Abandon In Place

Rating:
Summary: Abandon in Place
Review: Fantastic, can't wait for Mr. Oltions next release.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: Fantasy hasn't been "my bag" since I was about 14, and I've long preferred science fiction. While this is a pretty good book, there were times when it just got to be too much for me.

I must admit, the characters are pretty good, and the idea is great, but the whole book just felt a little "rushed". It could have been another 200 pages long without sacrificing quality or readability.

The blend of magic and science, while interesting, just got to be too much at times, and I found myself putting down the book for awhile to go watch ESPN.

Still, I'd recommend you sit down, and give it a read. It's a fun little romp, even though it's lacking in any real major plot twists.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: Fantasy hasn't been "my bag" since I was about 14, and I've long preferred science fiction. While this is a pretty good book, there were times when it just got to be too much for me.

I must admit, the characters are pretty good, and the idea is great, but the whole book just felt a little "rushed". It could have been another 200 pages long without sacrificing quality or readability.

The blend of magic and science, while interesting, just got to be too much at times, and I found myself putting down the book for awhile to go watch ESPN.

Still, I'd recommend you sit down, and give it a read. It's a fun little romp, even though it's lacking in any real major plot twists.

Rating:
Summary: Good story, but it's a little thin.
Review: Great story, but the first part of the book, first 200 pages went way to fast and let out a lot of info. Over all a good book.

Rating:
Summary: engaging but weird to the moon and back parnormal SF
Review: NASA is in deep decline especially looking back to its glory days of Mercury, Gemini, and the Apollo missions. As the astronaut and cosmonaut pioneers of space die, Elvis-like sightings are reported, but most rationale folks write them off as too much moonshine. However, when Neil Armstrong passes away, a Saturn V moon rocket launches from the Cape Canaveral pad witnessed by shuttle astronaut Rick Spencer. The ghostly spacecraft reaches Moon orbit, then vanishes. This phenomenon repeats itself several times.

Rick persuades the NASA brass to allow him to travel with the phantom ship, which takes him to the shuttle piloted by his girlfriend, Tessa McClain. Rick, Tessa, and astronomer-astronaut Yoshiko Sugano ignore their superiors and ride the ghost ship to the Moon with the Russians providing mission control support from earth. Rick soon learns that if he fears that the space program will end, the ship remains solid, but if he believes that the space program will recover, the ship begins to vanish. The team lands on the Moon and successfully returns to Earth only to have the CIA interrogate them to learn more about psychic powers.

ABANDON IN PLACE is a full-length novelization of an award-winning novella. The story line is exciting as Jerry Oltion uses New Age elements combined with scientific information tat tuns into an excellent paranormal tale. The novel is at its best during the space scenes, but loses thrust when the CIA enters the picture. Though the NASA leaders seem stilted, fans of preternatural science fiction will relish this weird to the moon and back thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: engaging but weird to the moon and back parnormal SF
Review: NASA is in deep decline especially looking back to its glory days of Mercury, Gemini, and the Apollo missions. As the astronaut and cosmonaut pioneers of space die, Elvis-like sightings are reported, but most rationale folks write them off as too much moonshine. However, when Neil Armstrong passes away, a Saturn V moon rocket launches from the Cape Canaveral pad witnessed by shuttle astronaut Rick Spencer. The ghostly spacecraft reaches Moon orbit, then vanishes. This phenomenon repeats itself several times.

Rick persuades the NASA brass to allow him to travel with the phantom ship, which takes him to the shuttle piloted by his girlfriend, Tessa McClain. Rick, Tessa, and astronomer-astronaut Yoshiko Sugano ignore their superiors and ride the ghost ship to the Moon with the Russians providing mission control support from earth. Rick soon learns that if he fears that the space program will end, the ship remains solid, but if he believes that the space program will recover, the ship begins to vanish. The team lands on the Moon and successfully returns to Earth only to have the CIA interrogate them to learn more about psychic powers.

ABANDON IN PLACE is a full-length novelization of an award-winning novella. The story line is exciting as Jerry Oltion uses New Age elements combined with scientific information tat tuns into an excellent paranormal tale. The novel is at its best during the space scenes, but loses thrust when the CIA enters the picture. Though the NASA leaders seem stilted, fans of preternatural science fiction will relish this weird to the moon and back thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Not Oltion's best, but a good one
Review: Oltion may not be for everyone, but he can tell a decent sci-fi story. The story here (I don't want to spoil it with too many details), can drag at times but pays off in the end. His style of writing is similar to Orson Scott Card's in that it can be unclear at times, but is always imaginative. If you're an Oltion fan you'll love this. More casual sci-fi fans might want to give it a look too.

Rating:
Summary: don't stop
Review: Only a Grinch (and there apparently ARE Grinches) could dislike a book as stuffed with ideas, adventure and sheer fun as Jerry Oltion's latest.

Sure, it's a little messy, but so is life. Sure, you can tell exactly where the Nebula-Award-winning short story it started out as ends and the "widening gyre" of the author's wildly imaginative elaboration begins. But the center holds. (A tip o' the hat to ol' W.B. Yeats, whose poem "The Second Coming" could describe the world portrayed in this book.)

For anyone who appreciates a novel that is truly novel, that makes you chuckle on one page and despair on the next, that has you rethinking everything you ever believed and still leaves you smiling, read this one. Unless you're anti-evolution...or a Grinch.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun for those not afraid of a book that evolves
Review: Only a Grinch (and there apparently ARE Grinches) could dislike a book as stuffed with ideas, adventure and sheer fun as Jerry Oltion's latest.

Sure, it's a little messy, but so is life. Sure, you can tell exactly where the Nebula-Award-winning short story it started out as ends and the "widening gyre" of the author's wildly imaginative elaboration begins. But the center holds. (A tip o' the hat to ol' W.B. Yeats, whose poem "The Second Coming" could describe the world portrayed in this book.)

For anyone who appreciates a novel that is truly novel, that makes you chuckle on one page and despair on the next, that has you rethinking everything you ever believed and still leaves you smiling, read this one. Unless you're anti-evolution...or a Grinch.

Rating:
Summary: Abandon In Place
Review: Some say that authors are taking the Science out of Science Fiction. Some say this is happening because Fantasy is "in", and SF is "out". They say this is happening because of Harry Potter, and The Lord Of The Rings--but also because the people of Earth were told that science and scientists promised us such a great future and that future was not delivered. Science--real laboratory-based, empirical, "let's make the world a better place for everyone on the planet" science, never happened.

So we get SF stories--lengthened into novels--like Abandon In Place, by Jerry Oltion, where a few mentions of quantum foam, and a cover-painting showing a lunar lander touching down on the moon, make the thing look like a hard-science novel. But it's not. It's perilously close to wish-fulfillment exercises like The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything, by John D. MacDonald, or Time And Again, by Jack Finney. And those are fantasy novels. The exhilirating effect of reading Oltion's hard-SF ghost-story--his just-imagine, gung-ho, dreamy look at how psychic powers might perhaps refuel humankind's desire for space exploration, with gifted individuals conjuring up moon-worthy spacecraft that can be ridden through the eternal vacuum as long as they don't fade away--is the same as a wish-fulfillment masterpiece like Grimwood's Replay.

Is there SF here, though? Well, I'll trust that the technical details regarding NASA's Apollo space program are well-researched and right. But the crux of the book--the author's passion for concocting this bizarre story--is very science-fictional. Oltion--using metaphor, if not outright mysticism, if not outright gobbledygook--is just pointing out that we will make it to the moon, again, and beyond, if we as a species want it bad enough. This concern has been blowing through SF for ages, as I see it; I flash back to Ray Bradbury's intro to Perry Rhodan #18, where he pleads with readers to remain enthusiastic about manned space flight.

As a novel--not an award-winning novella--Abandon In Place does roam in too many directions. Power-mad dictators who learn psi powers, not to dream up rockets, but to tyrannize the world; an ultra-liberal Pope who advises our main characters--Rick and Tessa, astronauts turned minor deities with vast mental powers fueled by public opinion--on matters of faith and world politics; King Arthur conjured from the aether as a new/old symbol of hope; the world's entire population learning how to tap the paranormal after the example has been set; a glimpse of the afterlife and the strange essences that inhabit it; oh, and car chases, daring escapes, and some spy games. Wow. Take a breath. It is definitely too much...but it's worth the experience.

Not a perfect book, because it is as unwieldy as it is compelling. Fascinating and frustrating. Better than some of its predecessors, like McQuay's The Nexus, but outclassed by Stranger In A Strange Land (there are numerous references to Heinlein's works, in Oltion's book). Well worth reading if you don't mind an SF experience that may not be one at all, while it addresses a fundamental concern of the genre.