Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, often hard to get into, but a must-read
Review: Charles Sheffield's The Mind Pool is a rework of an older novel, The Nimrod Hunt. Centered around the hunt for a renegade artificial life-form, the novel paints a mixed picture of the future, with humans living in harmony with alien species, genetic engineering rampant and uncontrolled, a divided, violent, and irrelevant Earth, and a militaristic outer system.This is a difficult book to get into. Initial chapters are tedious and there are a lot of key characters who inter-develop as the the book continues which devolves quickly into a confusing mess. Sheffield's humour barely holds the story together as empathy with the main, distant and too many, characters seems close to impossible, and the reader is expected to take in a little too much, from different technologies to the behaviors of three wildly different species. The book, initially, also seems to live up to its back-cover synopsis, which in science fiction can be a bad thing, especially if the synopsis seems to be written to appeal to John W Campbell. The novel is saved by a number of factors: Sheffield's humour, naturally, helps. Certain characters become fleshed out and sympathetic. Some time about half way through the novel the pace and understandability of what is going on becomes quicker and easier. And then there's an absolutely beautiful twist concerning the very subject of the novel - and I say beautiful not just to describe the twist itself but the subject matter and the novel at that point, which just turned my opinion of the book on its head. This is a flawed novel. You should read it anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating ! One of the best Hard-SF in recent years
Review: Hi-tech, drama and excitement, aliens, superb plot and sub-plot, totally unpredictable... I agree, I like Charles Sheffield (probably) too much but this is definitely one of the best hard-SF books I have ever read !
Rating:
Summary: Full of great ideas and great characters
Review: I loved this book! The best Sci-Fi is rich in new ideas as well as intriguing characters, and this book excels in both areas. I couldn't put it down. Sheffield is always good, but I'm tempted to rank the Mind Pool as one of his best ever. This is a rewrite of one of his earliest novels, by the way ("The Nimrod Hunt"). By reading both books, you can appreciate how Sheffield has grown as a writer. Read this book if you like "real" sci-fi (rather than fantasy) -- you won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Definately NOT hard-sci fi
Review: I thought I'd give Sheffield another chance after slogging through "Transvergence", but not again. The back cover made claims about Sheffield's "hard-science" writing, which is ironic since the author doesn't even attempt any kind of scientific explanation for the wand waving he does at the end of the book. You spend the entire book trying to figure out what these "Morgan Constructs" are, and it turns out... not much.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating read
Review: I've long enjoyed Sheffield. The first I read was My Brother's Keeper. Since then I've enjoyed his imagination and creative stories. This is an incredibly creative book and I have trouble putting it down. I read it first a year and a half ago, and I'm reading it for the second time. Even knowing how the plot twists and turns, I can't wait to finish. He masterfully weaves plots and sub-plots, which take countless twists and turns. He plays on the future-is-seedy theme perhaps a bit too much. Nevertheless, his characters are amazing in their quirks and brilliant streaks. Each character is colorful and intriguing. This is a must read for anyone interested in SF or who is testing the SF waters.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating read
Review: I've long enjoyed Sheffield. The first I read was My Brother's Keeper. Since then I've enjoyed his imagination and creative stories. This is an incredibly creative book and I have trouble putting it down. I read it first a year and a half ago, and I'm reading it for the second time. Even knowing how the plot twists and turns, I can't wait to finish. He masterfully weaves plots and sub-plots, which take countless twists and turns. He plays on the future-is-seedy theme perhaps a bit too much. Nevertheless, his characters are amazing in their quirks and brilliant streaks. Each character is colorful and intriguing. This is a must read for anyone interested in SF or who is testing the SF waters.
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best work.
Review: Not Sheffield's best. It started out well enough, but degenerated towards the end. His character development is weak. Their interaction sometimes seemed shallow and sophomoric, like something I might write. He had some similarities with his Cold As Ice and The Ganymede Club: von Neumanns and, in particular, enhanced psychiatry (by Froppers in this case versus Haldanes in the two later books).
One interesting theme he had is contrasting the human species' penchant for aggressiveness and violence with the lack of those characteristics in the other two sentient races humans encountered in their stellar expansion. I've often wondered what kind of impression we'll make on other races (assuming there are any) when and if we come into contact with them, and after they have had time to try to understand who and what we are. He also had an interesting idea for the expansion of the human race into interstellar space (actually, more of a reconnaissance), and that was a constant launching of probes in all directions that expanded our frontier at about half the speed of light -- something analogous to an expanding bubble.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best work.
Review: Not Sheffield's best. It started out well enough, but degenerated towards the end. His character development is weak. Their interaction sometimes seemed shallow and sophomoric, like something I might write. He had some similarities with his Cold As Ice and The Ganymede Club: von Neumanns and, in particular, enhanced psychiatry (by Froppers in this case versus Haldanes in the two later books).
One interesting theme he had is contrasting the human species' penchant for aggressiveness and violence with the lack of those characteristics in the other two sentient races humans encountered in their stellar expansion. I've often wondered what kind of impression we'll make on other races (assuming there are any) when and if we come into contact with them, and after they have had time to try to understand who and what we are. He also had an interesting idea for the expansion of the human race into interstellar space (actually, more of a reconnaissance), and that was a constant launching of probes in all directions that expanded our frontier at about half the speed of light -- something analogous to an expanding bubble.
Rating: 
Summary: Cool characters, but dry drab plot
Review: Sheffield's imagination is WAY out on the fringe. The book was definitely unpredictable, but not in an exciting way. I kept reading because I didn't KNOW what was going to happen NOT because I wanted to, but I just had to get it over with. I was very into the plot the first half of the book, because it seemed to have a hard military/sci-fi edge to it. But then the whole nimrod hunt turned into this frilly, spiritual vulcan interspecies mind-meld issue and the characters turned into 2-dimensional victims. Sheffield completely messed up and lost any concept of conflict and resolution and played too much with the intangible themes and too little on making a real gripping story.
Rating:
Summary: Cool characters, but dry drab plot
Review: Sheffield's imagination is WAY out on the fringe. The book was definitely unpredictable, but not in an exciting way. I kept reading because I didn't KNOW what was going to happen NOT because I wanted to, but I just had to get it over with. I was very into the plot the first half of the book, because it seemed to have a hard military/sci-fi edge to it. But then the whole nimrod hunt turned into this frilly, spiritual vulcan interspecies mind-meld issue and the characters turned into 2-dimensional victims. Sheffield completely messed up and lost any concept of conflict and resolution and played too much with the intangible themes and too little on making a real gripping story.
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