Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating adventure!
Review: A great story, heavy on science yet still readable by any sci-fi fan. The crew of a star ship are fated to a mind boggling adventure forced upon them.A group of potential human colonizers from Earth become stranded in space when they experience a very bad case of car trouble, causing them to miss their target star system and continue into the unknown. Due to their speed, time outside the ship moves much faster than within, and eventually they are the last of our kind known to exist as Earth's solar system dies out. Some of the characters are shallow, yet the Captain is solid and memorable. The characters' attempts to deal with the absence of Earth and, therefore, the absence of any familiar frame of reference in their new existence, are effective. Ultimately a triumphant story of human survival and will, and the human struggle to find a place in such a vast, unfamiliar universe. Earth truly seems small in this story, yet looms large in the minds of the nomadic crew, facing an uncertain future. An excellent and memorable book!
Rating:
Summary: Full-speed SF
Review: A space-ship designed to travel at speed, carrying explorers intending to colonise a distant star, gets into a bit of trouble and has its deceleration mechanism knocked out. Result - ship goes faster and faster and cannot stop. But this is no precursor of Speed for the space adventure generation. Despite the somewhat two-dimensional aspect of most of the characters, Anderson's novel develops into a meditation on life, the universe and everything. As the ship reaches almost unimaginable speeds, the universe outside the ship begins to observably age, leading to an inevitable conclusion with perhaps unexpected consequences. A well-handled science fiction meditation on the meaning of existence.
Rating:
Summary: Full-speed SF
Review: A space-ship designed to travel at speed, carrying explorers intending to colonise a distant star, gets into a bit of trouble and has its deceleration mechanism knocked out. Result - ship goes faster and faster and cannot stop. But this is no precursor of Speed for the space adventure generation. Despite the somewhat two-dimensional aspect of most of the characters, Anderson's novel develops into a meditation on life, the universe and everything. As the ship reaches almost unimaginable speeds, the universe outside the ship begins to observably age, leading to an inevitable conclusion with perhaps unexpected consequences. A well-handled science fiction meditation on the meaning of existence.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating premise, but spoilt in its development
Review: Bussard Ramjets were hot stuff in '60s SF. Authors who were tired of the conventions of faster-than-light (FTL) travel, which is really little more than a handy way of getting the story to planet X, loved the idea of a scientifically plausible stardrive. Putting it simply, a Bussard Ramjet works by collecting interstellar hydrogen in magnetic fields at the front of the ship, squeezing them in a fusion reactor, and squirting the result out of the back at near the speed of light. It overcomes the problem all spacecraft face, where any practical starship is all fuel and reaction mass and no payload, by collecting its fuel on the way. The original free lunch, as it were. A Bussard Ramjet can theoretically reach any speed short of the speed of light. A side-effect of relativity theory is that, for the occupants of the ship, time passes more slowly the closer the ship approaches the speed of light. The factor by which time slows down is known as tau. So if tau is .5 the journey will seem to the travellers to take only half as long as it does to observers at rest. The faster you go, the more tau reduces.Hence the title. In this hard-SF novel - expanded from a short story - the ship Leonora Christine sustains damage to her externally-mounted braking system while travelling very close to the speed of light. Unfortunately, it is impossible to go outside the ship to fix it as the density of interstellar matter in the vicinity is so high that it will kill anyone who goes outside the hull. The only way to deal with this is to travel to an intergalactic region where matter density is lower. To only way to get there within the crew's lifetime is to accelerate until tau is close enough to zero... So far, this is a great SF story premise. The reader is involved in the crew's dilemma - to slow down they have to go faster - and can have fun second-guessing the author's very credible plot developments. But in the expansion to short-novel length, Poul Anderson has to give us more than just a puzzle -! we have to start getting involved with the crew as well. And this is where things go wrong. The people-interest part feels all too tacked on. Had Poul Anderson spent more time and space fully developing his characters the balance of the novel would have shifted away from the original hard-SF premise. Done well, this would have been just fine. But the characters are not well developed; they act and speak as if they were in a TV mini-series. In the end, Tau Zero falls between two stools - it's too long to be problem-centred hard SF, too short to be people-centred story SF. For more on Bussard Ramjets, see almost anything published by Larry Niven in the late '60s and early '70s, but especially A World out of Time (aka Children of the State) which is another short-story to novel expansion which I think is far more successful.
Rating: 
Summary: Its awsomeness made me cry.
Review: I absolutly loved this book. From the beging scene in Sweden to the final adventure in the new born universe. Anderson's ability to take on the vast theories of the big bang and big crunch are astounding. It's a short but memorable book. I HIGHLY recommend finding it. Elisabeth Humphrey, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! Ultimate hardcore sci-fi!!!
Review: I can't believe this book is out of print! This is hardcore sci-fi at its FINEST. Unlike books such as Dune, which are simply fantasy books in a galactic setting, the plot of _Tau_Zero_ actually revolves around a scientific theme--in this case, relativistic consequences of space travel. It'll keep you on the edge of your seat right to the end. (note: not that Dune isn't good too. But it ain't good hard sci-fi.)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I found this book hard to put down. What makes it more interesting than most is that it is based largely on known scientific facts. The tragedy of being cut off from the rest of humanity due to unforseen circumstances, relativistic effects of high-speed travel and the sheer guts to continue into the unknown adds great suspense. A pity that it is out of print.
Rating:
Summary: Best scienc-fiction novel I have read (so far)
Review: I have short-listed this novel as one I would be locked up with. I am currently on my third copy (the first two wore out!), and tend to revisit it about twice a year. The immense scope of Poul Andersons' vision, involving the cream of the scientific community, faced with a near-insumountable problem and the sheer personal will to resolve it, are unmatched by anything I have read so far. I was particularly impressed by his avoidance of the "now-that-we-are-starting-over,-we-will-do-better" trap he could have easily taken at the end of the novel. In closing, a steller example of how to recount a major epic without verbosity.
Rating:
Summary: My all-time favorite
Review: I read this book for the first time more than 20 years ago, I think about 1975, and it still makes me feel very small... Actually I'm writing this rewiew without having read the book for more than 15 years, since the only copy disappeared from my local library. I've been serching for a copy ever since... (Impossible in Sweden.) Now, I hope nobody thinks I like this book just because Sweden is leading the world when the book starts. Although it is fun reading about my hometown streets in this kind of book, it's the trip through space and time by 'Leonora Christine' and her crew that really sends chills through my spine. The feeling that such a trip actually may be POSSIBLE, not far from our current technology, is adding a lot to the feeling. I sincerely hope that amazon.com will find me a copy, I just GOT to read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard SF
Review: If you like your SF hard and technical, Tau Zero is worth taking a look at. The main premise of the plot is based around relativity. The faster the ship goes, the 'slower' time becomes for the ship and its crew. With the result that the crew can travel immense distances in, what is for them, a few years time; and literally watch the universe age.
This is an intriguing premise, but the book, short as is, reads slow. Characterization is not well done. The crew seems to come apart psychologically too fast. After all they knew when they started they wouldn't see Earth again, and would be journeying for at least five years. I just don't believe a handpicked crew, would panic and despair in a few years, even if the universe around them had aged hundreds of millions of years.
And Sweden ruling the world?
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