The Web Between The Worlds

Rating:
Summary: another fine sf novel from the author of Cold As Ice
Review: Although not as polished, this tale of extended lifetimes via drastically slowed metabolism is an entertaining reda.

Rating:
Summary: another fine sf novel from the author of the Ganymede Club
Review: As always, Sheffield's mix of juvenile and adult characters charms. Although not as polished as some of his later work, this tale of extended lifetime through drastically slowed metabolism is an absorbing read, characteristic as always by careful attention to physics, and a real appreciation of the scope of endeavour available to humans.

Rating:
Summary: Good charecters, weak plot.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Good charecters, weak plot.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: see my review on the other listing of this book
Review: i think 'a reviewer' of feb 20, '97 must be thinking of a different book!!

Rating:
Summary: Tense, stretched, he spins a good yarn...
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: find this one!
Review: merlin is an engineer of the future- he builds in space. the book is about the expense and limits of transporting goods and persons between earth's surface and space, and merlin's collaboration with a space ore miner to build a ' skyhook' or 'beanstalk'- a transport tower anchored on the earth's surface and extending into orbit- that would allow constant, cheap, easy travel into space. a neat story by itself, but i think made a lot more interesting by the fact that almost simultaneously, arthur c clarke published a book about an engineer building a 'skyhook' ....- apparently neither knowing about the others' publication until after the fact. the juxtaposition makes an interesting comparison of the idea.

Rating:
Summary: find this one!
Review: merlin is an engineer of the future- he builds in space. the book is about the expense and limits of transporting goods and persons between earth's surface and space, and merlin's collaboration with a space ore miner to build a ' skyhook' or 'beanstalk'- a transport tower anchored on the earth's surface and extending into orbit- that would allow constant, cheap, easy travel into space. a neat story by itself, but i think made a lot more interesting by the fact that almost simultaneously, arthur c clarke published a book about an engineer building a 'skyhook' ....- apparently neither knowing about the others' publication until after the fact. the juxtaposition makes an interesting comparison of the idea.

Rating:
Summary: Solid effort, "Straight" Sci-Fi, hope it ain't the last.
Review: This may be the last of Mr. Sheffield's work, it is not his best, but it is a good read. Charles Sheffield is (or was) actually pulitzer prize winning author James Kirkwood. His non-Sci-Fi works fall out along the same lines, and level of quality, as John Knowles, John Irving, and even J.D. Salinger --- except Kirkwood was prolific rather than puckish. It would be a shame to see him go out on such a mediocre novel, & I hope others and betters are banked, and soon for publishing.

Rating:
Summary: Solid effort, "Straight" Sci-Fi, hope it ain't the last.
Review: This may be the last of Mr. Sheffield's work, it is not his best, but it is a good read. Charles Sheffield is (or was) actually pulitzer prize winning author James Kirkwood. His non-Sci-Fi works fall out along the same lines, and level of quality, as John Knowles, John Irving, and even J.D. Salinger --- except Kirkwood was prolific rather than puckish. It would be a shame to see him go out on such a mediocre novel, & I hope others and betters are banked, and soon for publishing.