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steveatwaywords's review
adventurous
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Let me start by saying there is a lot "wrong" with this book some 60-odd years after its publication. Reynolds is a major figure in a different era of science fiction. His all-male cast postures about itself, beating their intellectual chests at each other, oblivious to their own ironic impetuousness. The debates they have across the book, clearly timely in their day, are sophomoric and idealized representations of complex theories represented here in brief spats. And the arguments themselves obliviously ignore the academic work that had already long been established in anthropology, race politics, and economic and sociopolitical thought.
This "crack" team of star explorers sets out to bring two "primitive" worlds of people up to a level of development suitable for joining a new human federation of planets. Yet they set out and make it most of the way through their voyage only to exclaim that none of them have yet considered how they will do it!
Okay, so that seems like enough reasons to attack the work. Let's take a moment and set all that aside (not an easy task!) to talk a bit about what Reynolds is up to. He has set up a thought experiment, a theoretical political question of capitalism vs collectivism, and decided to conduct it in a narrative simulation. If you could conjure a world almost hypothetically a blank slate, which method (in the grand scheme) would "raise" society more effectively? For its time, the posing of the question alone is intriguing.
But Reynolds is not done, even so. This is a short work, so I won't spoil the ending. Instead I will speculate that this very thought experiment is itself a guise to what he actually has in mind.
The story, clearly, is far from flawless. At times, the hypothetical focus that should dominate our discussion is diverted by needless and distracting detail. (Does it matter, for instance, across a fast 50 year history, that a particular valley had a chokehold that allowed a single battle to shift?) But . . . But . . . when the book is over, the "scientific method," empiricism under glass, is a subject more relevant still. And for this, fairly fun.
This "crack" team of star explorers sets out to bring two "primitive" worlds of people up to a level of development suitable for joining a new human federation of planets. Yet they set out and make it most of the way through their voyage only to exclaim that none of them have yet considered how they will do it!
Okay, so that seems like enough reasons to attack the work. Let's take a moment and set all that aside (not an easy task!) to talk a bit about what Reynolds is up to. He has set up a thought experiment, a theoretical political question of capitalism vs collectivism, and decided to conduct it in a narrative simulation. If you could conjure a world almost hypothetically a blank slate, which method (in the grand scheme) would "raise" society more effectively? For its time, the posing of the question alone is intriguing.
But Reynolds is not done, even so. This is a short work, so I won't spoil the ending. Instead I will speculate that this very thought experiment is itself a guise to what he actually has in mind.
The story, clearly, is far from flawless. At times, the hypothetical focus that should dominate our discussion is diverted by needless and distracting detail. (Does it matter, for instance, across a fast 50 year history, that a particular valley had a chokehold that allowed a single battle to shift?) But . . . But . . . when the book is over, the "scientific method," empiricism under glass, is a subject more relevant still. And for this, fairly fun.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: Xenophobia, Sexism, War, Violence, Religious bigotry, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
readsbysm's review
5.0
Currently one of my favourite books! A little short, if anything, and with a very unexpected ending.
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