-->
Previous Entry Index Next Entry
Today I got up absurdly late after reading economics blogs all night, but managed to put in a full day's work and get home before midnight. Also, I have managed to get my weight down below 172.5 pounds before the trend line got there. So, go me.
Marrow, Robert Reed, Tom Doherty Associates:
I picked this up because I was intrigued by the blurbs for the sequel, The Well of Stars, and I wanted to read the original first. The concept is enticing; a huge ship the size of several Earths is discovered, apparently a derelict, approaching the Milky Way at a large (or "fat", as the characters like to put it) fraction of the speed of light. It's colonized by humans, who fight off all the other claimants, and manage to get enough of the engines working to change its course, taking it on a grand tour of the galaxy as a sort of luxury cruise ship, catering to all comers, human or not, now that human control is secure.
But the novel isn't really concerned with exploring the wonders of a Jupiter-scale space ship, except to set the scene. Once the action starts, it comes across as rather claustrophobic, probably because the main characters are all semi-immortal, obsessively ambitious crew, captains under the master-captain of the ship. They're not around to stop and smell the roses; they have a job to do. Their job is investigating a mystery inside the ship, but plot happens and it all ends up taking a lot longer than planned.
But the novel isn't really about that, either. All the narrative energy goes into sketching out the characters and motivations of the ageless captains who are trying to puzzle out the enigma, then just struggling to survive, and finally trying to thwart a devious conspiracy and avert a (what else?) universe-shattering disaster. As I mentioned, they're obsessively ambitious, which I guess you'd have to be if you were going to pursue a career lasting thousands or tens of thousands of years, and at some point I realized that I was reading a science fiction drama almost entirely populated by government officials. It's kind of a miracle that it works as a story, really.
After that reading experience, I'm ambivalent. The sequel may be better, judging by the reviews I've read, but I'm not going to be in a hurry to get to it.
In other media, I am thinking of going to see Persepolis this weekend, at the Camera 7 if it's still playing by then, or somewhere else if necessary. If you want to see it and don't mind seeing it with me, drop me a line.
