Rating: 
Summary: The needet follow-up to Mindstar Rising.
Review: This boot took me longer time to read than Mindstar Rising. I dont know if that has anything to do with my feelings about the book.. I do not find it as good as Mindstar Rising, but I wanted to finish it when i started. But you really want to read it to learn more about Greg and his orangefarm.. :)
Rating:
Summary: A respectable followup to Mindstar Rising
Review: This, the second of three Greg Mandel novels, is quite similar in style and substance to Mindstar Rising. Hamilton brings back all the old familiar characters in a story set a year or two after the events of Mindstar Rising. He offers up an interesting detective story mixed in with occasional (well written) action sequences. He continues to flesh out his post-global-warming vision of England and the world, providing a relatively realistic and consistent background for the events of this story to unfold. His prose style has improved nominally, but still has a way to go before it reaches the excellence of The Neutronium Alchemist.The one failing of this book lies in the extreme lack of explanation, support, theorizing or whatever that surrounds the psi 'powers' of the Mindstar veterans. It's a bit hard to swallow the notion that nobody has bothered to work on figuring out the mechanism by which the psi faculty works. Even accepting the notion that they can't figure out why Greg has an intuitive sense, it seems that the people of this future world too readily accept the results of this ability. A bit more healthy skepticism, even in the face of clear demonstrations of the power, might serve the story well. Nonetheless, though it is not a cornerstone of hard sf, the book is a fairly good read, a diverting page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: A respectable followup to Mindstar Rising
Review: This, the second of three Greg Mandel novels, is quite similar in style and substance to Mindstar Rising. Hamilton brings back all the old familiar characters in a story set a year or two after the events of Mindstar Rising. He offers up an interesting detective story mixed in with occasional (well written) action sequences. He continues to flesh out his post-global-warming vision of England and the world, providing a relatively realistic and consistent background for the events of this story to unfold. His prose style has improved nominally, but still has a way to go before it reaches the excellence of The Neutronium Alchemist. The one failing of this book lies in the extreme lack of explanation, support, theorizing or whatever that surrounds the psi 'powers' of the Mindstar veterans. It's a bit hard to swallow the notion that nobody has bothered to work on figuring out the mechanism by which the psi faculty works. Even accepting the notion that they can't figure out why Greg has an intuitive sense, it seems that the people of this future world too readily accept the results of this ability. A bit more healthy skepticism, even in the face of clear demonstrations of the power, might serve the story well. Nonetheless, though it is not a cornerstone of hard sf, the book is a fairly good read, a diverting page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Mindstar rising
Review: Well, here we have the sequel to Mindstar Rising. It has many of the same characters, bringing some old favorites back for a second book.
Overall, this book is 3 stars. Some elements were better than others, obviously. The characters were good, though Eleanor still seems to have no personallity whatsoever. The plot was inplausible, at best, and hard to believe. The writing style was still very interesting, and is, in fact, the only reason that I finished this book at all.
A murder mystery set in future England, with not one but several odd twists. Not good twists really, nor believable, but not too farfetched, if you have a very, very open mind. (I think I'll leave it at that.)
One of the best things about this book though was the fact that the author obviously took some pains to follow semi-known physics, and tried not to bend the laws of the universe too far. Also, even though these things play a major part in the story, the aren't the dominating feature. So, for those of you not interested in theoretical quantum physics, or cosmology, this book won't bore you to tears.
All in all, it flowed (to me at least) better than Mindstar Rising, even if the storyline was a little thin in several places.
I also found the discription of the inside of an insane seriel killer's mind quite interesting; it really makes you wonder.
So, if you liked the first book, chances are that this one will appeal to you as well.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Mindstar rising
Review: Well, here we have the sequel to Mindstar Rising. It has many of the same characters, bringing some old favorites back for a second book.
Overall, this book is 3 stars. Some elements were better than others, obviously. The characters were good, though Eleanor still seems to have no personallity whatsoever. The plot was inplausible, at best, and hard to believe. The writing style was still very interesting, and is, in fact, the only reason that I finished this book at all.
A murder mystery set in future England, with not one but several odd twists. Not good twists really, nor believable, but not too farfetched, if you have a very, very open mind. (I think I'll leave it at that.)
One of the best things about this book though was the fact that the author obviously took some pains to follow semi-known physics, and tried not to bend the laws of the universe too far. Also, even though these things play a major part in the story, the aren't the dominating feature. So, for those of you not interested in theoretical quantum physics, or cosmology, this book won't bore you to tears.
All in all, it flowed (to me at least) better than Mindstar Rising, even if the storyline was a little thin in several places.
I also found the discription of the inside of an insane seriel killer's mind quite interesting; it really makes you wonder.
So, if you liked the first book, chances are that this one will appeal to you as well.
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