Rating: 
Summary: Snoozeplex
Review: Most of Starplex is a very dull read, packed with dense physics discussions that become tedious for the science-impaired. The book picks up in the last 100 pages, but it was never an edge-of-your-seat read, and I never really cared about any of the characters. The entire thing was like an episode of Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5, only with more scientific mumbo-jumbo. What was the most farfetched moment of the book is when a little shuttle thing launched from Starplex takes out a huge battle cruiser with a geological laser that miraculous hits some fuel storage tank and POOF! goes the bad guy ship.What's interesting is that if you read Starplex and then read "FlashForward" by Sawyer, you can see where he plagiarizes himself. Both novels feature a balding, middle-aged Canadian who will potentially receive the magic potion for immortality and live out the rest of time in some kind of mechanical body. I didn't like that element in either book, it seems completely rediculous for one novel, let alone two. Overall, Starplex is not a bad book, but it's not great either. And if you need a cure for insomnia, just read the first first chapters and you'll drift right off into dreamland.
Rating: 
Summary: Award-caliber / first-rate / great book
Review: Robert J. Sawyer won the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year for HOMINIDS. That win was well-deserved but I got to wondering how far back in his career he was writing award-caliber books before he snared the "Big One." The answer is: at least THIS far back. STARPLEX was the only 1996 novel to be both a best-novel Hugo Award finalsit and best-novel Nebula Award finalist (and it won Canada's Aurora Award and the Compuserve HOmer Award). Sawyer's aliens are every bit as good as those of James White, Larry Niven, Hal Clement and Robert Forward, and his people are infinitely more complex and believable than any written by those writers. This book tackles just about every problem in astrophysics ... and solves them all. No wonder its on numerous university astronomy reading lists, and endorsed by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. A terrific book well worth tracking down.
Rating:
Summary: Award-caliber / first-rate / great book
Review: Robert J. Sawyer won the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year for HOMINIDS. That win was well-deserved but I got to wondering how far back in his career he was writing award-caliber books before he snared the "Big One." The answer is: at least THIS far back. STARPLEX was the only 1996 novel to be both a best-novel Hugo Award finalsit and best-novel Nebula Award finalist (and it won Canada's Aurora Award and the Compuserve HOmer Award). Sawyer's aliens are every bit as good as those of James White, Larry Niven, Hal Clement and Robert Forward, and his people are infinitely more complex and believable than any written by those writers. This book tackles just about every problem in astrophysics ... and solves them all. No wonder its on numerous university astronomy reading lists, and endorsed by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. A terrific book well worth tracking down.
Rating:
Summary: Creative realities
Review: Robert J. Sawyer's book "Starplex" was one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, and mind-twisting books I've read in a long time. To begin, Sawyer is an excellent writer. Plotting, dialogue, and human drama aspects are all well-represented here. He also never loses sight of using humor, awe (in its truest sense), human limitations, and philosophical twists to create realities that are at once far, far away, yet understandable. I'm sure Robert J. Sawyer has his critics - every writer does. Bottom line here, though, is that Sawyer has created his own voice with which to tell great stories (science fiction and otherwise), and Starplex is one of his best.
Rating: 
Summary: Good mix
Review: Sawyer's foray into space opera and space adventure is a fun book to read, but lacks the depth of (human) characterization and philosophical thought that are the strengths of his later works. The book's strengths include
1. the Ib Race -- a brilliant construct
2. the dark matter entities
3. the enigmatic glass man
4. the tightly woven plot threads
5. an interesting twist on the gateway concept The book's weaknesses include
1. a weak protagonist
2. too many "Star Trek"-like devices (tractor beams, force fields)
3. uneven treatment of the human-Walhal (the pig creatures) dynamics. Unlike many of the (harsh) negative critics below, I found the book quite enjoyable, even if there is some hand-waving here and there. It's not like that hasn't been done before in SF. And just to set the matter straight, Sawyer does NOT imply that laser beams are visible (he clearly states that the computer animated the laser fire in a holographic display) and he does not say that a spaceship swerves to avoid direct laser fire; what he does say is that a spaceship maneuvers to avoid another, spinning spaceship which happens to be firing a laser. The book is enjoyable science fiction. The key word in this phrase is fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: An Enjoyable but Uneven Space Opera
Review: Sawyer's foray into space opera and space adventure is a fun book to read, but lacks the depth of (human) characterization and philosophical thought that are the strengths of his later works. The book's strengths include
1. the Ib Race -- a brilliant construct
2. the dark matter entities
3. the enigmatic glass man
4. the tightly woven plot threads
5. an interesting twist on the gateway concept The book's weaknesses include
1. a weak protagonist
2. too many "Star Trek"-like devices (tractor beams, force fields)
3. uneven treatment of the human-Walhal (the pig creatures) dynamics. Unlike many of the (harsh) negative critics below, I found the book quite enjoyable, even if there is some hand-waving here and there. It's not like that hasn't been done before in SF. And just to set the matter straight, Sawyer does NOT imply that laser beams are visible (he clearly states that the computer animated the laser fire in a holographic display) and he does not say that a spaceship swerves to avoid direct laser fire; what he does say is that a spaceship maneuvers to avoid another, spinning spaceship which happens to be firing a laser. The book is enjoyable science fiction. The key word in this phrase is fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Starplex
Review: Starplex is good as Hawking, Wheeler, and Thorne. Rob Sawyer's gedanken experiments on dark matter, wormholes, black holes, time travel, etc. are as good as those of any theoretical physicist alive today. And he writes the best science fiction there is today, to explain things we may never truly understand, but shall forever enjoy thinking about.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading
Review: This book has a little bit of everything. Mr. Sawyer's imagination is excellent. The story-line is a little weak in a couple of areas (thus, no 10); however, overall, the writing, characters, and plot are far above average.
Rating:
Summary: fun action, boring main character
Review: This is a fun read for action and exploration as long as you don't think to deeply or have high expectations. The "lofty message" of the book is trite and the main character is caught up in the angst of his midlife crisis. While it might be interesting to some people to read about the inner turmoil of a middle-aged man in midlife crisis, I think it is boring. It is not really very interesting to read about some guy acting like a jerk to his wife and other people around him because he's caught up in himself and isn't sure he is going to achieve all his goals in life. A more appropriate format for all of the focus on this type of character might be self-help rather than science fiction. I read science fiction to relax and have fun. Real people in midlife crisis are boring and the main character in this book is boring.
Rating:
Summary: Good mix
Review: This the second book by Sawyer I have read and I enjoyed both. The first was 'Calculating God'. Starplex was mostly hard SF but with some interesting philosophical ideas. Although Starplex seems like basic hard SF, even leaning towards space opera on the surface, it's also develops some big ideas about the universe and origin of life.
| 
