Rating: 
Summary: Forced Myself to Finish It
Review: This book had a reasonably good idea, but failed to keep my attention. I had to force myself to finish it. None of the characters appealed, and only the plot kept me involved. I had to know where it would end, sort of like watching a train wreck in progress...
Rating:
Summary: Forced Myself to Finish It
Review: This book had a reasonably good idea, but failed to keep my attention. I had to force myself to finish it. None of the characters appealed, and only the plot kept me involved. I had to know where it would end, sort of like watching a train wreck in progress...
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book for the Beach
Review: This book is perfect for a beach read. The definition of a good read is a book you want to pick up the following day to see what happens next. This book fits that perfectly.I thought the story was tight enough and pacing good. New things happened to the ship and the people to keep your interest up. Just when things got stable, whamo, something else happened. I don't need a lot of character development in a Sci Fi book, just a good story and this author delivers .
Rating: 
Summary: They don't come much better than this
Review: This book is the best kind of science fiction. A vast galactic future. People rendered nearly immortal by science. Probing an ancient and dangerous mystery. Ultimately a study in character. Can people change, if they live long enough?
Rating: 
Summary: Rama-Lite
Review: This novel may strike some folks as being somewhat reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's classic "Rendezvous With Rama". Both works deal with the discovery of a gigantic derelict of alien origin and unknown purposes, passing through human space on a pilot-less voyage to an uncertain destination. Clarke, however, did an excellent job both in the hard-science aspect and in developing interesting characters for whom the reader could root. While Reed has some intriguing ideas and does a good job working through some of the mechanics of his creations, his characters never really light up the page. None of them ever really seem altogether that vivid or necessarily that different from each other. They get a brief opening description, and then their natures never seem to deviate from their one-paragraph conception. They don't really change or grow or have the capability to surprise us. Consequently, there's less suspense than one would like; none of the characters display much ambiguity, so the ones that are the villains pretty much stay villainous throughout, and we never get much of a chance to empathize or identify with them. Perhaps part of the problem is the immortality factor. Superman is not that interesting a character, because nothing can harm him. Similarly, the crew and passengers of the Ship are immune from all danger, unless they get vaporized or their bone fragments get shot into the sun. Since they can easily be reconstituted, none of their "deaths" are ever that permanent, so it's hard to invest much emotion in their suffering. It's obvious that they'll pull through and reach their goals, just through the sheer passage of time. (Dan Simmons in the Hyperion Chronicles had a rather more interesting treatment of immortality and space travel.) Still, Reed's central concept is innovative enough, and it's amusing to think that humanity would see that the best use for such an awesome intergalactic relic is to turn it into a stellar cruise liner. Chalk this one up to the triumph of capitalism.
Rating:
Summary: It Doesn't Really Get to the Heart of Things
Review: This was an engrossing book with a lot of potential. I would give it 2.5 stars as it was fun to read and made me want to keep coming back throughout- there were no boring parts or places where the text dragged. There were constant changes and new unexpected developments. Particularly the final 2 pages are nothing of what I would expect. I wish I could comment on them without inserting major spoilers. Who would expect major cosmology from a simple science fiction work? Now the caviats. The extremely long lives of the characters, described as near eternal, makes them very difficult to relate to. I am not eternal, least this side of death, and I know very few people who are. It is suprising for all of their developments that these eternals couldn't progress more spiritually and emotionally. They remained actually at a rather infantile psychological stage throughout their hundreds of thousands of years. Secondly, the author's lack of thoroughness was irritating. Numerous grammatical mistakes were interspersed with plot continuity errors. I found myself a number of times suddenly totally lost as to how things had changed and come to this point, and would look back through the last few pages, only to discover there was no proper build-up to explain plot development or location. Similarily the technology, such as hyperfiber, is totally mysterious and even magical. Indeed, it is not until the near the end of the book when one finally hears a character share the nature of hyperfiber- only to be told that it has to do with quantum flux and otherwise, the characters don't understand it themselves! Most seriously, the summation is sudden and contrived. After so many pages of build up, everything comes together finally in a way that makes one wonder why it couldn't have come together that way all along. Even the metaphysical underpinnings of the entire ship, though very interesting and ingenious, are introduced simply as supposition which is then accepted as fact, without any explanation as to how the characters came up with these realizations. It reminded me of Star Trek Original Series episodes when Spock would offer a possible hypothesis, and then everyone would immediately assume that this hypothesis was in fact Truth. All this said, I would still recommend reading it- I was unable to put it down. Fun, pulp, fiction. But not anything to turn the world upside down with.
Rating:
Summary: A SciFi Book with Bad Physics
Review: Well, I've reached the end of Part 1 of this book (about page 70) and I'm not impressed at all. In the very first chapter, the ship is narrating its approach to the Milky Way. While still outside the galaxy, oodles and oodles of species have noticed it and sent out ships to meet it. Huh? Forget about the number of space-faring races. Even though the ship is Jovian in size, compared to the scale of the galaxy (and the spaces between galaxies), there's not a chance anyone would ever see it. Our galaxy is on the order of 100,000 light years across and 10,000 light years wide. Though the author doesn't mention how far out the meeting occurs, at galactic scales, we're talking thousands, if not tens of thousands of light years. From what little the book mentions on the subject (i.e., none), no one seems to have FTL travel. So, how the heck did these people get out to meet the ship? Then, the ship's trajectory apparently originates in some part of the universe without galaxies. That's a new one for me. I wasn't aware there was such a direction. OK. Let's ignore that. Back to the size of the ship. It's Jovian in size. It's so big that it contains an entire Earth-scale planet hidden within it. Where the heck's the gravity? Early in the book, the author mentions that the gravity is higher than Earth normal. But, we ought to be talking about Jupiter-type, crushing gravity. OK. Let's forget about that, too. The humans in the story have lived for hundreds of thousands of years ("a thousand centuries"). I'm sorry. But, a person that old would no longer act in any way human. It's ridiculous to even consider it. Yet, at one point, the main character says she's always lived in the same apartment. I wonder if she's had the carpet cleaned in that time? OK. Let's forget that one, too. How about the acceleration forces of the ship? It does have engines and fires them. There's no mention of how the acceleration is handled. What about all the oceans of fluid within the ship? The people? The structures? For that matter, the ship's structure isn't discussed much at all. About the only thing we learn (near the end of the Part), is that it's spherical with a vast network of tunnels and caverns (oh, and that mysterious entire planet nestled in it's solid iron core). With this kind of shodiness in the basic physics of the place, I'm certainly not going to waste my time reading the other 420 pages of this book. I recommend you don't bother, either.
Rating:
Summary: A SciFi Book with Bad Physics
Review: Well, I've reached the end of Part 1 of this book (about page 70) and I'm not impressed at all. In the very first chapter, the ship is narrating its approach to the Milky Way. While still outside the galaxy, oodles and oodles of species have noticed it and sent out ships to meet it. Huh? Forget about the number of space-faring races. Even though the ship is Jovian in size, compared to the scale of the galaxy (and the spaces between galaxies), there's not a chance anyone would ever see it. Our galaxy is on the order of 100,000 light years across and 10,000 light years wide. Though the author doesn't mention how far out the meeting occurs, at galactic scales, we're talking thousands, if not tens of thousands of light years. From what little the book mentions on the subject (i.e., none), no one seems to have FTL travel. So, how the heck did these people get out to meet the ship? Then, the ship's trajectory apparently originates in some part of the universe without galaxies. That's a new one for me. I wasn't aware there was such a direction. OK. Let's ignore that. Back to the size of the ship. It's Jovian in size. It's so big that it contains an entire Earth-scale planet hidden within it. Where the heck's the gravity? Early in the book, the author mentions that the gravity is higher than Earth normal. But, we ought to be talking about Jupiter-type, crushing gravity. OK. Let's forget about that, too. The humans in the story have lived for hundreds of thousands of years ("a thousand centuries"). I'm sorry. But, a person that old would no longer act in any way human. It's ridiculous to even consider it. Yet, at one point, the main character says she's always lived in the same apartment. I wonder if she's had the carpet cleaned in that time? OK. Let's forget that one, too. How about the acceleration forces of the ship? It does have engines and fires them. There's no mention of how the acceleration is handled. What about all the oceans of fluid within the ship? The people? The structures? For that matter, the ship's structure isn't discussed much at all. About the only thing we learn (near the end of the Part), is that it's spherical with a vast network of tunnels and caverns (oh, and that mysterious entire planet nestled in it's solid iron core). With this kind of shodiness in the basic physics of the place, I'm certainly not going to waste my time reading the other 420 pages of this book. I recommend you don't bother, either.
Rating:
Summary: Super-science space opera, flawed but fun. 3.5 stars
Review: _________________________________________ In the far future, humans discover a derelict starship the size of
Jupiter, out on the galactic rim, They claim salvage rights, get some
of the great ship's machinery running, and defend their claim against
late-arriving aliens. The ship is very old, perhaps as old as the
universe.... and big. Really big. The new owners put the Great Ship into service as -- the galaxy's
grandest cruise-liner! All lifeforms and sentients are welcome -- if
they can afford the fare. By the time of our story, 50,000 years later,
there are some 200 billion passengers and crew aboard, a fifth of the
way through a leisurely circumnavigation of the Milky Way.... Then, a Mars-size "planet" is discovered, somehow suspended at the
very core of the Great Ship! A team of the Ship's best and brightest
officers are sent to explore the mysterious "Marrow" -- and are
stranded there by a wild energy-storm. Complications ensue, and things, it turns out, are not as they seem.... Humans of this age are heavily gengineered, long-lived, tough and
very hard to kill. Indeed, the Master Captain, and many of her
officers, have served onboard since the Ship's commissioning. So
their perspective on long-term projects, and risk, is considerably
different than yours and mine. This may sound like a Doc Smith adventure-story, and it shares his,
umm, non-rigorous treatment of basic science (but is much better-
written). Marrow works best as mind-candy science-fantasy -- the
grand sweep of events kept my suspension of disbelief intact until I
started thinking things over for this review. I usually find dumb,
sloppy science irritating [see note 1, with minor *SPOILERS*], and
Marrow suffers from this in retrospect, but I still liked the book. I
liked the the silly audacity of imagining a cruise-ship with 200 billion
passengers, on a quarter-million year voyage! I liked the peeling away
of layers of mystery from the Great Ship, only to find a new mystery,
then another. I liked the ambiguous ending, in contrast to the tidy,
often bathetic endings common to grand SF epics.
But -- you should be aware that Marrow is not to everyone's taste.
The plot isn't coherent. The science is, well, not. And the book
doesn't have a tidy wrap-up. One Amazon reader describes Marrow
as "the dumbest and most aggravating book I've ever read."
Another wrote: "I'm glad I bought it, because I had a long cross
country flight and it helped me sleep." P>And the great ship, with the mass of 20 Earths, is propelled by (fusion-
powered?) rocket engines -- a truly enormous mass to push around,
especially since most of it is dead weight. There seems no real reason
to build such a massive ship, except that Reed thought this would be a
Neat Idea.... as did Doc Smith. And -- if the Great Ship really is the size of Jupiter, and masses 20
earths (Reed is somewhat vague about this), it would have to be
made of aerogel, as Jupiter masses 318 Earths.... review copyright 2000 Peter D. Tillman
Rating:
Summary: Super-science space opera, flawed but fun. 3.5 stars
Review: _________________________________________ In the far future, humans discover a derelict starship the size of
Jupiter, out on the galactic rim, They claim salvage rights, get some
of the great ship's machinery running, and defend their claim against
late-arriving aliens. The ship is very old, perhaps as old as the
universe.... and big. Really big. The new owners put the Great Ship into service as -- the galaxy's
grandest cruise-liner! All lifeforms and sentients are welcome -- if
they can afford the fare. By the time of our story, 50,000 years later,
there are some 200 billion passengers and crew aboard, a fifth of the
way through a leisurely circumnavigation of the Milky Way.... Then, a Mars-size "planet" is discovered, somehow suspended at the
very core of the Great Ship! A team of the Ship's best and brightest
officers are sent to explore the mysterious "Marrow" -- and are
stranded there by a wild energy-storm. Complications ensue, and things, it turns out, are not as they seem.... Humans of this age are heavily gengineered, long-lived, tough and
very hard to kill. Indeed, the Master Captain, and many of her
officers, have served onboard since the Ship's commissioning. So
their perspective on long-term projects, and risk, is considerably
different than yours and mine. This may sound like a Doc Smith adventure-story, and it shares his,
umm, non-rigorous treatment of basic science (but is much better-
written). Marrow works best as mind-candy science-fantasy -- the
grand sweep of events kept my suspension of disbelief intact until I
started thinking things over for this review. I usually find dumb,
sloppy science irritating [see note 1, with minor *SPOILERS*], and
Marrow suffers from this in retrospect, but I still liked the book. I
liked the the silly audacity of imagining a cruise-ship with 200 billion
passengers, on a quarter-million year voyage! I liked the peeling away
of layers of mystery from the Great Ship, only to find a new mystery,
then another. I liked the ambiguous ending, in contrast to the tidy,
often bathetic endings common to grand SF epics.
But -- you should be aware that Marrow is not to everyone's taste.
The plot isn't coherent. The science is, well, not. And the book
doesn't have a tidy wrap-up. One Amazon reader describes Marrow
as "the dumbest and most aggravating book I've ever read."
Another wrote: "I'm glad I bought it, because I had a long cross
country flight and it helped me sleep." P>And the great ship, with the mass of 20 Earths, is propelled by (fusion-
powered?) rocket engines -- a truly enormous mass to push around,
especially since most of it is dead weight. There seems no real reason
to build such a massive ship, except that Reed thought this would be a
Neat Idea.... as did Doc Smith. And -- if the Great Ship really is the size of Jupiter, and masses 20
earths (Reed is somewhat vague about this), it would have to be
made of aerogel, as Jupiter masses 318 Earths.... review copyright 2000 Peter D. Tillman
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