Lunar Descent

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Read
Review: I love this book. I couldn't put it down. The place, the time, the characters all come alive. Great hard SF.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Read
Review: I read a lot of Sci-Fi and but only Allen M. Steele seems to make me lose sleep. Whenever I read one of his books, I can count on getting very little sleep that night - because his books are very hard to put down. This one is no exception. So when I finished this one about 2AM, I was thoroughly satisfied. The characters are so real and three-dimensional (albeit a bit vulgar - lots of obscenities). The concept of setting up a mining operation on the Moon is plausible. The idea of company officials (Skycorp) who only care about the bottom dollar and not about their employees is a long-held notion about big business. The plot has one major theme with a series of little adventures intertwined into it. This was one of Steele's earliest books and it definitely exhibited the roots of a writing style that was yet to come (and is now here for our enjoyment). It was occassionally amusing. I also loved the way the book was put together. Major chapters were broken up by transcribed audio-video interviews with the cast, articles from newspaper articles, etc. Oh and Steele, in true Hitchcockian style, threw his own name into the mix once or twice as a reporter interviewing some of the characters. Clever, clever. 4-stars because I personally don't need all of the four-letter words. Not that that will bother you. It shows an affirmative reality in the characters.

Rating:
Summary: Real characters - really possible
Review: I read a lot of Sci-Fi and but only Allen M. Steele seems to make me lose sleep. Whenever I read one of his books, I can count on getting very little sleep that night - because his books are very hard to put down. This one is no exception. So when I finished this one about 2AM, I was thoroughly satisfied. The characters are so real and three-dimensional (albeit a bit vulgar - lots of obscenities). The concept of setting up a mining operation on the Moon is plausible. The idea of company officials (Skycorp) who only care about the bottom dollar and not about their employees is a long-held notion about big business. The plot has one major theme with a series of little adventures intertwined into it. This was one of Steele's earliest books and it definitely exhibited the roots of a writing style that was yet to come (and is now here for our enjoyment). It was occassionally amusing. I also loved the way the book was put together. Major chapters were broken up by transcribed audio-video interviews with the cast, articles from newspaper articles, etc. Oh and Steele, in true Hitchcockian style, threw his own name into the mix once or twice as a reporter interviewing some of the characters. Clever, clever. 4-stars because I personally don't need all of the four-letter words. Not that that will bother you. It shows an affirmative reality in the characters.

Rating:
Summary: For a bargain book, it was better than l expected....
Review: You always wonder about the books you find in the bargain basement. Well, this one turned out to be great. An interesting look at our future and the perils of working on the moon