thinks he may have stumbled on an unexpected new one....but he'll need to disarm it before it destroys the Sun.

Customer Reviews:

good but not great read.......2006-01-01

Fairly decent adventure about the SETI effort continuing into the late 21st century. Gets better as it goes along.

Excellent and highly entertaining hard science fiction novel .......2005-09-06

_Dark As Day_ by Charles Sheffield is the third and final volume of his (I believe) unnamed trilogy that began with _Cold As Ice_ and continued with _The Ganymede Club_. An excellent end to a very enjoyable series, the trilogy is only rather loosely connected, united mainly in the setting, which in a manner similar to a series of novels by Ben Bova - in the setting that includes the novels _Mars_, _Saturn_, _Venus_, and _Jupiter_ among others- is set in a future in which humanity is spread throughout the solar system but has not yet traveled beyond it, though humanity is more entrenched and numerous among the various bodies in our solar system than in Bova's series, with millions of humans living on Mars, Ganymede, and Callisto as well as scattered throughout the asteroid belt (a.k.a. the Belt) and in various satellites of Saturn.

Aside from the fact that each later novel takes places further along the history of that universe than the novel that proceeded it, there is one common character, a major one, in these books, an individual by the name of Rustum Battachariya (also known simply as Bat), one of the most colorful, interesting, and distinct characters I have ever read in any science fiction novel. He is a reclusive individual, one mainly interested in profoundly difficult mathematical problems he solved for fun as part of a organization called the Puzzle Network and in collecting relics of the Great War, a massive conflict about thirty years ago that was system wide, fought on Earth, Mars, and the Belt and one that killed billions.

As in the previous two novels, despite his dislike for publicity (except within the confines of the Puzzle Network) and for spending any quality, face-to-face time with any human being in the flesh, Bat was an integral character in solving the main problem in the book. In this case the problem is a multipart one, one that ended up somehow involving such diverse threads as the opening up of a very powerful system-wide internet of sorts called the Seine, the bizarre results from a highly sophisticated predictive model designed by one Alex Ligon, one that showed humanity going extinct within a century, the Bat's efforts to track down a major weapons designer that went missing during the Great War, the weird mental abilities of a boy from Earth, Sebastian Birch, who had bizarre and apparently non-reactive microscopic objects in his body and had the almost idiot savant talent of predicting weather patterns on distant planets with little data, intrigue within Alex's family, the Ligon family, in trying to gain a lease on a small moon named Pandora (one leased by the very reclusive Bat), and the apparent discovery of extraterrestrial signals by Milly Wu, working at one of two competing SETI facilities near Jupiter. There is a lot going on but the plots do tie together very well in the end and make for a very compelling book. Sheffield did a fantastic job with this novel, the characters are extremely well drawn and very distinct, the science in this science fiction seemed top notch, and it is just a great story. I think that definitely it is the best of the three novels and one that could very easily be read as a stand-alone book.

A Fine End -- or Entrance -- to This Series.......2003-10-02

Those returning to the universe of Sheffield's _Cold As Ice_ and _The Ganymede Club_ will be pleased to find their old friend Bat here. The reclusive, snoopy genius has exiled himself to a moon of Saturn. Unfortunately, his home on Pandora figures in the plans of the ruthless and pushy Ligon family who want to reverse their recent slide from third to tenth in the rankings of richest companies in the solar system.

Reluctantly involved in their plot is Alex Ligon, sort of the black sheep of the family. When not being bullied by his family into running errands -- or auditioning for arranged marriages -- he works for the government rather than Ligon Industries. He's proud of a vast, sophisticated computer model of the entirety of human civilization in the solar system -- until it shows mankind going extinct in less than a century. Bad modelling or a ominous and valid warning?

Meanwhile, young Millie Wu has signed on to work for one half of the Beston brothers -- aka the Bastard and the Ogre, SETI researchers whose obsession about finding alien signals is matched only by their obsession with besting each other. Wu can't quite believe her luck when she seems to have detected a genuine signal.

On Earth, Janeed Jannex and her childhood friend Sebastian Birch decide to emigrate to space, but their recruiters prove to surprisingly be interested in Birch's almost idiot savant fascination with, of all things, clouds.

Those familiar with Sheffield's previous work will expect these plotlines to converge, and, as with _Cold As Ice_, the surprises are less in the sometimes predictable plot twists than the why of events or their scientific explanation. Those who found the ideas of that novel interesting will also appreciate this one. Sheffield gives us a system wide internet, the Seine, that communicates instantaneously via quantum entanglement. There is the mining of methane deposits on the floors of Earth's oceans, and a fairly detailed explanation of how an alien radio signal would be analysed and decoded. Even if Sheffield engages in a bit of handwaving with his explanations of Alex Ligon's computer model, it is still interesting.

Readers new to this series should have no trouble jumping right in with this book, and those who have read the other two novels will find little amplifications of previous plots points -- including Bat's growing collection of weapons from the Great War.

Buy this book! It's the best of the hard SF.......2003-09-06

But don't read it until you've also gotten Cold as Ice, and read it. The two are among the very best hard SF books anyone has written. As a bonus, they both also have a mystery for the main characters to solve.

I already miss Charles Sheffield, just because the prospects of more novels featuring the unique "Bat" are remote. Sheffield wrote the very hardest SF (as appropriate for a Ph.D. in physics), but he usually managed to tell a good story as well - something that most of the other physicists who have written SF haven't managed to do. I wish he could have lived and written for another 20 years.

I wish to defend the instantaneous communication system a previous reviewer has maligned. Sheffield quite explicitly states that it works because of quantum entanglement, a perfectly respectable theory which was discussed in Scientific American's special edition last year on cosmology and cosmogony.

If you want to find some good reading, and are willing to accept his (very) rare failures, pick up some of his older novels, many of which were published in Analog before coming into the bookstores.

i love you uncle.......2003-07-01

I think his book Dark as day is amazing. Chareles was my uncle. If you did or did not know this he passed away November 2,2002 of a brain tumer. He was a talented writer and his books are very interesting but im just 13 so go ahead and read.

Average customer rating:

In Praise of Idiocy
Good imagination, bad plot
The Heritage Universe
Read "Convergent Series" First
Dropped Into the Middle of a Series

Transvergence (Heritage Universe)
Charles Sheffield
Manufacturer: Baen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

In Praise of Idiocy.......2003-11-11

Transvergence is the the combined edition of the 3rd and 4th books in the Heritage Universe series about a quest to find the "Builders" of a series of mysterious "Artifacts" left behind in our galaxy.

Perhaps the most aggrivating thing about Transvergence (and the "Heritage Universe" series in general) is that it is written with the craftsmanship of an eigth-grader's cribbed book report.

As before, our band of adventurers (some of whom are supposed to be the galaxy's best troubleshooters or super-human intelligences) manage to stumble blindly through a series of adventures, surviving by luck alone. Every character in the book survies to the end only with the help of various deus ex-machina plot devices. ("Hey, who left that ship there? Thanks Builders!")

The book also stretches suspension of disbelief beyond its normal limits as the protagonists - who are often separated by planets or entire solar systems - REPEATEDLY regroup by accident. It's almost as if the seven of them spent the weekend at a cabin together instead of separately running around the galaxy's spiral arm.

Logistical and intelligence problems aside, each of the two sub-books (like their predecessors) offer new explanations for the Artifacts (and the Builders' motivations) which contradict and/or invalidate the explanations given in the previous books. It's somewhat like a dadaist attempt at storytelling, because after the third explanation, you're not sure what to believe.

The worst explanation of them all comes at the end of sub-book #2 ("Convergence") in what is sure to go down as one of the great "WTF?" moments in sci-fi history. Without giving anything away, the book might as well have told us the Artifacts were decorations left over from a Builder office party.

That's not to say all is wrong with this book (even with its clumsy attempts at low-brow humor.) There are some neat ideas for the hard sci-fi buff to chew on, such as macroscopic quantum effects and the multiply-connected spaces inside the artifacts. It's just that all the interesting ideas are hampered by the book's flawed execution.

Good imagination, bad plot.......2001-03-05

When I got this book I though "oh... spaceships and dangerous aliens, sounds good!" Sheffield has a lot of interesting ideas, but they don't fit together to form a coherent world. His heros are pretty stupid and survive purely on luck, as opposed to any kind of skill.

The Heritage Universe.......2000-11-10

Agree this is an excellent series. Readers should also be aware that the first three books were published by Guild America books under the title "The Heritage Universe".

Read "Convergent Series" First.......2000-06-08

This series is an excellent series, but the title shifting and confusion that has been done in the reprinting of it is unfortunate. The first two books in the series, "Summertide" and "Divergence" were reprinted as a double book in October 1998 called "Convergent Series". This was an unfortunate choice of name since the fourth book of the series is named "Convergence" and it appears together with the third book of the series "Transcendence" in a double book released in November 1999 named "Transvergence", the book subject to this review.

Dropped Into the Middle of a Series.......2000-05-04

First off, before you even consider picking up this title, you need to be aware of the fact that Transvergence is the reprinting of the 3rd and 4th volumes of 'The Convergent Series.' Unfortunately the 1st and 2nd parts of this series are currently out of print (although I believe this will change with the release of Convergent Series in June 2000) and as such the reader is essentially dropped into the middle of an ongoing story.

That aside, Transvergence is actually an enjoyable read by itself. Having missed out on the first part of the series the reader has to catch up with the various characters and situations of the story, but there is usually enough recapping done to bring you up to speed. The only complaint I have is that after reading the first part of Transvergence the second part tends to follow the same predictable plotline. Heroes go separate ways->Heroes have adventures->Heroes come back together under extraordinary circumstances.

Book Description

When a misfired practical joke gets him kicked out of school, Rick Luban thinks he has nowhere to go but down. Instead, he gets a second chance--and a whole new life--when he signs up for a career in asteroid mining.But life in space proves more challenging than Rick expected. Competition is intense and the harsh realties of space allow no room for error. On his way to a brighter future, Rick faces ever more demanding tests, as well as the very real dangers of sabotage and murder.

Customer Reviews:

Falls short of Heinlein.......2007-05-12

An OK read for young adults, but falls short of Heinlein's entries in the genre. The authors attempt to combine a polemic on political correctness and our education system with a coming of age space yarn was not well done. The premise that the pioneering asteroid mining company would use illeterate teenagers as their hiring pool required too much suspension of belief. Where was the editor?

Very worth the read.......2007-05-03

I've read many of the books Pournelle has authored/co-authored. I've never been disappointed. His non-fiction is also worth reading. His political/social views are not mainstream. And that really aids his creativity. This, like other Pournelle books, is refreshing and creative. This book fits when you just need a good read that challenges new thoughts without struggling to pay attention (I've read too many books that require effort to finish--this isn't one of them).

A Decent Yarn.......2006-01-15

I picked it up because it is a study in dynamic characters. It was referred to in Dynamic Characters by Kress.

It is a teen-coming-of-age story set in the near future. The protagonist is a punk and gets himself thrown out of high school for being entirely too cute. He gets a second chance by signing up with Vanguard Mining- a company that mines asteroids.

The story takes him from raw recruit to a trained and ready apprentice.

Jerry Pournelle and Charles Sheffield don't mix.......2004-06-13

Stunk! Foul language & gratuitous violence ruined any chance of a decent story.

Charles Sheffield on his own writes terrific stories.

Good sci-fi for young adults.......2003-02-22

This book is written in the best tradition of Robert Heinlein. It is a well written story of a young man thrown from the dubious comfort of a failing public school system into the opportunities and dangers of young adulthood.

Book Description

Shelby Cheever V is a spoiled brat. He is also the richest kid in the country. Actually, make that the universe. Bored with his all-the-amusements-money-can-buy life, he decides on a bit of interstellar action, Shelby-style. But it turns out life on a starship is not all fun and games. As part of a crew, Shelby has a few things to learn. Like, how to follow orders instead of simply giving orders. Can Shelby learn how to cooperate with his crewmates?He may not have a choice. When Shelby becomes the target of a hostage-for-ransom scheme, he'll need all the help he can get.

Customer Reviews:

Solid if unspectacular.......2003-05-17

Shelby Cheever is the kind of kid that everyone, at one point or another, has run into and wished they hadn't. Adapted from a story by Rudyard Kipling and now reprinted for a juvenile crowd by Starscape Books, "Billion-Dollar Boy" is solid if unamazing SF journey.

It's the future, when Earth is impoverished except for a tiny number of corporate big-shots. And Cheever heir Shelby has everything a boy could want and more: insane amounts of money, a staff to wait hand and foot on him, and a dimbulb mother who lacks the brains to tell him "no" sometimes. In short, he's spoiled rotten. And when he wants to take a space cruise, his mum says yes. Unfortunately, Shelby gets drunk on the voyage, and decides to take a small jaunt OUTSIDE the spaceship -- where he gets literally lost in space.

Fortunately, he's picked up by a mining vessel. Unfortunately (depending on your viewpoint) the family on board has never heard of the Cheevers, and they certainly don't believe that he's wealthier than all the miners put together. So for the first time, Shelby is forced to use his brain and his body, and pitch in on actual work. That would be fine -- until someone recognizes him, and plans a ransom demand to his father.

Like "Putting Up Roots," this book is not an amazing, groundbreaking piece of SF, but it's readable for both adults and kids. It has a pretty simple, straightforward plot: Go from A to B, where C will happen. And Sheffield does a good job of shifting Shelby from a bratty, overweight, obnoxious teenage boy to someone resourceful, skilled, and if not smart, then at least trying to be. The writing is fairly ordinary, with some good descriptions of life on a gritty mining ship.

This novel is far from flawless, though. One of the biggest problems is the technobabble that the characters launch into, or the idea that Shelby's smart "salt of the earth" dad would marry an idiot socialite and let his son run wild. Or, for that matter, how there could be a mere few hundred rich elite on Earth; why this is so is never explained, since that sort of scenario wouldn't last long.

Shelby is a pleasant oasis in a sea of kid characters who either know it all, or are just plain annoying. He's meant to be annoying, and the means by which he STOPS being annoying is what makes him interesting. Grace is a pretty good character, although I had trouble figuring out if she was a love interest or not. Most of the supporting characters are okay, not stellar, except for the dryly amusing Logan (a robot).

Despite the odd implausible points, "Billion-Dollar Boy" is a solid enough read, with a very flawed lead and a solid, action-filled story. Nice job.

Previously published as...?.......2001-02-25

There was a not missing fromm thje copyright page: "This boook was previously published in slightly diofferent form under the title _Captins Couragous_ by R Kipling" This is a reteelign of the Kipling book with the most minor of changes to set it in space, even to the point of calling the smaller spaceships 'Dorys' and retainign many other terms and elemets which made sense in their original settign and don't here. Changing one character from male to female introduced a mild romatic sub-plot, and moving the festival scen from the end to the middle of the voyage was interesting, as was the added cloak&dagger sub-plot, but the original is still better.

A great story and a great lesson.......2000-07-27

Where "Higher Education" failed, this book succeeded! "Higher Education" had a great story line, some great observations about society and our education system, and it had some great science. However, it failed in providing a good role model for the teens it was trying to reach. The characters were profane and sexually crude throughout "Higher Education". This book provided a good role model and included all of the good things "Higher Education" had to offer. A great read for all ages!

Great........1999-03-05

***High adventures, fast paced, and thoroughly enjoyable! Perfect for young readers, as well as, for adults. I highly recommend this one.***

If you liked 'Higher Education' you'll want this story.......1998-11-01

Shelby J. P. Cheever is the only son to J. P. Cheever. On an Earth populated by a billion poor souls maybe ten thousand are rich. Of those ten thousand maybe one hundred have more wealth than is imaginable. And of those one hundred, maybe ten are in the same level of power and wealth as Shelby's father. Not unimaginably, Shelby is Rich, Fat, Spoiled, and Useless. And now he's adrift in space...

Amazon.com

In 2026, the Earth faces an unexpected disaster. A supernova in the nearby Alpha Centauri system has apparently wiped out nearly every electronic component on the planet, leaving human civilization paralyzed. Phones don't work, transportation grinds to a halt, and essential services such as medical care are thrown back into the Stone Age. As the world tries to cope with this technological cut-off, a man dying of cancer begins a journey to save his life and that of his fellow patients, a master criminal escapes a sentence of "judiciary sleep," a returning Mars expedition faces what looks like certain death, and U.S. president Saul Steinmetz strives to keep his country from falling apart. Author Charles Sheffield has taken a classic hard-SF concept, applied it to the real world, and created a gripping story of survival. --Craig E. Engler

Book Description

It's 2026, and catastrophe has struck from an unexpected source. The Alpha Centauri supernova has risen like a second sun, rushing Earth toward its last summer. Floods, fires, starvation, and disease paralyze the planet. In a blue aurora flash of gamma rays, all microchips worldwide are destroyed, leaving an already devastated Earth without communications, transportation, weaponry, or medicine.

The disaster sets three groups of survivors on separate quests. A militant cult seizes the opportunity to free their leader, known as the Eye of God, from the long-term coma to which a court sentenced her. Three cancer patients also search for a man in judicial sleep: the brilliant scientist--and monstrous criminal--who alone can continue the experimental treatment that keeps them alive. From a far greater distance come the survivors of the first manned Mars expedition, struggling homeward to a world that has changed far beyond their darkest fears. And standing at the crossroads is one man, U.S. President Saul Steinmetz, who faces a crucial decision that will affect the fate of his own people...and the world.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Story goes on...and on...and on...and on...and on...and..............2007-03-03

The problem with this one is that it has LOTS of different lil subplots and doesn't really center on Any of them. Translated, it has so much to say that it really winds up saying nothing.

Most of the characters are not likable and what depth they have is mostly cliche'

End of the world? I had trouble making it to the end of the book!

Tend to agree.......2007-01-22

I have to echo a number of other reviews, this was a decent book. My biggest gripe was that the author skipped over some interesting plotlines to finish the book. Legion of Argos, Art and the cancer survivors, the president and his succubus...just sort of tied up in a bag and thrown in the river. I would really have liked to have seen a more interesting ending to these plotlines.

A Long, Slow Introduction To The Sequel.......2006-01-09

There is a story here, but the story rapidly spins away from what promised to be a fascinating exploration of the effects of a near-by super nova and into a series of tedious and mundane journeys in and around Washington D.C. Perhaps my greatest pet peeve is books that open new series but do not stand alone. "Aftermath" does not stand alone. I would not have expected Charles Sheffield to engage in this kind of writing: 547 paperback pages that could be easily condensed into 100 or so. A couple of characters hold promise, but no character-and no character arc-comes to conclusion in this book. There are also characters (especially the character portraying the President of the United States) whose actions and motivations make no sense whatsoever.

So why didn't I just put the book down and walk away?

Because some of the science was fascinating, and because one always holds out hope that the author will bring everything together by the end of the book. Sheffield does not do this. Instead, there are hints at what could come in the sequel: a technology-crashed planet, a supposedly impossible super nova that may not be a natural phenomenon after all, and a massive project in space to help shield the Earth from the super nova's effects. The mind already races ahead-three, four, five books into the future-to see the possibilities of this series, but what about these characters in the here and now? Will their mundane journeys parlay into something more interesting? It is obvious that some of these run of the mill characters will discover that they have radically extended life spans and so could fit into stories that must leap far into the future, but couldn't Sheffield have show us that in this first book?

So the real question is: Move on to the sequel-take that chance-or just drop the whole thing here?

I could not put it down.......2005-12-17

(Written for Worm's Sci Fi Haven by Dagny Taggart, more of her reviews can be read here: www.wormsscifi.com/haven)

Everyone has heard the line "repent! The end of the world is near! God is angry!" But what happens when the world ends because of natural causes?

Aftermath takes place about 20 years in the future, in an America with few advances in technology over what we have today, most notably, "judicial sleep", a type of prison (think the prison setting from the Minority Report movie, without the pipe organ). A healthy star in the Centauri system has gone supernova, sending a massive electromagnetic pulse towards earth. We follow characters in a few separate plot lines: the crew of a manned mission to Mars, on their way home, a group of cancer survivors looking to rescue the inventor of their experimental treatment from judicial sleep, and the President of the US and a few of his aids. Thanks to the EMP, all electronic devices become useless. No refrigeration, no computers, no cars, no nothin'. Think Hurricane Katrina gone global.

Yes, it is a huge disaster, with many deaths. I read this book before Hurricane Katrina hit, I wonder if I would have felt differently one way of the other if I had read the book just after that storm hit? Something that made the book far more enjoyable was that it did not dwell on the negative impact of the disaster. All of our characters stay optimistic. All of our characters are constantly thinking ahead, planning for the future, not dwelling on the fact that nothing works anymore. Maybe it's because many of our characters are used to adverse situations? The president has all his politics to deal with, our cancer patients are thankful to be alive, and our Mars astronauts are have been living in a shoebox shuttle for the last 6 months. So our characters are used to challenges. We do not hear about people dying, flooding, mass starvation. It's implied that it is there, but Sheffield does not dwell on this, and I am thankful for it.

The book is action packed, from the cancer survivors breaking their freakish doctor out of judicial sleep and trying to avoid the marines who are surrounding the place (trying to break someone else out), to the Mars mission survivors crash landing near a compound of religious fanatics, whose leader foreseen all.

Some interesting ethical questions are raised, such as what is a doctor's genius brain worth, if he is a predatorial criminal? When you only have one chance to save your own life, of the life of your friends, what do you do? Surrounded by tragedy, Sheffield keeps his eyes on the prize, namely the cancer survivors and their bizarre doctor, the Mars mission survivors trying to survive a cult of religious fanatics, and the President and his surrounding spider web of politics.

Once I got halfway through this book, I could not put it down. This is the first Sheffield book I have read, and I promise not to make it my last, however I was mighty frustrated to find the book ends on a cliffhanger, and I would have to find the sequel!

Disappointing.......2005-08-26

Like many others who have posted reviews here, I have been a big reader of 'end of the world' novels for many years, from the excellent and highly recommended "Lucifer's Hammer" and the strong (but a bit dated) "Alas, Babylon" to Frank Herbert's dreadful "The White Plague." "Aftermath" has an appealing premise, an EMP pulse that is generated by a supernova causes problems for all of humanity (on top of the weather impact of the supernova, itself). But we don't get to see much of humanity or the nitty-gritty of what a disruption of all microcircuits would do to food distribution, medical care, etc. These events occur offscreen, as it were, and seem trivialized. The problems of the President, the crew of the Mars exploration ship, a serial killer, and special medical patients take the stage, instead. That could be interesting, I suppose, if there wasn't so much focus on their sex lives and so many plot coincidences, along with some facts/science that don't seem to make much sense (like the southern breezes that bring snow to D.C. and the lack of any appreciable entourage for the President). The slow pace of the book does nothing to help the situation. I won't be reading the sequel. Donald J. Bingle, Author of Forced Conversion.

Average customer rating:

Cartoonish
Traders World

Trader's World
Charles Sheffield
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0345344324
Release Date: 1988-10-12

Customer Reviews:

Cartoonish.......2007-06-22

An early novel from Charles Sheffield. A future history after a nuclear war. Rather cartoon-like character development and plotting.

Traders World.......2001-10-13

this book kept me going for the three full days it took me to read it. the only thing that i have to say bad is i didn't like the ending. sheffield needs to do a sequil. kinda left me hanging and i wanted to read more.

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