Rating: 
Summary: Haven't read it in 15 years, can't forget it!
Review: In 1985, I found a paperback copy of Tau Zero. I read it in a weekend, then lost the book. Fifteen years later, I can still picture the ship traveling through space in an ever-increasing speed, chasing the elusive tau. I can see the universe growing old, collapsing, and being reborn. This is a book that will stick with you, I know! And I'm going to pick up another copy soon.
Rating:
Summary: Going overboard--the right way!
Review: Many sci-fi movies tend to end by putting things back to normal and saying essentially, "There are some things that man was not meant to know." This book is the antithesis of that mentality. Poul Anderson gets farther and farther out--literally--with every chapter. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixes dreary soap opera with a technical book.
Review: Poul Anderson has written some of my favorite & least favorite stories. It has some good points, but not enough & at times it sounded like a science textbook. Also the idea of Sweden ruling the world was fairly laughable. I mean no disrespect to Sweden, since being the predominate nation has a fair amount of drawbacks that you're lucky to miss out on.
Rating: 
Summary: great sense of wonder, mediocre writing
Review: Tau zero is a difficult book to review, because what's good about it is truly great, but there's a lot that isn't good. As a good old fashioned sense-of-wonder science fiction story about a ship traveling close to lightspeed, the book is fantastic (I couldn't put it down). But it has to be said that Anderson (like many other SF writers of his generation) is simply not a very good writer. Much of the book deals with the human interactions between the characters, and Anderson does a poor job in breathing life into them and into the situations they find themselves in. I did find myself caring about the characters, but not nearly as much as I would have in the hands of a better writer. Also, there is a pronounced almost-fascist authoritarian tone as well as a Swedish supremacist (!) vibe (strange bedfellows indeed) which I found highly annoying at first. Fortunately, this aspect of the book is played down as the story progresses. Also (very mild spoiler) despite what the book jacket says, the ship never reaches tau zero (lightspeed), because Anderson (fortunately) sticks closely to plausible science. The ending is by far the best part of the book, so if you start to get bored just keep reading. I may be excessively generous in giving this book four stars, but I think that the power of the story outweighs the flaws in the writing, and I think most SF fans will enjoy it for what it is: a great sense-of-wonder story in the old tradition.
Rating:
Summary: great sense of wonder, mediocre writing
Review: Tau zero is a difficult book to review, because what's good about it is truly great, but there's a lot that isn't good. As a good old fashioned sense-of-wonder science fiction story about a ship traveling close to lightspeed, the book is fantastic (I couldn't put it down). But it has to be said that Anderson (like many other SF writers of his generation) is simply not a very good writer. Much of the book deals with the human interactions between the characters, and Anderson does a poor job in breathing life into them and into the situations they find themselves in. I did find myself caring about the characters, but not nearly as much as I would have in the hands of a better writer. Also, there is a pronounced almost-fascist authoritarian tone as well as a Swedish supremacist (!) vibe (strange bedfellows indeed) which I found highly annoying at first. Fortunately, this aspect of the book is played down as the story progresses. Also (very mild spoiler) despite what the book jacket says, the ship never reaches tau zero (lightspeed), because Anderson (fortunately) sticks closely to plausible science. The ending is by far the best part of the book, so if you start to get bored just keep reading. I may be excessively generous in giving this book four stars, but I think that the power of the story outweighs the flaws in the writing, and I think most SF fans will enjoy it for what it is: a great sense-of-wonder story in the old tradition.
Rating:
Summary: Offers a seldom seen solution to a common scifi problem.
Review: The book is basically a long short story. The chosen crew to found a colony at a distant star finds their ship out of control and unable to stop. They must overcome the tendency to give up hope and find a new answer to an unsolvable problem. They travel thru space and time to the end of time and space. What will happen at the end of the universe? Anderson has become one of my top authors.
Rating:
Summary: Offers a seldom seen solution to a common scifi problem.
Review: The book is basically a long short story. The chosen crew to found a colony at a distant star finds their ship out of control and unable to stop. They must overcome the tendency to give up hope and find a new answer to an unsolvable problem. They travel thru space and time to the end of time and space. What will happen at the end of the universe? Anderson has become one of my top authors.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding -- one of my all-time favorites!
Review: The genius of this novel is that Anderson has written a taut suspenseful drama which draws the reader into it -- into the lives of the characters, their fantastic situation, their struggles, triumphs, and will to persevere. This all wrapped in a very exciting, compelling story of the first attempt at interstellar travel, and amazingly, without "warp" drives, or such SF devices. The story was told with a hard-science base of known, modern-day physics, and was as good a SF story as I've ever read. Truly excellent!
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT hard science fiction!
Review: This is one of the best and finest novels on science fiction I ever read. It is really impressive how Anderson mixes the science (relativity, travel close to light speed and the Big Bang Theory) with excellent form and style. Even though I am just a sci-fi fan, I couldn't help to notice how the chapters become shorter as the ship Leonora Christine travels faster until the Big Crunch and a new Universe is born. Also the way he handles the characters and their social life is balanced in this novel. In summary, I strongly recommend this novel, for those who love the hard stuff and those who enjoy a good work of literature. I hope you can find it (I can't believe this novel is out of print)
Rating:
Summary: Great Entertainment
Review: This is truly an awesome book. It paints images in the mind of the starship hurtling through space, and the universe growing old and collapsing, only to be reborn. Tau Zero is a great book, a exciting journey through relitivity and space...I will never forget it.
|
