Rating: 
Summary: OK, but not among Anderson's best
Review: Despite a number of excellent passages, this book is a bit flat overall. The social, historical and personal aspects of time dilation are dealt with reasonably well. A few of the characters are well developed, while others are rather thin and unconvincing. A redux of Tau Zero, but not nearly as good. Lukewarm recommendation at best.
Rating: 
Summary: Exploring the Universe in 11,000 Years
Review: Exploring the universe in 11,000 years is a marvelous, mind-expanding concept. Few authors besides Poul Anderson would attempt it. That he doesn't quite succeed, doesn't change how wonderful the underlying idea is. Earth detects evidence of another civilization 5000 light years away and decides to send a contact ship. Even though the round-trip will take 10,000 earth years, the crew will only age two years. The crew is chosen, the trip begins and after 6,000 years they realize the alien civilization may not be there and the trip might be futile. They go on and find three alien races and meanwhile earth is changing. The surviving crew members will return after 11,000 years to an utterly changed world. All this is well-done but the idea is greater than the execution. The book cries out for a Dominick Flandry or a Nicholas Van Rijn or some really interesting central character or a really intense story line. Instead, you are introduced to some well-sketched-in but not very interesting people with not very involving personal problems. And the story is episodic, although some of the episodes are wonderful. Poul Anderson seems incapable of writing badly. His second best work like this is far above your average science fiction. I highly recommend this for the ideas and the images of future worlds while being aware that you're taking a long interesting journey with some not very interesting people.
Rating: 
Summary: Ultimately a disappointment
Review: I first discovered Poul Anderson in the early 1970's and over the past 30 years have managed to collect practically every book he's ever published--a total of more than 80 novels and short-story collections, including his very rare historical "The Golden Slave." Up to this point I chose not to keep only one of those I read ("The Devil's Game"), but I'm afraid this title will make Number Two. SF has always been fundamentally an optimistic genre--even dystopic stories usually feature a maverick or two beating their wings against the bars of society's cage--and while in the end "Starfarers" also posits a rebirth of the human spirit, it left me feeling somehow unsatisfied. Perhaps it's that Anderson's earlier work (like the great Ensign Flandry and Nicholas van Rijn/Davey Falkayn series or the retellings of Norse sagas), despite a lurking shadow of decadence (the "Long Night" often referred to by Flandry, the Nordic gloom of the sagas), focuses on characters who are truly heroic, larger than life (though far from perfect), while the "Envoy"'s crew seem more to be an accidental association of rather ordinary folk. Perhaps it's the picture he paints (rather improbable, to my mind) of a humanity that (in some unexplained way) manages to confine itself to Earth (and a few widely scattered colonies) without overwhelming the planet with its numbers and waste. Or perhaps it's the way he portrays what seems to me a change in the basic human character over the 10,000 years of "Envoy"'s absence; after all, anyone who has read widely in history understands that people today aren't too basically dissimilar to those of ancient Egypt and Sumeria--or, for that matter, the Australian aboriginies and other modern counterparts of Stone Age humanity. Even the very late Anson Guthrie series had more of a basically upbeat tone than this one does. It's true that his Tahirian aliens are wonderfully original and excellently drawn, and the starfaring Kith--clans of traders--are a people worth knowing. And even in his age, the author lost none of his lyrical style. But if you're looking to get familiar with the best of Anderson, don't start with this novel. I'd go so far as to say that only utter completists should trouble to keep it in their collections.
Rating:
Summary: A Long Read---Patience Required!
Review: I have read several novels that introduce many characters that are on a long intersteller voyage, some do well and you get to know the characters. ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes did a great job with this but I can't say the same for STARFARERS. This novel has so many characters that they are nearly impossible to keep track of and which person did this or that, much of it just became an unintellible mass. Is there anything of redeeming quality in this novel? Yes, it gives a very good, even excellent story, of man's contact with alien species, and depicts science and technology very knowledgeably, so it seems. Character development is great, but as before too many characters for my taste. It is a long novel and takes patience to read.
Rating:
Summary: Well written, but didn't capture my imagination
Review: I have read the author in the past, and have enjoyed his works. I enjoyed this one also for the most part, but it just didn't excite me that much. To me the whole view of Starfaring presented in this book was rather sobbering. I suppose if and when we do travel the stars it could end up just like this book, but I hope not. Parts of the book dragged, and I guess I was hoping for a little more excitement and adventure when it came to encountering Alien species. The book was still well-written and many fans will enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: One of Poul's Best
Review: I liked this book enormously. I was especially fond of the various side lines in the book involving the other alien races. Poul seemed to pack more ideas in this book than many authors manage in their lifetime. It is true that there aren't answers to everything, but that's what life is like. One of the best books I've read this year.
Rating:
Summary: Great story of well thought out scifi
Review: I loved this story. The aliens were very original, and well thought out, the evolution of Earth's society throughout the story was extremely well done and the human-alien relations were very good. I've not read much of Poul Anderson's work before but if his other stories are as good, or better than this I will definitly start reading more.
Rating:
Summary: dull as dirt
Review: I picked up this book because I enjoyed Anderson's _The Boat of a Million Years_, and because the plot outlined on the back of the book looked interesting. Unfortunately, the book takes a long time to develop, both in terms of plot and pace. It plods along. I almost gave up at 50 pages, but things started to be happening, so I continued skimming for anything interesting. At 100 pages, there's now something going on, but I still have to suffer through way to much description of way too many boring events. I've given up on the book.
Rating:
Summary: Not one of Anderson's best
Review: I though this a fairly readable book with an intriguing plot, if one hasn't read too many similiar books previously. I thought it would be fascinating to see Earth through the Envoy crew's eyes when they returned. However, I don't see how these idiots passed the supposedly harsh psychological tests to get on board. I had a feeling they were "rejects" conveniently being disposed of by various governments. And I couldn't get a good vision of what the Earth government(s) and living conditions were like at any time in the book. What was the technology like? Anderson kept interspersing the story of the Envoy crew with long, boring tales of the human civilization left behind. And I found the starfaring Kith people to be smug, arrogant, shallow people wrapped up in their closed, incestuous little culture. I did like the depictions of alien cultures and worlds. They were vastly more intriguing most of the humans and human cultures.The book wasn't a total loss.
Rating:
Summary: One fine tale from a master
Review: I've been reading Poul Anderson for almost 40 years, and this one just blows me away. Lyrical prose, poetic constructions, good science, and the thought of Envoy all those thousands of light-years from home. What a fine book!!
|
