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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Purposefully not rating this because it was so difficult to rate. I would love this book to be rewritten to 2025 sensibilities. This could be such a good book if the human crew had development, and the weird horny 80s sex stuff was cut. But the cheela are probably the most fascinating fictional alien species I’ve encountered.
challenging
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
What would we do if we discovered aliens and they were just a bunch of lil guys? This is the question Forward asks with Dragon's Egg.
Well, not quite. What he really asks is this: what if life formed on a neutron star, something so dense and gravity-soaked that all the atoms around it are squished down to their neutrons? What if the nuclear nature of the aliens' biology meant they experienced life one million times faster than us? What if, from the time we met them to the time we went home (less than 24 hours later), they went from tribal clans to faster-than-light travel? Would we be friends?
His answer is a resounding (and optimistic) yes. And with his own experience as an astrophysicist, it's clear that he's treated the world of Dragon's Egg with love and a whole lot of science. The realistic nature of the world makes the story matter that much more.
Forward is a scientist first, and it comes through in his writing. Furthermore, he's a scientist from the 1970s. Some of the book is dated (the beginning is set in the distant year of 2020), but Forward makes a conscious effort to feature female scientists on the human side of things. He does spend too much time discussing their physical appearance. Luckily for us, the cheela never invent sexism, so they've got that going for them. (They also seem not to have invented homosexuality, which is a real shame.)
The characters do vary a bit, but they're fairly one-sided. That's okay, they aren't the stars - the science is. And there is a lot of it. I had to stretch mental muscles I hadn't used since I dropped my physics major, and even then, I understood about half of the science lingo. But I still understood the story, and it was good to read a book I had to pay attention to.
Drago 's Egg is a hopeful and meticulous take on what it might be like to meet people other than ourselves. It has faith that humanity will, above all else, value curiosity and connection. The science is realistic, and after reading it, I hope the sentiment is, too.
Well, not quite. What he really asks is this: what if life formed on a neutron star, something so dense and gravity-soaked that all the atoms around it are squished down to their neutrons? What if the nuclear nature of the aliens' biology meant they experienced life one million times faster than us? What if, from the time we met them to the time we went home (less than 24 hours later), they went from tribal clans to faster-than-light travel? Would we be friends?
His answer is a resounding (and optimistic) yes. And with his own experience as an astrophysicist, it's clear that he's treated the world of Dragon's Egg with love and a whole lot of science. The realistic nature of the world makes the story matter that much more.
Forward is a scientist first, and it comes through in his writing. Furthermore, he's a scientist from the 1970s. Some of the book is dated (the beginning is set in the distant year of 2020), but Forward makes a conscious effort to feature female scientists on the human side of things. He does spend too much time discussing their physical appearance. Luckily for us, the cheela never invent sexism, so they've got that going for them. (They also seem not to have invented homosexuality, which is a real shame.)
The characters do vary a bit, but they're fairly one-sided. That's okay, they aren't the stars - the science is. And there is a lot of it. I had to stretch mental muscles I hadn't used since I dropped my physics major, and even then, I understood about half of the science lingo. But I still understood the story, and it was good to read a book I had to pay attention to.
Drago 's Egg is a hopeful and meticulous take on what it might be like to meet people other than ourselves. It has faith that humanity will, above all else, value curiosity and connection. The science is realistic, and after reading it, I hope the sentiment is, too.
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A little too science focused for my taste. Spent a significant portion explaining the mechanics, theories, etc behind certain events and occurences. Overall it was an exploration of a potential encounter with a unique alien race, but the minimal focus on a singular character left me wanting more of a personal thread to hold on to.
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
I was bored silly by this book and the biology parts made no sense. Abandoned partway through.
Never really understood what was going on, didn't hold my interest.
Great idea, but the execution leaves some things to be desired. I like how radically alien the cheela are—physically, not mentally/socially—with their reconfigurable bodies and difficulty moving north/south. But the plot and characters are not particularly compelling.
The cheela operate on a dramatically faster timescale than humans. This is interesting, but I’m not totally happy with the story’s treatment of it.
Avoid the audio version; the narration is very stilted.
(crosspost)
The cheela operate on a dramatically faster timescale than humans
Spoiler
(who they call "slow ones")Spoiler
There’s an underlying assumption, common especially in older sci-fi like this, that civilizations naturally progress through a fixed sequence of stages. And a sense that perhaps there’s something inherently good about that journey. So as the cheela progress beyond us technologically, they leave us to our own devices. Contact between the two civilizations is an anomaly, a brief point of intersection before they continue on their separate journeys. Contrast that with a more recent entry in the watch-a-civilization-develop genre, Children of Time.Avoid the audio version; the narration is very stilted.
(crosspost)
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Some of the very best speculative biology/ sociology/physics I've ever read, and a bittersweet story. Masterful.
So, I had a lot of difficulty with this book in the beginning. The science was difficult to follow and it is VERY heavy in the science fiction in the beginning. Like the first third of the book!!
It made for excellent world building though and the growth of the civilization was amazing. The concept of the human and alien civilizations meeting is a good one and honestly I'd love to see this book become a movie and focus more on character development.
Once we met the characters it was slightly easier to follow and had me engaged enough that I wanted to find out what happened in the end.
Ultimately, I rank this book a 3 - recommend with reservations, 😅
It made for excellent world building though and the growth of the civilization was amazing. The concept of the human and alien civilizations meeting is a good one and honestly I'd love to see this book become a movie and focus more on character development.
Once we met the characters it was slightly easier to follow and had me engaged enough that I wanted to find out what happened in the end.
Ultimately, I rank this book a 3 - recommend with reservations, 😅