Rating: 
Summary: Good early work by John Barnes
Review: If you're a fan of John Barnes and haven't read this book, it's about time you did. This book, more than any other, to me establishes his style of thinking, plotting, and writing. The story is engaging; the characters are well-drawn; the setting is imaginative. One of the things I like best about John Barnes is his ability to write science fiction novels that are actually about people the reader can identify with and care about, and Orbital Resonance is a good early example of that ability.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book in the style of Ender's Game
Review: John Barnes has created a complete, intriguing world, and he shows it to us through the eyes of a child. Well
written and wonderfully imagined. Full of interesting ideas to play with, this is set far into the future. The science is real and plausible.
Rating: 
Summary: Crash and Burn
Review: John Barnes' faceless characters in ORBITAL RESONANCE chitter and twirp to each other, perfectly displaying the fact that they were created only as a guide to carry the story along; their individual IQs would probably weigh in at about 90, enough to get onto the Flying Dutchman and push all the right buttons, but not enough to show any intellectual, moral, or ethical depth. The book, while thoroughly entertaining for the most part, swiftly takes a steep nosedive about two-thirds of the way through the novel, and entertains the notion that everything will turn out all hunky dory for the characters, for the future of interstellar space travel, and also for Melpomene Murray's lost friendship with Miriam. The sheer audacity that Barnes has in ending the novel this way is beyond any intelligent reasoning; for Barnes makes it absolutely clear that nothing--not a single detail--will not work out for the main characters. The secondary characters also get their token consignment of luck, and even the antagonist is revealed to be such a swell guy that nobody can resist being friends with him. This denouement, this sugar-coated finale, this saccharine glop, inevitably leaves a bad taste in my mouth; for no questions are left unanswered, no problems left unsolved, no mysteries left to contemplation. Despite the late Poul Anderson's raving, this book is certainly not, in any way whatsoever, though-provoking; and that, when you get down to it, is what all good science fiction should be.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for John Barnes fans
Review: Now that with the end of the 1990s the scope of John Barnes's work has become clearer, it's possible to put his first "hit" novel, Orbital Resonance, into perspective. It's a very Heinleinesque SF novel about a spacebound culture told from the first-person perspective of a thirteen year old girl. It's also a coming-of-age story, but ... with a twist. It's a sort of an-entire-spaceship-coming-of-age story. If there's one pattern that Orbital Resonance begins to establish, it's Barnes's interest in cultural change and evolution and the planning thereof. (Sounds like Heinlein again, doesn't it?) A well-written book that needs that "almost a short story" feel, Orbital Resonance is a good introduction to John Barnes. It won't give you much of a feel for what his longer books are like, but then again, they don't resemble one another all that much either.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for John Barnes fans
Review: Now that with the end of the 1990s the scope of John Barnes's work has become clearer, it's possible to put his first "hit" novel, Orbital Resonance, into perspective. It's a very Heinleinesque SF novel about a spacebound culture told from the first-person perspective of a thirteen year old girl. It's also a coming-of-age story, but ... with a twist. It's a sort of an-entire-spaceship-coming-of-age story. If there's one pattern that Orbital Resonance begins to establish, it's Barnes's interest in cultural change and evolution and the planning thereof. (Sounds like Heinlein again, doesn't it?) A well-written book that needs that "almost a short story" feel, Orbital Resonance is a good introduction to John Barnes. It won't give you much of a feel for what his longer books are like, but then again, they don't resemble one another all that much either.
Rating:
Summary: lim kopey!
Review: The most common themes that seem to emerge in Young Adult science fiction are the same that we face upon becoming adults: realising the world isn't as it seems, feeling the burden of responsibility, the way we begin to resent adults as we realise that they have to do things that are unpleasant, and that we ourselves will have to do things that we are not entirely comfortable with, during our passage to adulthood. John Barnes has addressed these themes in a stellar book that I think was intended for adults, but makes wonderful and enlightening reading for smart kids and young adults alike. Melpomene is a young woman living on a corporate space-station who must deal with everday life like everyone else, its triumphs and its embarassments. She does well in school, has good status with her class-mates, but must deal with the embarassment she faces when her mother quits her station job (exposing her to be unproductive, not socially responsible, basically an oddity to everyone else on the station, an outsider) and spents all her time lounging round their apartment reading boring novels sent from earth. The story is told through Mel's journal entries, written in retrospect, and is an account of the arrival of a newcomer to the station: a boy from earth who has been shuffled around by unwanted relatives and is 'different', too earthlike, for the tastes of our mature, space-station reared class of children. With his arrival comes that of bullying, something that children on the space station haven't experienced before... This book succeeds so well as young adult fiction because the characters are complex, there is no clear cut good and bad, and Melpomene faces adulthood sooner than she would like as her sense of fairness and her leadership qualities come into play, forcing her to take a responsible role that reveals the station's plans for her for the future. A discovery with which comes a jarring understanding of what it means to be an adult. In the tradition of Growing up Weightless and The Giver: a well-concieved, unusual and original read. Superb understanding of what it means to grow up, from one of the genre's best authors.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, classic SF reminiscent of Heinlein
Review: This book is a worthy addition to the sub-genre of SF which focuses on the young man or woman growing into themselves within a new frontier of space. It stands well alongside books like Heinlien's immortal "Have Space Suit, Will Travel" and "Space Cadet," Or Clarke's "Islands In The Sky." I have found it to be entertaining, stimulating and as good as anything written in SF in the past 5 years. Anyone who enjoys this particular sub-genre will enjoy Orbital Resonance immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Honest
Review: This has long been my favorite book - inside its genre, it'll probably stay that way. I love this book because it maps out a world in a honest and clear way; Mel is a multidimensional character, and so are most others. Barnes doesn't shy away from issues, (storywise) instead he does very well at explaining them as Mel :would:. It's also the somewhat utopian society he spells out. I suppose I got some of my (stubborn) ideals from this book. This worldlet's good and bad times; In a way, also because of its relevance to today, it is more realistic and personally intreagueing than most books i've read. Like the comment on the front, i parallel the writing with Heinlein even though it's a different style.
Rating:
Summary: The Tale Begins.....
Review: This is the book that introduced many of us to John Barnes. For many of us, it is still our favorite. A lot of very "Barnesian" ideas are established here. For one thing, all of his books except for Mother of Storms and One for the Morning Glory are written in the first person. What probably hooked me more than anything else on his writing is that he chose to make his debut with a book written from the first person of a 13 year old girl. Personally, I can't think of any demographic that I have LESS in common with than teenage girls. And I certainly wouldn't attempt to write a novel from that perspective. Barnes has an incredible gift for putting himself in his characters' shoes and telling it from their point of view. Regardless of how radically different their personalities are, they always seem authentic. How the different personalities of Melpomene Murray, Currie Curran, Joshua Ali Quare and Giraut Leone could all spring from the same mind and all feel unique and authentic is a trick I'll certainly never master. (I guess that's why he's published and I'm not.) Comparisons to Ender's Game are appropriate. Even though Melpomene and Ender have very little in common, they are both written by superb authors who managed to authentically empathize with children. Another precedent here is that he doesn't pull any punches. Melpomene is a 13 year old girl. Well, she's gonna face situations that a 13 year old girl would likely face, and she's going to deal with them the way a 13 year old girl realistically would. That means it might make you occasionally blush. (However, despite a certain reviewer's knee-jerk reaction, this is NOT a book about adolescent girls describing their orgasms.) But don't worry - when you graduate to "Kaleidescope Century", you'll get the same treatment from the point of view of a mercenary assassin. And yes, that book will SCARE you. But this is what makes his writing so powerful and authentic. You're also going to find that John Barnes NEVER writes 1 dimensional characters, nor does he ever let them get the easy answers. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in his books. Well... OK, Kaleidescope Century has some pretty unredeemable people, and Phil and Monica from Candle are archetypal saints - but I suspect he's saving them for a full treatment in another novel. But on the whole, every character is going to do something you wouldn't be proud of at some point. And every character has some noble spark of humanity. You can't just divide up his characters into column A - the ones I don't like, and column B - the ones I like. Nope. Fortunately, they actually have personalities and relationships. But Barnes's greatest strength is his world-building skill. He could have just said - in 2026, people will live on colonized asteroids because Earth is over-populated, and terraforming of Mars has begun. But.... no. The whole back story behind why the Flying Dutchman exists and why the people there live the way they do is extrapolated back to the end of the 20th century. At the end of the book, you know that all of the events here are part of a very logical flow of ideas in a very thoroughly thought out history. Nothing feels really contrived. At the same time - you know that you haven't heard the whole story yet. While Melpomene gives us considerable background on the situation on earth, ultimately that is not the story she was trying to tell. Two books later (Kaleidescope Century and Candle - which are not precisely sequels but do take place in the same universe) and we STILL don't have the whole picture, and the canvas keeps getting bigger! Now, despite all the literary kudos, the most compelling reason to read this book is that it's simply a damn good fun read! Yeah, sure, essentially, it's "just" a well-written coming of age story. But what makes that a bad thing? I rarely read novels more than once. Why would I want to waste time on a book I've already read when there are so many more out there to discover? And I can count the books (or rather, series of books) I've read more than twice on just the fingers of one hand. With the recent publication of Candle in paperback, my thirst for John Barnes was rekindled. (pun deliberate, sorry!) To keep all the events straight in my mind, I just added Orbital Resonance and Kaleidescope Century to that prized list.
Rating:
Summary: The Tale Begins.....
Review: This is the book that introduced many of us to John Barnes. For many of us, it is still our favorite. A lot of very "Barnesian" ideas are established here. For one thing, all of his books except for Mother of Storms and One for the Morning Glory are written in the first person. What probably hooked me more than anything else on his writing is that he chose to make his debut with a book written from the first person of a 13 year old girl. Personally, I can't think of any demographic that I have LESS in common with than teenage girls. And I certainly wouldn't attempt to write a novel from that perspective. Barnes has an incredible gift for putting himself in his characters' shoes and telling it from their point of view. Regardless of how radically different their personalities are, they always seem authentic. How the different personalities of Melpomene Murray, Currie Curran, Joshua Ali Quare and Giraut Leone could all spring from the same mind and all feel unique and authentic is a trick I'll certainly never master. (I guess that's why he's published and I'm not.) Comparisons to Ender's Game are appropriate. Even though Melpomene and Ender have very little in common, they are both written by superb authors who managed to authentically empathize with children. Another precedent here is that he doesn't pull any punches. Melpomene is a 13 year old girl. Well, she's gonna face situations that a 13 year old girl would likely face, and she's going to deal with them the way a 13 year old girl realistically would. That means it might make you occasionally blush. (However, despite a certain reviewer's knee-jerk reaction, this is NOT a book about adolescent girls describing their orgasms.) But don't worry - when you graduate to "Kaleidescope Century", you'll get the same treatment from the point of view of a mercenary assassin. And yes, that book will SCARE you. But this is what makes his writing so powerful and authentic. You're also going to find that John Barnes NEVER writes 1 dimensional characters, nor does he ever let them get the easy answers. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in his books. Well... OK, Kaleidescope Century has some pretty unredeemable people, and Phil and Monica from Candle are archetypal saints - but I suspect he's saving them for a full treatment in another novel. But on the whole, every character is going to do something you wouldn't be proud of at some point. And every character has some noble spark of humanity. You can't just divide up his characters into column A - the ones I don't like, and column B - the ones I like. Nope. Fortunately, they actually have personalities and relationships. But Barnes's greatest strength is his world-building skill. He could have just said - in 2026, people will live on colonized asteroids because Earth is over-populated, and terraforming of Mars has begun. But.... no. The whole back story behind why the Flying Dutchman exists and why the people there live the way they do is extrapolated back to the end of the 20th century. At the end of the book, you know that all of the events here are part of a very logical flow of ideas in a very thoroughly thought out history. Nothing feels really contrived. At the same time - you know that you haven't heard the whole story yet. While Melpomene gives us considerable background on the situation on earth, ultimately that is not the story she was trying to tell. Two books later (Kaleidescope Century and Candle - which are not precisely sequels but do take place in the same universe) and we STILL don't have the whole picture, and the canvas keeps getting bigger! Now, despite all the literary kudos, the most compelling reason to read this book is that it's simply a damn good fun read! Yeah, sure, essentially, it's "just" a well-written coming of age story. But what makes that a bad thing? I rarely read novels more than once. Why would I want to waste time on a book I've already read when there are so many more out there to discover? And I can count the books (or rather, series of books) I've read more than twice on just the fingers of one hand. With the recent publication of Candle in paperback, my thirst for John Barnes was rekindled. (pun deliberate, sorry!) To keep all the events straight in my mind, I just added Orbital Resonance and Kaleidescope Century to that prized list.
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