Rating: 
Summary: Looks like Sci-Fi is too much for Lee Alone
Review: Up until page 212, this seems like an acceptable science fiction story. Tantalizing hints, solid science, and interesting characters. I admit, some of them are two dimensional, but at least they are interesting, and their firm viewpoint is well portrayed.
After that we have inexplicable aliens giving our main characters increasingly pointless tours, while removing carefully all the other characters from the situation, for no explicable reason. We have situations described as 'zero gravity' with: Walking, shuffling, floors, cielings, climbing (Even tiredness while climbing), a RIVER, a BOAT in the river, SEATS in the boat, Earthlike scenes with trees, and squirels, while our carefuly segregated main characters sitting and eating a picnic . . .. All still in a zero G setting, with no explanations, adaptation, nothing.
From the before mentioned page 212 on, this book continues downhill, into a train wreck. If you are serious about your Sci-fi, and care about motivations, I would reccomend skipping this one, and looking to Niven, or Clarke, or Heinlein, or, above all, Spider Robinson.
Rating: 
Summary: Loved it
Review: It took a while but when I finally got into the book, it was truly captivating. Unlike others, I was not annoyed with Sister Bea. The story of her and Johann was a good one, tedious at parts. Does anyone else ever notice that religious folks of the future, particularly Catholics, seem to hearken back to the Middle Ages in dress, custom and manner.Toward the middle of the book they are taken in an alien craft and whisked to the stars. The action was riveting and not at all derivative of Rama. Too bad that the sequeal was the pits.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Effort, But Falls Short of Rama Quality
Review: If I had not read the Rama series, I would have been tempted to give this book 5 stars, although I probably would have resisted that temptation. The characters are well-written and fairly deep, and the plot is complicated yet coherent enough. What kept bothering me, though were the frequent parallels to the Rama books - parallel characters, parallel themes, and even parallel scenes. I could never decide if these parallels were stylistic and simply reflected the fact that Mr. Lee co-wrote the last three Rama books, if he was intentionally creating these parallels, or if he was just not original enough to really create a different story from the Rama story. If you have not read this book or the Rama series, I would advise you to read this one first, to avoid the overshadowing effect. I also found that, even though the characters were well-written, I had difficulty caring about any of them, except Sister Beatrice. Also, maybe I was dense at the time (or always), but I didn't realize that I was reading Part 1 of a sequel until almost the end, when I realized that nothing could get resolved in the fifty or so pages I had left. I hope the sequel answers my questions -- and is more original.
Rating:
Summary: review
Review: fantastic book up to the very end. drops off at the end.
Rating:
Summary: A frustrating waste of time and trees
Review: This book is ok during the first half. Interesting characters are facing mysterious happenings. Then the characters board a magic space shuttle to loonie-land, where bizarre and pointless (and eventually violent and sickening) things happen to them with no explanation whatsoever. And then... it ends abrubtly. Like the author was writing a high school term paper and just passed the minimum pages his teacher assigned, Lee throws a couple paragraphs of bizzarre happenings on the pile and says "To be continued..." I would read the sequel, but i have no hope that he will be any more likely to explain why the bizarre events happen than he was in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Insipid plot with page turning effect
Review: Take all the best parts of this book and you end up with a c-grade short story, at best. Character development is 2-stars, sci-fi development is 1-star. Saddest of all, given the fact that Gentry Lee was so intimately involved in the Rama series, he absolutely dropped the ball. This was, without reservation, one of the worst books I have ever encountered.
|
