Rating: 
Summary: good
Review: this was the first book by poul anderson i read and i really liked it. i mean the humans seemed a little two-dimensional but the alien civilization seemed pretty well thought-out to me. and i loved how much detail was put into the differences between the systems of comunication of the aliens and the humans
Rating: 
Summary: Tau Zero Redux
Review: Well, almost "Tau Zero," one of my favorite all time scifi novels. Anderson presents another adventure in the same mode. Few authors write scifi like this anymore. There is a sense of wonder and a sense of uplifting the human spirit to greatness that you see in Wells, Verne, Clarke, Stapledon, Baxter, Benford, etc. The characters are all well delineated such as the affected hypomanic woman pilot who acts like she is an avatar of Robert Burns. The aliens are wonderfully characterized and multifaceted. One is also left with questions which are left unanswered, contributing to the sense of expansiveness. The book gives you pause to think about the big picture. In my humble opinion, this is what scifi should be, a kind of practical philosophy. "Starfarers" succeeds at this game admirably. Do not let the archaic language put you off; it is Anderson's tongue and cheek version of future speak!
Rating: 
Summary: Haven't I read this some place before
Review: Yet another collection of uninteresting characters collected together for a long trip across space together. All the usual cliches - sexual tensions, leadership struggles, a mutiny. I don't know why Paul Anderson even tries playing the character development game - he is embarassingly bad.So what about science fiction content? Well this story looks like Tau Zero all over again - only this time it's not fresh or original. He has a central theme of civilisations stagnating over time. Really that's just a science fiction writer's cop-out - a way for a writer not to have to think too hard about the future. I really felt no sense of 'wonder' reading this book - I almost felt that like the characters he writes about Anderson is tired of encounters with alien civilisations and awesome phenomena. This is old-school science fiction with one or two modern ideas thrown in. For example he has life forms at the event horizon of a black hole. But rather than develop them in any way he just mixes in a few bits of technobabble lifted from other authors. He even credits Robert L Forward in the actual text of the story with one of the ideas he uses, suggesting comparison with Forward's *far* superior Dragon's Egg about life on a neutron star. Overall I'd say this story was about as interesting and entertaining as an episode of Star Trek. I like Star Trek - but I expect a lot more from a science fiction writer with the reputation of Anderson. Addendum, 7 Jan 2004
4 years later I have no recollection of reading this book. That must tell you quite a bit about it!
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