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jhallobc's review against another edition
2.0
I kept waiting for something to happen. But not much ever did. There are half a dozen almost conflicts and an equal number of almost perilous situations, but most everyone seems to get out of everything easily and with little cost. I wanted to like this book, stayed up way too late a couple of nights finishing it, but in the end it's cotton candy - kind of enjoyable, but nothing much to it.
scottpm's review against another edition
5.0
Very enjoyable. Dr Bova has delivered another great hard scifi story here. Yes, it left aside much of the Death Wave threat and dropped off another plot line, but it picked out a new and exciting possibility. There were many times I was questioning the actions of the characters and their morals. It also left many stories open for a sequelong or two or three.
kantrah's review against another edition
3.0
It's an interesting story but the plot lacks any sort of conclusion to the events and ignores the big mysteries it set up.
wafer's review against another edition
2.0
As digestible as Bova’s narrative style is, his characters in this are just terrible. Weird racism, bad sexism, and a protagonist who’s constant attitude and belligerence will make you wanna rip your hair out.
alexctelander's review against another edition
4.0
In the second installment of the Star Quest Trilogy, Bova follows the same trajectory he left off in Death Wave. A wave of death is spreading through the Milky Way galaxy, wiping out entire planets whether there’s intelligent life on them or not. A vastly superior alien race contacted Earth to let them know they know how to help these alien worlds who have no clue of what is coming at them.
Apes and Angels is the story of an Earth mission, the crew of the Odysseus, traveling across many light years to Mithra Gamma where they begin studying the beings that live on the planet, with the goal of ascertaining how to contact them and protect them from this oncoming death. It becomes a bit of a Star Trek episode with the “Prime Directive” coming into play, as they grapple with how best to approach the alien race. Meanwhile on a neighboring planet is a primitive aquatic species that has been deemed too simple and primitive to be worth saving, and yet one scientist on the mission believes they are intelligent.
Apes and Angels, while an interesting experiment in what it is attempting to do, has a number of failings. The quick-moving scenes from Death Watch feel like an overly dramatic soap opera in this novel, with relationships and emotions between characters that lead to petty jealousy, making everything pretty heavy handed.
Originally written on February 23, 2017 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
Apes and Angels is the story of an Earth mission, the crew of the Odysseus, traveling across many light years to Mithra Gamma where they begin studying the beings that live on the planet, with the goal of ascertaining how to contact them and protect them from this oncoming death. It becomes a bit of a Star Trek episode with the “Prime Directive” coming into play, as they grapple with how best to approach the alien race. Meanwhile on a neighboring planet is a primitive aquatic species that has been deemed too simple and primitive to be worth saving, and yet one scientist on the mission believes they are intelligent.
Apes and Angels, while an interesting experiment in what it is attempting to do, has a number of failings. The quick-moving scenes from Death Watch feel like an overly dramatic soap opera in this novel, with relationships and emotions between characters that lead to petty jealousy, making everything pretty heavy handed.
Originally written on February 23, 2017 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
graff_fuller's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 Stars - this is a slightly better book than the previous book in this series (Death Wave). I enjoyed them both, but they both have flaws. I gave it 3.5 Stars, with a 3 Star Goodreads rating.
This is NOT a direct sequel to the previous book, though it happens shortly (narrative wise) afterwards. This book has a completely different cast of characters.
This is a Science Fiction book with a Space Opera specific genre...which deals with a lot of moral and ethical issues throughout the book. The previous novel, Death Wave was a Science Fiction book with a Thriller narrative.
Throughout this book, I kept thinking about the Prime Directive, from Star Trek. Not even in Star Trek are they able to follow this as thoroughly as they should. Most all the captains and others have broken the Prime Directive to save a civilization. They always had their reasons, but it is a VERY high bar.
WIthin this book, the main protagonist is fighting for the civilization that he has found. He is a "lone wolf", not really involved in the day to day discoveries upon the planets that they have been sent to. Their mission is to find a way to place protective machines in place on the the planets that inhabit intellegint lives (to protect them from the Gamma Rays that are going to destroy all life on these planets in the next 200-400 years.
These scientists have a noble mission, but on each planet, our main protagonist (who is incredibly brilliant) is able to descover "something" new...and in doing so, becomes more cavalier and starts to take more risks.
He starts to do things that are not moral or ethical under the directive that he's been given, but it is all for the greater good of the species...but since they are a pre-Warp society, they know NOTHING about anything outside their town or area that they live.
It was frustrating to follow this story. I kept saying, "don't do that", but things just kept getting worse and worse, so that he'd HAVE to step in and do the thing that he wasn't suppose to do.
Don't ask permission, but ask forgiveness. Ugh.
By the end of the book, I was not sure that what they eventually did was actually good. I feel that they may have upset the "natural" balance that had been put into place. It will be interesting to see what the next book, Survival will have to say about this.
This is NOT a direct sequel to the previous book, though it happens shortly (narrative wise) afterwards. This book has a completely different cast of characters.
This is a Science Fiction book with a Space Opera specific genre...which deals with a lot of moral and ethical issues throughout the book. The previous novel, Death Wave was a Science Fiction book with a Thriller narrative.
Throughout this book, I kept thinking about the Prime Directive, from Star Trek. Not even in Star Trek are they able to follow this as thoroughly as they should. Most all the captains and others have broken the Prime Directive to save a civilization. They always had their reasons, but it is a VERY high bar.
WIthin this book, the main protagonist is fighting for the civilization that he has found. He is a "lone wolf", not really involved in the day to day discoveries upon the planets that they have been sent to. Their mission is to find a way to place protective machines in place on the the planets that inhabit intellegint lives (to protect them from the Gamma Rays that are going to destroy all life on these planets in the next 200-400 years.
These scientists have a noble mission, but on each planet, our main protagonist (who is incredibly brilliant) is able to descover "something" new...and in doing so, becomes more cavalier and starts to take more risks.
He starts to do things that are not moral or ethical under the directive that he's been given, but it is all for the greater good of the species...but since they are a pre-Warp society, they know NOTHING about anything outside their town or area that they live.
It was frustrating to follow this story. I kept saying, "don't do that", but things just kept getting worse and worse, so that he'd HAVE to step in and do the thing that he wasn't suppose to do.
Don't ask permission, but ask forgiveness. Ugh.
By the end of the book, I was not sure that what they eventually did was actually good. I feel that they may have upset the "natural" balance that had been put into place. It will be interesting to see what the next book, Survival will have to say about this.
circus_of_damned's review against another edition
2.0
This had the feel of listening to a Star Trek: Enterprise episode. The new space explorers make contact with an alien species and stumble through that experience. However there were issues I had, mostly with the human explorers. It was a lot of Alpha males having pissing contest over who was in charge. And all the female characters you meet are either damsels or bitches. Then Brad the main character is a self-centered pain who has to be right and always is. And no matter what the alien on Gamma say about there history or culture all the scientist can say is it mythology no matter how much evidence there is in there face to say the Gamma alien are right. So this fun first contact happy story is ruined by crappy, competitive, narcissistic humans.
ajlewis2's review
3.0
The third book in the Star Quest Trilogy and like the others it was a very good story with writing that was not all that good. The main question faced is should the mission include interfering with the culture of sentient life when it appears that forces have already conspired to keep that life form from developing and evolving. One wonders why those forces have done this and what would be the outcome if these beings are once again free to progress. We do not get an answer to those questions which is as it should be.
alexctelander's review
4.0
In the second installment of the Star Quest Trilogy, Bova follows the same trajectory he left off in Death Wave. A wave of death is spreading through the Milky Way galaxy, wiping out entire planets whether there’s intelligent life on them or not. A vastly superior alien race contacted Earth to let them know they know how to help these alien worlds who have no clue of what is coming at them.
Apes and Angels is the story of an Earth mission, the crew of the Odysseus, traveling across many light years to Mithra Gamma where they begin studying the beings that live on the planet, with the goal of ascertaining how to contact them and protect them from this oncoming death. It becomes a bit of a Star Trek episode with the “Prime Directive” coming into play, as they grapple with how best to approach the alien race. Meanwhile on a neighboring planet is a primitive aquatic species that has been deemed too simple and primitive to be worth saving, and yet one scientist on the mission believes they are intelligent.
Apes and Angels, while an interesting experiment in what it is attempting to do, has a number of failings. The quick-moving scenes from Death Watch feel like an overly dramatic soap opera in this novel, with relationships and emotions between characters that lead to petty jealousy, making everything pretty heavy handed.
Originally written on February 23, 2017 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
Apes and Angels is the story of an Earth mission, the crew of the Odysseus, traveling across many light years to Mithra Gamma where they begin studying the beings that live on the planet, with the goal of ascertaining how to contact them and protect them from this oncoming death. It becomes a bit of a Star Trek episode with the “Prime Directive” coming into play, as they grapple with how best to approach the alien race. Meanwhile on a neighboring planet is a primitive aquatic species that has been deemed too simple and primitive to be worth saving, and yet one scientist on the mission believes they are intelligent.
Apes and Angels, while an interesting experiment in what it is attempting to do, has a number of failings. The quick-moving scenes from Death Watch feel like an overly dramatic soap opera in this novel, with relationships and emotions between characters that lead to petty jealousy, making everything pretty heavy handed.
Originally written on February 23, 2017 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, check out the BookBanter site.
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