Rogue Star (Rogue Star)

Rating:
Summary: From the Winner of the FIRST Heinlein Award!
Review: As many writers that have been compared to Robert Heinlein only to fall short of The Master's works, Michael Flynn is the ONLY one to actually have the credentials to claim this exalted place in Sci-Fi, having received the FIRST Heinlein Award for writings in hard Sci-Fi, voted this new honor by a panel of judges including some of the greatest authorial names in modern Sci-Fi Literature!(See at www.heinleinsociety.org)
I recall having seen Rogue Star(along with the other tomes in the quadrilogy) on the bookstore shelves for years, and am at a loss that I waited until learning of Flynn' Award to finally try his work. As Heinlein did, and all too few have done since, Michael Flynn has written about the near future as if he had his own Time Machine and is returning with reports of what he has seen himself!
To quote Poul Anderson, legendary giant of Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre, "Firestar was a mighty hard act to follow, but Michael Flynn has done so, and brilliantly! Rogue Star continues the story, with the same imaginative realism, suspenseful narration, and vivid humanness, plus all sorts of new ideas and insights."

If you are contemplating reading this excellent quadrilogy, buy them ALL, so you don't have to wait for delivery between volumes, and be prepared to set aside any other tomes until you finish the series!

Rating:
Summary: Tales of obsession and a vision for mankind's future.
Review: Continuing the storylines begun in FIRESTAR, Michael F. Flynn once again wraps the reader in multiple storylines revolving around one woman's obsessive desire to protect Earth from potential killer asteroid impacts, while getting mankind back into space through corporate means rather than government subsidy. The plots are all fairly straight forward and well told, but the obsessiveness of 90% of the characters in this testosterone laden tale creates a bleak picture of mankind. All the men seem to be cheating on their wives, everyone carries around hidden agendas and obsessions with either their own self importance or their hatred of others.

Still, Flynn's vision and strong voice do make this a book worth spending some time with. The U.S. space program, educational institutes and corporate America could learn valuable lessons from his masterful speculations.

Rating:
Summary: Partial success; mainly falls short
Review: Flynn's sequel, as other reviewers have noted, is overly long with too little meat. The repeated angst of several characters becomes deadening, and the long expositions of satellite construction, etc., are often mind-numbingly detailed and irrelevant. As an excuse, I suppose Flynn tried to give a flavor of life in space. But it made me tend to skip over paragraphs to move on to more interesting sections.

Contrary to reviewer kevind's observation, this book is rather a thorough-going libertarian tract. Especially objectionable is the hugely Machiavellian and immoral scheme attributed to the noted and otherwise highly decent consumer advocate of great integrity, Phil Albright. While such individuals in our society may be savvy politically and tough competitors, the likelihood of a sub rosa scheme provoking politicians not in one's pocket to engage in dastardly behavior of such magnitude is quite unbelievable.

The President's scheme for a space-based military laser is also quite unbelievable, given the legal and treaty violations involved and the inevitable political consequences and loss of reputation, not to say the international peril as a result. (Sidebar: the Balkans, while politically volatile, are unlikely to come apart as Flynn envisaged.)

As minor but annoying, like so many SF writers, Flynn mishandles Russian and Hispanic naming conventions and, perhaps from a meagerness of imagination, draws on famous family names from history for his characters: Marshal Kutuzov of the Napoleonic Wars, and Lady Murasaki no Shikibu, writer of Tokugawa Japan. These names are not particularly frequent in their respective societies; one wonders why the author couldn't have been a bit more creative.

Flynn has left us with the tantalizing open issue of whether asteroids' orbits are being modified to target Earth. If he can make this an interesting theme in the final book of the trilogy without the weary, belabored "human interest" threads, the third volume might be a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Second in the series
Review: Good SiFi and political intrigue on a universal level. If you read Firestar than you must read Roguestar . Lots of return characters might make this a difficult book to read without first reading the first novel in the series though. A good introduction of new characters make me hope they are continued in the Loadstar release. Flynn does use some made up words that have not come true and it's too bad that PDA couldn't have been inserted for 'clipcuter'. I also wonder what the heck 'herbert' is. Perhaps I'm not cool enough to know? elle in orygun

Rating:
Summary: The best, so far, of an excellent series
Review: I really enjoy Flynn's near-future series, with its rich characters, intricate plots, and imaginative cultural-political landscape. I especially liked the asteroid trip, the ongoing Mareisa-Roberta interaction, and the intense action at the climax. Mareisa is more interesting because she "screwed up", and thus is more human. Some of the space-station construction details became a bit tedious, but it was done carefully. I don't read a lot of non-SF books, but I am pretty sure that Flynn's development of his characters is unusually good for SF writing, and is on a par with much current mainstream fiction. He even does the sex scenes rather well, including enough, but not too much, erotic detail. The interplay of the skilled workers was a nice contrast to the scenes featuring politicians, movers-shakers, scientists and astronauts. He creates a vivid, believable world and tells a great, complex tale. In my opinion Rogue Star is the best of the first three of this series, although it has been a while since I read Firestar. When I finished this book I went right out and bought Lodestar. I am pleased to see that a fourth book is now available. Flynn is probably a much better writer than good old Bob Heinlein, but of course middle-aged guys like me read Heinlein when we were young and new to SF, so he will always have a special place in our hearts and minds. Bravo, Michael Flynn!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but has all the defects of a sequel
Review: So now that Firestar has turned in to "The Firestar Saga," where are we this? It is not clear to us that Rogue Star was a necessary follow-up to Firestar which could and does stand on its own. Rogue Star on the other hand does not have the kind of strength to stand on its own merits and really only inherits what it had from Firestar. There are some items of great interest here, particularly in the political arena and the Fartrip exploration but now that the notion of a question involving space exploration has been answered there is no longer any suspense or specific interest in the sole nation of space flight. Rogue Star does not offer anything new other than an extension of the relationships involved. And as we have often said, books who create characters independently of the circumstances surrounding the store are not books that will have a great deal of influence on the genre. It will be interesting to see what happens to "The Firestar Saga" as it continues.

WHO SHOULD READ

As with many sequels, its principle interest will like in those people who read and enjoyed the first book. That is certainly the case here where readers who read and enjoyed Firestar (a remarkably good book) will move on to Rogue Star and find in it a great deal to enjoy. It's still a swift book and those readers will probably find a great deal of satisfaction within it. Additionally, there is quite a bit more detail regarding political events and interplay between opposing political positions--both on the national stage and within the office. There might be a segment of readers who are not terribly interested in the technology and test-flights leading up to space exploration but are more concerned about the politics involved after the technology is proven. For this segment, Rogue Star might even be a more satisfying read than Firestar.

WHO SHOULD AVOID

One of the most splendid thing about Firestar was the idea of a dream reified. The notions of privatized space exploration planned so far ahead that education curricula must be altered and redrawn in order to accommodate the dreams is of breathtaking scope and intense interest. All of that has faded with Rogue Star and nothing has really filled its place. For those readers who enjoyed the dream more than anything else they will find Rogue Star faintly but subtly unsatisfying. Mentor, Belinda, and Barry Fast have faded from the narrative almost entirely. There was a great deal of momentum built up in the first book and the series is now running on inertia. While some Really Big Events are revealed near the end of Rogue Star it seems almost more of a gimmick and slightly out of place. Its unclear whether "The Firestar Saga" will become a viable series or not.

READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM

Rating:
Summary: A solid near term science fiction book
Review: This book might make a good 150 pages for the beginning of a real book, but unfortunately doesn't measure up on its own. It was 200 pages before anything meaningful happened, and even when I finally battled my way to the end of the book, I found entirely too many loose ends and missed opportunities.

Skip this book. I rarely have to force myself to finish a book, but unfortunately had to do so in this instance.

Rating:
Summary: Works Hard to Live Up to the Uncomparable First Volume
Review: Welcome back to the world of Firestar. It's more than a decade later, and the commercial space program has grown up. The academy kids have grown up. And the test pilots have grown up, too...

Viewed through a critical eye, Rogue Star doesn't quite exhibit the same intensity as the first novel. There are fewer character threads. The characters make choices that are hard to identify with. The conflicts seem a bit worn at the knees and frayed at the hems. It's only two-thirds as long.

But none of that can detract from the talent exhibited by Flynn, who skillfully weaves individual plots into a memorable story. Each of them could stand alone, but together, they reinforce each other to robustly carry on the saga of Mariesa van Huyten and her obsessive quest to insure that humankind doesn't go the way of the dinosaurs.

I would have liked more speculative elements. I would have liked to see more characters carried forward from Firestar. And I certainly would have liked 300 more pages. But in this case, wanting more means that what you have is darn good!

Based on Firestar and Rogue Star, I'm shelling out the bucks for Lodestar in hardcover... something I've only done twice before.

Rating:
Summary: Better than the first book in the series
Review: With Rogue Star, even more than with his previous works, Michael Flynn has joined the forefront of the ranks of practitioners of hardward science fiction. His depictions of life on a space station construction crew rival Allen Steele's and his loving depiction of a deep space mission to an asteroid are a match for Stephen Baxter. If I'm comparing Flynn to Baxter and Steele instead of the other way around, it is only because those authors are more prolific that Flynn.

Rogue Star is a sequel to Flynn's novel Firestar and picks up shortly after the earlier novel ends. While Firestar was the story of Mariesa van Huyten, who continues figure prominently in Rogue Star, the character who really steals the novel is Mariesa's former protege-turned-antagonist, Roberta Carson.

Like Mariesa, Roberta suffers from her own obsession, notably the feeling of betrayal and abandonment. Ignored by her mother, Roberta turned to Mariesa in the first book, only to turn her back on Mariesa when she discovered that Mariesa was "using" her. In Rogue Star, Roberta looks at everyone, from Mariesa, to Phil Albright to Simon Fell to see how they are using people, the ultimate in dishonesty in Roberta's mind. Innever seems to occur to Roberta that she, too, might be using people.

Although at times Roberta's character almost descends into a caricature of political activists, Flynn always manages to pull back before he makes her too two-dimensional. Because of this, the reader is able to maintain sympathy for Roberta, as well as the other characters who populate the novel.

Many of the characters from Firestar make appearances in Rogue Star, although only Forrest Calhoun plays a sizable role as the leader of an expedition to a Near Earth asteroid which Mariesa is behind. Flynn adds a new dimension to his universe with the asteroid expedition and results which may indicate the existance, in the past or present, of alien life.

In many ways, Flynn lucked out with the timing of the release of this novel. Mariesa's obsession, Near Earth asteroids and the possibility of a collision, is extremely timely as the novel was released within a week of the announcement that an asertoid was likely to strike Earth in 2028. Although the calculations behind that prediction turned out to be incorrect, it only serves to drive home the fact that organizations such as SkyWatch may prove vital to the continuing existance of the human species.

Rogue Star is the middle novel of a series, but it does not read like one. A reader can begin with Rogue Star and understand enough of what happened before the novel started without feeling lost. Similarly, although Flynn has left several loose ends to be collected and tied up in the third book in the series, he has done so in a way which permits the reader to put Rogue Star down without feeling as if they are been left high and dry waiting for the final book in the trilogy to be published.