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Summary: An excellent successor to R. A. Heinlein's "juvenilles."
Review: An enjoyable read. Written as a juvenille, this one is fun for all ages. An obvious tribute to Heinlein, half the fun of this novel is picking out the links with the master's classic work like The Star Beast, Citizen of the Galaxy, Time for the Stars, and others. Yet this is an original novel, not a boring pastiche or faded copy of other works. It offers an excellent and original presentation of an alien life form/civilization, as well as an exciting plot. RAH would have loved it, and been glad to call it his own. One of the few works I've read to recapture the magic of the originals.
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Summary: Excellent reading!
Review: An excellent book. The characters are believable and the interactions are real, a very rare find in any novel. One of Pournelle's best and one of the best novels I've read in a long-long time.
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Summary: Excellent book
Review: As usual Jerry spins a wonderful yarn. So good I read it in one sitting
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Summary: Very Good
Review: Avoiding William Gibson terms like "wet-wired", Starswarm explores one of the possibilities of marrying humans to silicon. As a young boy on a colonized planet, Kip discovers he can hear a voice in his head. He soon learns that he is communicating with a computer that seems to have keen interest in his well-being. The reader learns along with Kip why he has a computer chip implant and as the story progresses, there is action, betrayal, aliens, an underlying murder mystery and of course one of the good Dr. Pournelle's favorite themes: political intrigue. I enjoyed this book, my only complaint being that it ended abruptly. (Ah, darn! It's over?) It is a SF book of the "juvenile" genre, so it lacks the rich textures and detail of books like The Mote in God's Eye or Footfall, but the trade-off is that Starswarm can be read in a few hours. I recommend it if you are looking for a fun, easy read but still want some interesting ideas. I definitely recommend it for young readers, as my teen-age daughter found Starswarm on my desk, she pestered me to finish it claiming the first few pages had "hooked" her.
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Summary: Very Good
Review: Avoiding William Gibson terms like "wet-wired", Starswarm explores one of the possibilities of marrying humans to silicon. As a young boy on a colonized planet, Kip discovers he can hear a voice in his head. He soon learns that he is communicating with a computer that seems to have keen interest in his well-being. The reader learns along with Kip why he has a computer chip implant and as the story progresses, there is action, betrayal, aliens, an underlying murder mystery and of course one of the good Dr. Pournelle's favorite themes: political intrigue. I enjoyed this book, my only complaint being that it ended abruptly. (Ah, darn! It's over?) It is a SF book of the "juvenile" genre, so it lacks the rich textures and detail of books like The Mote in God's Eye or Footfall, but the trade-off is that Starswarm can be read in a few hours. I recommend it if you are looking for a fun, easy read but still want some interesting ideas. I definitely recommend it for young readers, as my teen-age daughter found Starswarm on my desk, she pestered me to finish it claiming the first few pages had "hooked" her.
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Summary: Starswarm
Review: I thought this book was one of the best I have ever read. It was writen wonderfully, and it hooked the reader. The idea of the book itself was so original that you can't help but like it. I only had one problem with it though, they swore a bit to much, but thet couldn't stop me from finishing it.
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Summary: Jupiter series continues
Review: If you like this book (and you probably do!), the next book in the Jupiter series is entitled *Outward Bound*, by James P. Hogan. *Outward Bound* is the sixth book in the series and is another coming-of-age novel like the previous volumes. In *Outward Bound,* the protagonist, a tough, teenage thug-in-training, who is leader of his own little criminal gang, finally gets caught by the authorities in a declining future Earth society and sent, as his last chance (instead of juvenile prison), to a boot-camp and training center of sorts where the purpose behind it is at first cloaked in mystery by its sponsors until, by the end of the novel, he finds himself learning about honor, selflessness and love even as he ends up in space about to be a colonist joining a secretive group of utopians who live in the outer reaches of the solar system. A thoroughly enjoyable read, I found (I've already read it several times).
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Summary: Heinlein Lives!
Review: In his foreword, Jerry Pournelle pays homage to the late great Robert Heinlein and the "juvenile" science fiction books that hooked so many into the genre. I certainly remember them with fond affection before Heinlein turned his talent along other paths, and re-read them to this day.Starswarm is indeed a book very much in the style of those books, complete with the adolescent protagonist, his loyal friends, adults of superior intelligence, ethics and ability, and of course a swag of strange creatures and a talking computer. There are echoes of "Citizen of the Galaxy" here, as well as from any number of other Heinlein juveniles, but the plot is Pournelle's own, underscored with more computer knowledge than Heinlein ever had, and it is as compulsive a read as any of Pournelle's other books. I enjoyed it immensely, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes these "coming of age in the space age" novels.
Rating:
Summary: Heinlein Lives!
Review: In his foreword, Jerry Pournelle pays homage to the late great Robert Heinlein and the "juvenile" science fiction books that hooked so many into the genre. I certainly remember them with fond affection before Heinlein turned his talent along other paths, and re-read them to this day. Starswarm is indeed a book very much in the style of those books, complete with the adolescent protagonist, his loyal friends, adults of superior intelligence, ethics and ability, and of course a swag of strange creatures and a talking computer. There are echoes of "Citizen of the Galaxy" here, as well as from any number of other Heinlein juveniles, but the plot is Pournelle's own, underscored with more computer knowledge than Heinlein ever had, and it is as compulsive a read as any of Pournelle's other books. I enjoyed it immensely, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes these "coming of age in the space age" novels.
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Summary: Starswarm is a Star
Review: In his introduction to Starswarm Jerry Pournelle pays tribute to Robert Heinlein, as an inspiration when Pournelle was an adolescent reader and science student; and later as a mentor and friend. I will pay tribute to Pournelle: Starwarm could have been a Heinlein book. All of the elements of vintage Heinlein are there: the young protagonist who is different from his peers, the science that is out-of-reach for now, but conceivable for tomorrow. I have always enjoyed Pournelle as a writer in his own right. After reading this introduction, as I read Starwarm I remembered Citizen of the Galaxy and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I have missed science-based science fiction a la Robert Heinlein and enjoyed finding it again in Starswarm.
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