The Star Dancers

Rating:
Summary: Not worth your money...
Review: ... if you insist on trying ot read this book, please just borrow it from the local library.

I always thought that one of the best benefits of science fiction was that it could go just anywhere, and be a very original piece of work. This book is the exact opposite of that. The story looks like the authors made it as predictable as they could. I wouldn't be able to distinguish this book from any other "aliens approaching earth" book. Actually I could, because all other books of that genre I've read had been a lot more original... This book looks like a bad mix of all the most trivial and boring factoids of them all - about the aliens, at least. The idea of combining the art of dance in science fiction is original, I admit, and the dancing sequences seemed very original too, but being a non dancer, it was very hard for me to visualize them, so I found nothing interesting about this book.

As in many science fiction books, this book tries to let us handle the technical aspects of future life and space travel by just naturally implementing these in the book, as though we were supposed to know them. In most cases, these just blend naturally into the story. This is one of the cases I felt it didn't blend in too well, which made reading this book not as smooth as I expected it to be - maybe because I was reading this book around the time these things were 'happening', I just couldn't visualize space travel like the one in the book happening in 'our' world.

This book combines a bad style of writing and a boring and predictable story. With all the alien stories, TV shows, movies, etc. it's very hard to write a good one - even Stephen King had managed to write a bad book about this subject ("Dreamcatcher"). The only people that might be interested in it are people who really into dancing. If you're also a science fiction fan - even better. For those people - I reccomend the local library. For others - go elsewhere! Most sci - fi books I've read are SO much better than this.

Rating:
Summary: Soul catching...
Review: I read the second book "Starseed" before I ever found this first one. I recieved it for one of my birthdays, several years ago, along with a few other second hand books. The book was pretty much older than I am, well, the first one is from memory at least, but regardless, i gave it a shot, being an ardent sci-fi/fantasy fan, as long as it's good. Well, I was simply blown away. I thought that the whole concept was so original, and completely different from the usual books I've read, that I went on an immediate search for the first book, and found it months later in a second hand book shop quite by accident. I found it just as good as the first one I'd read. One of the best books I've ever read. I've read a few reviews about what people have thought about this book, and the common assessment by most that you have appreciate dancing, or be a dancer, to like this book. Not true. I am by no means a dancer. True, I like dancing, but I've never tried the sort that the book describes, and nothng near ballet that could be called coherent. I wouldn't be able to choregraph, or follow a piece, if my life depended on it! Yet I still found the book moving, incredible, and awe inspiring. You don't have to be a lover of dance to appreciate this book. This is simpy a form of speech, an original one at that, that they've used to understand and be understood by aliens. It's the sort of book that makes you stop and think afterwards, makes you wander if there ever could be a place like that somewhere in the known universe. Who says you have to be a dancer to appreciate it? all you really need to appreciate the book is an _understanding_ of dance, of how it is an expression of self, just like anything else could be.

I found this an original piece, moving and addictive. I've read the book at least half a dozen times now and am on the constant lookout for more books by Spider & Jeanne Robinson. My vote? A must read! Though perhaps it may go over the heads of those who don't read deeper than the surface, if you put your whole heart into reading a book and appreciate it for what it is, then yes, this is a goer! I still love it, and there's no hint of boredom on the horizon yet!

Rating:
Summary: Sci-Fi for Dancers!
Review: I'm a former ballet dancer who likes science fiction. This book was recommended to me by a friend who was familiar with all the Robinson books and I'm really glad.

The portrayal of dancers whose bodies can't handle the punishing gravity of this earth any more was quite realistic. I love that there was both a female and male dancer involved in the plot, and I wish I could have seen some of those star dances! What a lovely idea!

The sci-fi plot line was also intriguing. I kinda like the idea of luminous stardancer beings floating around out there in the stars.

This is a very different genre than "Lady Slings the Booze", but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Starseed, the sequel, and am about to start Starmind.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best speculative fiction books ever written
Review: This is an emerging classic in speculative fiction. A book with both heart and vision, it is quite simply the best portrayal of life in a zero gravity environment I have ever read. It takes you there so you really FEEL what it's like to live without an apparent up or down--and not only to live, but to dance as well.

On top of that you will fall in love with each of the main charectors. They have heart, depth, strengths, and weaknesses--they are real people set in an extraordinary environment. They become a group of friends that I would love to meet and become a part of. And then there are the aliens...

Rating:
Summary: Zero-gravity dance and lots more
Review: This omnibus volume includes the full text of both _Stardance_ and _Starseed_, the first two books in Spider and Jeanne Robinson's series on zero-gravity dance. The third volume, _Starmind_ is available separately.

Both of the books included here are excellent -- the first one, I think, just slightly moreso, but the sequel is way better than sequels usually are. The premise: dancer Shara Drummond, too tall and zaftig to be accepted as a dancer on Earth, hooks up with Charlie Armstead to shift her career to an orbital environment where her size isn't a liability. While they're up there . . . well, that's what the book is about.

And of course I can't tell you _anything_ about the sequel without spoiling the first book for you.

At any rate, these were the first two of the three books that the happy Robinson couple cowrote, and they work together mighty well. Jeanne is clearly no slouch as a writer -- and at the time these books were written, she led a dance company in Nova Scotia. Spider's delightful sensibilities inform the entire project too, and you'll meet some of his most memorable characters here. (Fat Humphrey comes to mind.)

I don't like the third volume quite as well, largely because I don't care for the ending. But pick it up too, just so you'll have read them all. The Robinsons don't just recycle the same story from one book to the next; they tell a genuinely new story in each one.

Check out Spider's solo work too. He and James Hogan are my two favorite living SF writers.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Ballet used to contact aliens in space!
Review: Well, it's another unusual concept by Spider Robinson and his wife, Jeanne. This caught my eye after I read some of the Callahans stuff and it looked like an interesting read(The Hugo and Nebula awards had NOTHING to do with it. No, really).

Typical Robinson to take a concept SO off-the-wall and make it work!