Marrow

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: Marrow is like finding an oasis after 3 days in the desert. I love this book. I read it six months ago, but every so often, a piece of the plot swirls around the back of my head. That's saying a lot--most books I pick up, read, and put on my shelf, "One more dead soldier." A month later, I'll look at it and wonder if I've read it, until I pull it down and page through it. Not so, Marrow. It is vibrant. Its ideas live on, and so, too, its characters and story. If you like to be surprised when you read science fiction, you want to read Marrow.

Rating:
Summary: a terrible, terrible book!
Review: Marrow is terrible. Being a science fiction fan for many years now, rarely has a book promised so much and delivered so little. The premise, a vessel floating throughout the galaxy long abandoned by it's creators, although done before is envisaged well within the first few chapters. Unfortunately, it goes badly downhill from there.
Reed takes his eye off the big picture and suddenly seems to focus on the small detail, building up and concentrating on specific characters. He doesn't seem to have the ability to do this in an interesting way and what is worse, he builds up specific characters over many many chapters only to have them die/ put out of commission within the space of 2-3 lines! What is the point!!
Other characters that he decides he needs towards the end of the story he suddenly brings back from the dead.
Nothing is consistent.
Another assumption from this book is that the inhabitants of Marrow, especially the Master Captain are not inquisitive enough to explore the whole ship and to understand it. This again is hard to swallow.
I found myself reading on desperate to find a meaning to the book and to the convoluted storyline... and guess what, there was none. The twist at the end (small though it is) did not reveal anything except conjecture. Overall, thoroughly dissapointing and a huge waste of time.



Rating:
Summary: Flawed but compelling and exciting
Review: No one knew where the gigantic ship came from or how old it was or who built it. It sailed the galaxies for untold eons before intelligent life forms discovered it. The first discoverers attempted to destroy it, fearing its immensity, but the Ship was made to withstand the worst of weapons. Eventually, some creatures boarded the ship and made it their home. Over the millennia, it became a universe all its own, filled with untold types of species and creatures living inside immense areas of their own design, creatures whose knowledge had made them virtually immortal. One day, out of the blue, the ship's best captains were assembled and shown an inconceivable site-the gigantic spaceship, bigger than worlds, had a planet inside its core. The captains were sent to explore the fearsome, inhospitable planet, and in so doing they became trapped on the harsh land they called Marrow. For millennia they worked and waited, unsure if the Master and the ship's passengers had perished or simply forgotten them. The children of the settlers broke away from their Loyalist forebears and forged their own society, calling themselves the Waywards, great Builders reborn. Miocene, the Loyalist leader, and her son Till became bitter enemies. After untold years of waiting, the return of the lost captains would change life inside the Ship forever.

The book moves along quite well as we see the selected captains travel down to the impossible planet Marrow and forge a life for themselves after their entrapment in that fierce environment. The first problems come with the return of the lost Captains from Marrow back to the ship. The novel seems to be too epic in its scope, and Reed basically skips right over some of the drastic changes that have taken place on Marrow. The actions of Miocene, a central character, change drastically during these years hidden from our eyes, and her role in the takeover of the Ship never makes perfect sense to me. The first half of the book builds up to the return from Marrow to the ship, yet the section following that historic event disrupts the flow of the story by pausing to explain what has been going on onboard the ship over the intervening years and acquainting us with Pamir, one of the novel's prominent heroes in the battle for control of the Ship. This does great damage to the flow of the novel, and it never fully recovers its initial momentum. Things begin to happen too fast toward the end, and the actions and motivations of several key characters are hard to discern.

While this book does have a few weaknesses in plot and character development, the overall story is wonderfully different and quite enjoyable. With the exception of the interlude of sorts in the middle, the plot moves along very well. Sometimes it moves too fast, causing me trouble in correlating what was being done by whom and for what reason. Some of the science is not adequately explained, but this was not a big issue for me because I found the whole idea behind the novel delightfully different and compelling. Once the story gets going, its energy drew me further and further into it and left me anxious to see just how events would play out in the end. A few surprises could have been explained more fully, but overall I was quite impressed with this science fiction novel.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but compelling and exciting
Review: No one knew where the gigantic ship came from or how old it was or who built it. It sailed the galaxies for untold eons before intelligent life forms discovered it. The first discoverers attempted to destroy it, fearing its immensity, but the Ship was made to withstand the worst of weapons. Eventually, some creatures boarded the ship and made it their home. Over the millennia, it became a universe all its own, filled with untold types of species and creatures living inside immense areas of their own design, creatures whose knowledge had made them virtually immortal. One day, out of the blue, the ship's best captains were assembled and shown an inconceivable site-the gigantic spaceship, bigger than worlds, had a planet inside its core. The captains were sent to explore the fearsome, inhospitable planet, and in so doing they became trapped on the harsh land they called Marrow. For millennia they worked and waited, unsure if the Master and the ship's passengers had perished or simply forgotten them. The children of the settlers broke away from their Loyalist forebears and forged their own society, calling themselves the Waywards, great Builders reborn. Miocene, the Loyalist leader, and her son Till became bitter enemies. After untold years of waiting, the return of the lost captains would change life inside the Ship forever.

The book moves along quite well as we see the selected captains travel down to the impossible planet Marrow and forge a life for themselves after their entrapment in that fierce environment. The first problems come with the return of the lost Captains from Marrow back to the ship. The novel seems to be too epic in its scope, and Reed basically skips right over some of the drastic changes that have taken place on Marrow. The actions of Miocene, a central character, change drastically during these years hidden from our eyes, and her role in the takeover of the Ship never makes perfect sense to me. The first half of the book builds up to the return from Marrow to the ship, yet the section following that historic event disrupts the flow of the story by pausing to explain what has been going on onboard the ship over the intervening years and acquainting us with Pamir, one of the novel's prominent heroes in the battle for control of the Ship. This does great damage to the flow of the novel, and it never fully recovers its initial momentum. Things begin to happen too fast toward the end, and the actions and motivations of several key characters are hard to discern.

While this book does have a few weaknesses in plot and character development, the overall story is wonderfully different and quite enjoyable. With the exception of the interlude of sorts in the middle, the plot moves along very well. Sometimes it moves too fast, causing me trouble in correlating what was being done by whom and for what reason. Some of the science is not adequately explained, but this was not a big issue for me because I found the whole idea behind the novel delightfully different and compelling. Once the story gets going, its energy drew me further and further into it and left me anxious to see just how events would play out in the end. A few surprises could have been explained more fully, but overall I was quite impressed with this science fiction novel.

Rating:
Summary: Stands on its own, if you like audacity
Review: Okay, first an editorial comment: I hate it when people review books on the basis of superficial resemblences to other works. This may have a big world ship, but that's where the resemblence to Rama ends, folks (nor was Rama the first: Heinlein's Universe, anyone?) -- if you want another Rama book, you should direct your comments to Clarke and Lee.

Now, if you can get past that, this is a work that has, I think, a genuinely audacious storyline. Perhaps TOO audacious for some tastes. We are talking about a storyline with hundred-thousand year old characters who are entirely willing to, among other things, wait five-thousand years (building an entire civilization in the process) in order to rescue themselves from being marooned.

The story is certainly an example of that grand old genre known as Space Opera. The science may be a tad "harder" than the old E.E. "Doc" Smith books, but only a tad. The sweep is epic and the characters are (quite literally) superhuman. People who are looking for either fine characterization or for hard technical science really should look elsewhere, because it ain't that sort of book. But if you can read it for what it is (especially if you are a fan of the old genre), I think that it stands up quite well. Certainly, it's not the perfect story -- the characters could have been rendered better, and the resolution seemed a bit forced -- but it is a GOOD example of what it is.

The book only "fails" if one judges it on the basis of what is not. At least that's my (not all that humble) opinion.

Rating:
Summary: My First Exposure to Reed
Review: Okay, I've read the other reviews...all bad and so I am in the unique position of offering an opinion at the opposite end of the spectrum. First why should you believe me over the masses??? Well I've read almost everything ever written by Niven, Bear, Brin, Benford, McDevitt, Card, Gibson, Stephenson, Herbert, Bova, Vinge...and so on. Thus I believe I know a good story when I read one. The idea of a large alien ship floating through space, with the builders long since vanished, has been tried before. I will say that this book is much better than the first Rama book, which at times read like an encyclopia. The last (3) books in the Rama series were great due in no small part I'm sure to input from Gentry Lee. Now back to Marrow. What I liked about the book was that it did include reference to aliens on the ship. The author does go into some detail about (2) of the species, the Remoras and the Harrum-Scarums. True the character development isn't anywhere near what David Brin does with his Uplift saga, but it's good enough to hold your interest. What I liked is that the plot was like an onion. On the outside you have this vast ship, then if you look deeper you find a planet inside called Marrow, and if you look deeper inside Marrow there's something else...and so on. The plot unravels just like this, and at no time does this book become predictable..something I'm sure the critics of this book would have to agree. When I rate a book I compare it to other books not only in writing styles and how the book flows, but does it put forth new ideas. The idea of a ship in space isn't new, but having 200 billion travellers from various races is unique. The idea that people can live forever and sustain incredible amounts of damage and still live (they grow new bodies for you), is new to me. The concept of Marrow itself is new as is the super strong material "Hyperflux" which holds the planet in place. Was the book great? No, but its certainly better than the last (3) bookes written by Jack McDevitt. I'd give this book 3.5 out of 5.0 stars and will certainly read more of Reed.

Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment...
Review: Out of the approx. 1,400 books in my science fiction library, this book occupies a place of distinction. It is the dumbest and most aggravating book I've ever read.

There is this giant space ship, see. This ship is larger than many planets and harbors thousands of sentient races. Good, this certainly is a new and unique concept. But the author does not do anything with it. There is no interaction between these various races, hardly any exploration or adventure at all, only a lot of stilted, wooden banter between the human characters. Having also read Clarke's Rendesvous with Rama, I'd have to give Robert Reed's MARROW (on a scale of 1 to 10) a big fat ZERO. If one were to grade this book on Readability, Characterization, Idea Content, and Literary Merit you would still end up with zero.

This is particularly galling since the author also wrote BEYOND THE VEIL OF STARS and THE HORMONE JUNGLE, amongst others -- all of which are quite good. But his "MARROW" misses by a mile. All I can say is that if you buy the book you will regret it!

Rating:
Summary: A Big Dumb Object (the book, that is)...
Review: The epic eon-spanning space opera is a form that has returned with a vengence in recent years, and with this has come the related resurgence of the massive and mysterious alien vessel, or Big Dumb Project (BDO), to use the jargon. There is so much potential in the idea of the BDO: it hints at vast mysteries waiting to be uncovered, of universe-scale conspiracies, of stories as old as the cosmos.

The idea is immensely tempting to the sci-fi writer, but too many attempt this epic-scale and fail. Casualties include, diappointingly, one of my favorite young SF authors, Alison Sinclair with 'Cavalcade' (which I am not sure even received a release in the USA). On the other hand the successes can be the most exciting sci-fi novels around: Greg Egan's Diaspora, the superb combination of ground-level earthly politics and BDO exploration in Ian MacDonaald's Kirinya (the sequel to Evolution's Shore / Chaga - it probably has a different title in the USA), Iain M. Banks's skillful deconstruction of the genre in Excession, and Attanasio's Last Legends of Earth, in which the whole solar system in which it is set is effectively a BDO, part of a plan beyond humanity's comprehension.

Marrow, unfortunately, is yet another novel that attempts to be mind-blowing, epic and sweeping but somehow ends up deflated, flat and claustrophic. Reed never manages to convey the immensity of the place, nor the diversity and strangeness of the multitude of species on board. It is a bit like the old Star Trek series where the makers tried to convince us that a tiny model hanging on a piece of string was a sophisticated and powerful space craft. There are some hints at the fertile imagination and style Reed demonstrates in his short stories: I liked the Remoras, a culture that had chosen to adapt themselves to living on the outer surface of the vessel; and there are patches of genuinely excellent writing. But, the plot is simple and uninvolving, the characters are dull, and the great secret of the vessel turns out to be not that exciting. This latter observation reflects particular disappointment on my part, because the plot could have been worked so much better: the idea itself was not bad, but somehow the execution of the story made the resolution seem simply uninspiring.

Overall: a failure from a writer from whom I would have expected better.

Rating:
Summary: Argggg.....
Review: The first chapter is narrated by the ship and tells (briefly) the history of humanities discovery of it and how they came to be the sole rulers.

After that it's pretty much poo-poo.

First off, the human society on board the ship appears to be highly matriarchal. While this in itself shouldn't really matter, it detracts from the story line and appears to have no real function. If you're a bull-dyke, you might like this one. Add in the characters who are thousands of years old and yet go about their daily jobs endlessly and you start to see the problem. Major boredom.

I'll add the caveat that I didn't finish the book; it was starting to feel like I was having my teeth pulled. Maybe you'll fare better. Re-read Ringword by Larry Niven or Eon by Greg Bear for stories along similar lines but much, much better.

Rating:
Summary: Clever SF Ideas, Really Big Dumb Objects, Solid, not Great
Review: The versatile and prolific Robert Reed is back with Marrow, a big novel about what is sometimes called a BDO, or Big Dumb Object. The BDO in this case is a huge spaceship, the size of Jupiter. Humans happen across it, and find it empty of life. They claim it, and turn it into a sort of tourist attraction: almost a cruise ship for cruising the Galaxy. Many separate species are hosted on the Ship, the passengers sometimes using the Ship to travel from star system to star system, but other times staying on for centuries or millennia, even joining the Ship's crew. The crew itself consists of a diverse variety of modified humans, including the Remoras, who live on the outside and repair the Ship's shell, and who have adapted to a lifetime spent in spacesuits; as well as the Captains, essentially immortal (like most humans), able to survive any injury that doesn't vaporize the head. The Master Captain has been with the Ship from its discovery, some 100,000 years. In all this time, nothing significant has been learned about the mysterious Builders of the Ship, or about the Ship's original purpose.

But a great new discovery has been made: there is a strange, iron, world at the very core of the Ship. This world is named Marrow, and a picked crew of the Ship's best Captains, including the Master's right-hand woman, Miocene, and a very talented Captain called Washen, are assigned to find a way to reach Marrow, and to explore it. With great difficulty, they manufacture a path down to the surface of Marrow, only to find it destroyed soon after they reach the surface. Thus begins a 5000 year effort to find a way back to the ship: and even that is only part of the action, as the plot takes numerous twists and turns, and several ideas are advance to explain Marrow and the Ship: all culminating in an action-filled conclusion.

The "Neat Idea" content of this book is impressive indeed. The Ship itself is a cool notion, and so is Marrow. Such inventions as the Remoras are also very fine, as are several of the alien species on the Ship. The plot drags a bit in the center portion, the long period spent on Marrow, but it is resolved pretty well, and with lots of excitement. There is a certain way in which things are almost too big, almost exhausting, and almost easy, in a way. This is a particular problem when considering the characters, Miocene and Washen and the others, who live for millennia but seem much like contemporary people. The magical tech which allows them to survive almost anything seems overconvenient at times, as well. But that's pretty much what you get when trying to consider such huge concepts: the characters are dwarfed, and so too are our usual standards for action and danger. For the most part, Reed delivers on the promises of this book: he promises Big Cool Ideas, and Action, and a satisfying resolution with at least something of an explanation for it all, and by and large, that's what Marrow has. It isn't fully successful, or fully involving on the character level, but it's pretty good.