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emjay24's review against another edition
1.0
This was a book on our lending shelf at work. I didn't realize when I picked it up that the novel was written based on a movie, which is a strange order you don't often encounter. I'm not sure if it was because of that, or just the writing in general, but the book seemed more poofy and didn't catch my attention. I kept it at my desk for a while, to have as a backup in case I forgot my kindle or any other book, but then realized I could use a better book for that purpose, and returned it to the shelf. Didn't finish.
otherwyrld's review against another edition
3.0
Can a well-respected author of numerous TV and film novelizations and tie-ins do anything with an adaptation of a movie that I can only generously called mediocre.
In other words, can Peter David polish a turd.
The answer is - sort of. The author can do very little with the actual plot parts of the film, which he has to follow in all it's ludicrousness. So we get the parts where the young failing in life Kitai is taken by his famous father on a trip, only for their ship to crash land on a now inhospitable Earth, 1000 years after the planet was abandoned because humans had screwed it up so much. The two of them are the only survivors but the general is badly injured so it is up to Kitai to trek to the other half of the crashed ship to retrieve a rescue beacon. On the way he encounters all sorts of threats from the weirdly altered animals of Earth (it seems that radiation damage can really cause a lot of mutations in a thousand years). He also has to contend with a very dangerous alien animal that was being transported on the ship but has not only survived the crash but is now on the loose and actively hunting the kid, which it does so by scenting his fear pheromones. His only hope is to learn to control his fear to the extent that he becomes invisible to the creature, a process known as "Ghosting" and which his father pioneered. No prizes for guessing what happens.
I'm writing this synopsis to show just how ridiculous this story is, because you might be better off just skipping these parts and reading the rest of the book, which is really rather good. Here the author is given free rein to fill in the back story, and he does so with aplomb. He ranges as far back as pre-exodus Earth and goes through the whole story of how this universe came into being, and its really quite a good story. If only some of this had got into the film then it might have been a lot better.
The motivations and thought processes of the two main characters are also explored in much more depth and again it's a shame that this wasn't shown on screen, because they are much more intriguing characters on the page. Of course, if Will Smith had decided to not make this a vanity project and cast himself and his son as the two main characters, then this would still have been a ludicrous story, just a better acted one.
Even more of a bonus are the three short stories/novellas that fill out the rest of the book. These detail the stories of three other people that learn to "ghost", written by three other well-known authors who also specialise in writing tie-in novels. They are all excellent stories and again really flesh out the world that this book inhabits. Mutation issues aside, the world-building displayed here is quite detailed and would have made some interesting stories (there are three more novellas written in this universe I believe).
I didn't actively hate the film because it would have been too easy a target, and likewise I don't love this book for reminding me of the bits of the film I had forgotten, but this was a much better book than it had any right to be.
2 stars for the film adaptations parts, 4 stars for the rest of the story.
In other words, can Peter David polish a turd.
The answer is - sort of. The author can do very little with the actual plot parts of the film, which he has to follow in all it's ludicrousness. So we get the parts where the young failing in life Kitai is taken by his famous father on a trip, only for their ship to crash land on a now inhospitable Earth, 1000 years after the planet was abandoned because humans had screwed it up so much. The two of them are the only survivors but the general is badly injured so it is up to Kitai to trek to the other half of the crashed ship to retrieve a rescue beacon. On the way he encounters all sorts of threats from the weirdly altered animals of Earth (it seems that radiation damage can really cause a lot of mutations in a thousand years). He also has to contend with a very dangerous alien animal that was being transported on the ship but has not only survived the crash but is now on the loose and actively hunting the kid, which it does so by scenting his fear pheromones. His only hope is to learn to control his fear to the extent that he becomes invisible to the creature, a process known as "Ghosting" and which his father pioneered. No prizes for guessing what happens.
I'm writing this synopsis to show just how ridiculous this story is, because you might be better off just skipping these parts and reading the rest of the book, which is really rather good. Here the author is given free rein to fill in the back story, and he does so with aplomb. He ranges as far back as pre-exodus Earth and goes through the whole story of how this universe came into being, and its really quite a good story. If only some of this had got into the film then it might have been a lot better.
The motivations and thought processes of the two main characters are also explored in much more depth and again it's a shame that this wasn't shown on screen, because they are much more intriguing characters on the page. Of course, if Will Smith had decided to not make this a vanity project and cast himself and his son as the two main characters, then this would still have been a ludicrous story, just a better acted one.
Even more of a bonus are the three short stories/novellas that fill out the rest of the book. These detail the stories of three other people that learn to "ghost", written by three other well-known authors who also specialise in writing tie-in novels. They are all excellent stories and again really flesh out the world that this book inhabits. Mutation issues aside, the world-building displayed here is quite detailed and would have made some interesting stories (there are three more novellas written in this universe I believe).
I didn't actively hate the film because it would have been too easy a target, and likewise I don't love this book for reminding me of the bits of the film I had forgotten, but this was a much better book than it had any right to be.
2 stars for the film adaptations parts, 4 stars for the rest of the story.
deecolfs's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
I really enjoyed the father and son moments and the development of that relationship.
The flashbacks to the transition from Earth to this new world were good, but sometimes I grew a bit bored reading some of those characters.
I really enjoyed the father and son moments and the development of that relationship.
The flashbacks to the transition from Earth to this new world were good, but sometimes I grew a bit bored reading some of those characters.
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