Rating: 
Summary: This book is a classic
Review: I read this book over a year ago and I still think about it. Both my son and I have read and discussed it. He was 16 when he read it. He thinks Scheffield is one of the best SF writers around. I am inclined to agree.The galactic scope and sweep of this book makes it hard to forget. And yet there is the passion of a relationship for all time. Hard SF mixed with deep human longing. This seems to be Scheffield's great contribution to the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Really two books: one fantastic, one boring.
Review: I really hesitated whether I would give it a chance after I read "The Mind Pool" by Charles Sheffield, which started excellent, but ended as a big mess. But then I saw that people had given "Tommorow and Tommorow" such good reviews, and I figured Charles Sheffield deserves another chance.
The book started really well: the story is set at the end of the 20th century and tells about Drake Merlin, a musician and a composer. Drake and his wife, Ana, live a happy life. Both do not pursue money or power but instead concentrate on their professions (Ana is a singer), and live in bliss. But this doesn't last for too long, as Ana contracts a strange and lethal disease, leading to her death in a fairly short period of time. Drake is heartbroken, but decides not do despair. He contacts a company called "Second Chance", and freezes Ana in a cryotomb - hoping that sometime in the future technology would be high enough to revive her and cure whatever she has. Afterwards, Drake works for a few years, collecting knowledge which he figures would be very useful in the future as well as making money so he could afford keeping Ana frozen for a long period of time, and also afford to freeze himself. Drake hopes that in some time in the future, both of them will be revived, Ana be cured, and they can continue their life. His love for Ana is really strong, and he is determined not to give up. The time comes, and Drake is frozen - only to be awaken 500 years in the future, in a totally changed society.
This is but one of the many times Drake will be frozen only to be woken up in the yet farther future.. things have not gone as smoothly as Drake had hoped..
This took exactly one half of the book, and was really fantastic. The author built a completely believable future (actually, several futures), and the story was very captivating:
I totally thought I had misjudged Charles Sheffield, and couldn't put this book down.
However...
Then Drake wakes up, and the book takes a very strange twist. Apparently in the very, very distant future, Drake (as an "ancient and primitive human") will be needed to save the descendants of the human race, as they are fighting for their survival against a force from outside our galaxy which cannot be fathomed. Drake must take control, find out what is the problem, and then solve it. Other reviewers commented on the accuracy of the science in this part. I agree. However, it is still very boring. For me it was a distraction of the main story, and frankly, I think this shouldn't have been put in this book. I read the entire second half of the book in one long evening, because I really wanted to get to the end, which wasn't very satisfying (but better than not reading the end at all). I really wanted to see whether Drake and Ana will be united.
To summarize this book: first part is really good, but the second part might disappoint you. Overall it is still definitely worthy of a read.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic! One of the best SF books I've read in a while.
Review: I've always been a big fan of "big picture" SF, where the author takes you to the ends of space and time. This one really stretches the imagination - downloading copies of consciousness into synthetic life forms, a galactic menace, the Omega Point - this book has it all.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: Imaginative, believable, fairly easy to read, and touching! A bit technical at times, but doesn't hinder the understanding of the plot, which is quite unique and different from anything else I've read! I recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: A tour de force of the rest of time
Review: One of the most satisfying and grand science fiction stories I have read in 30 years. This is the book that current-day SETI radioastronomers should read to broaden their relatively closed minds.
One major character is missing, however, in the book's appendix that sets forth a history of scientific ideas. Here the modern view of the cosmos is seen as beginning with Galileo's belief that the sun is a globe of gas. Actually, the modern view of the universe began about 35 years earlier with Giordano Bruno's realization that the stars are suns, not little points of twinkling light that move around the "celestial sphere" in various ways. Bruno's notion was later dismissed by Galileo and his contemporaries as wild and unprovable. It was also Bruno who extrapolated from this that planets (i.e. "worlds" -- another Brunerian notion) revolve around these stars like they do here and that some percentage of these worlds harbor intelligent civilizations like or unlike our own. Unlike Galileo, Bruno believed that the universe was infinite and composed of innumerable suns and worlds ("solar systems"), not a "celestial sphere" consisting of one world, one sun, and a bunch of "stars", some "wandering" (the planets), others less mobile (the stars), as Galileo believed. Bruno understood that neither the sun nor the earth was the center but was both whereever an observor stood and nowhere in particular. Although a prime mover of the age of reason, Bruno also all but invented the modern notion of romantic love: *he* was the inspiration for Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," among others of the Bard's plays. Bruno was also the first to coin and seriously believe the phrase "philosophical liberty", an idea which was not lost on the Churches of his time (he was excomunicated from three of these). It was the Catholic Church that burned him at the stake in 1600, for unlike Galileo Father Bruno steadfastly refused to recant HIS ideas. Other than this oversight, Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about as good as it gets in science fiction. (Review by Thomas N. Hackney)
Rating:
Summary: The concepts sweep you away...
Review: The story of a late 20th century man whose wife is dying. Rather than let her go, he has them both cryogenically frozen in the hopes that she may be cured in the future. He is awakened much later only to learn that she was irrevocably lost to him. Instead he is needed as the last remnant of humanity's violent times to combat a new menace to the vast but peaceful human space empire. This book tops my list of Sheffield favorites. Even if you despise the story - and I don't see why you would - the concepts of what man may accomplish in the distant future will leave you in wonder for days. Sheffield introduces an incredible amount of fascinating ideas about the future of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, society, music, space travel, communications, immortality, and even the nature of reality. I withheld the fifth star from my rating because the ending baffled me. This may have been the fault of my hurry to see what happens, rather than any poor writing on the author's part. But I was a little disappointed by it. Still, I heartily recommend this to anyone interested in sci fi or just exploring possibilities.
Rating:
Summary: The concepts sweep you away...
Review: The story of a late 20th century man whose wife is dying. Rather than let her go, he has them both cryogenically frozen in the hopes that she may be cured in the future. He is awakened much later only to learn that she was irrevocably lost to him. Instead he is needed as the last remnant of humanity's violent times to combat a new menace to the vast but peaceful human space empire. This book tops my list of Sheffield favorites. Even if you despise the story - and I don't see why you would - the concepts of what man may accomplish in the distant future will leave you in wonder for days. Sheffield introduces an incredible amount of fascinating ideas about the future of genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, society, music, space travel, communications, immortality, and even the nature of reality. I withheld the fifth star from my rating because the ending baffled me. This may have been the fault of my hurry to see what happens, rather than any poor writing on the author's part. But I was a little disappointed by it. Still, I heartily recommend this to anyone interested in sci fi or just exploring possibilities.
Rating:
Summary: This book goes beyond time and science...
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: This book goes beyond time and science...
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Core Cosmos Science Fiction
Review: This book ties one man's obsessed drive to bring his deceased wife back to life, to future of the universe. Charles Sheffield brings science back to science fiction. Charles Sheffield easily intertwines the concepts of a closed universe and the omega point into a human drama.
This book also includes a final chapter describing open and closed universes and the ongoing debates among cosmologist as to which we live in.
|
