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colossal's review against another edition
1.0
I've had [b:Helix|173701|Helix|Eric Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348237914s/173701.jpg|167781] on my to-read list for a while, but not having any experience with the author I kept putting it off. Then a friend recently proposed reading this two-novella release and I thought it would be an ideal introduction to the author.
Delia is a doctor on board an starship when it undergoes a catastrophic accident during a jump maneuver. Delia finds herself the only survivor of the Amsterdam and stuck on an alien planet with three different intelligent alien species, one of whom is implacably hostile.
If I was being charitable I'd describe it as old-fashioned. Less charitably, it's a poorly thought out, poorly constructed light adventure SF novel that lacks character development, believable aliens, believable ecology and basically any reason to recommend it to anyone. It's mercifully short.
There are three alien races on this world, one of which has origins elsewhere. None of them are particularly alien except in terms of morphology, with actual human cultures on Earth having more alien view-points than any of these. They all share a sensorium with humans as well as a conceptual framework of the world as a whole. The only barrier to communication is a very simple language translation accomplished by AI analysis.
And that's all without getting to the ecology of a 9-year winter 1-year summer cycle and the impact of that on the biomass that we see here.
I think we were beyond this sort of silliness in the science fiction field decades ago. Very disappointing.
Delia is a doctor on board an starship when it undergoes a catastrophic accident during a jump maneuver. Delia finds herself the only survivor of the Amsterdam and stuck on an alien planet with three different intelligent alien species, one of whom is implacably hostile.
If I was being charitable I'd describe it as old-fashioned. Less charitably, it's a poorly thought out, poorly constructed light adventure SF novel that lacks character development, believable aliens, believable ecology and basically any reason to recommend it to anyone. It's mercifully short.
There are three alien races on this world, one of which has origins elsewhere. None of them are particularly alien except in terms of morphology, with actual human cultures on Earth having more alien view-points than any of these. They all share a sensorium with humans as well as a conceptual framework of the world as a whole. The only barrier to communication is a very simple language translation accomplished by AI analysis.
And that's all without getting to the ecology of a 9-year winter 1-year summer cycle and the impact of that on the biomass that we see here.
I think we were beyond this sort of silliness in the science fiction field decades ago. Very disappointing.
cathepsut's review against another edition
1.0
THE PRIDE OF Amsterdam was transiting the Lunar wormhole when the explosion ripped through the starship’s fusion core. One second the Amsterdam was a billion-tonne, city-sized exploration-and-terraforming vessel embarking on a routine mission to 61 Cygni A; the next, a broken-backed wreck torn apart by an expanding fireball of superheated plasma.
Nice plot idea, creat cover, looked like a great SciFi adventure when I picked it up. 10% into the book I felt mostly irritated, was rolling my eyes a lot and contemplated not to finish it.
Delia is a scientist on board of the Amsterdam. With the help of her Imp, an AI implanted in her brain, she manages to survive the explosion and to crash land on a nearby planet.
She is found and taken away by aliens. Here is where my issues with this book started. No communication attempts are made by them or her, she is unclear about her situation, so she let's her Imp sedate her to pass the traveling time. Several times. What?
Imp is a cool idea and a handy thing to have, but felt like a lazy plot device to me, so Delia can get out of tricky situations and overcome every obstacle just by asking. How convenient.
The original inhabitants of the planet do not have any apparent technology, but can recognize a depiction of their planet from space and read maps. They measure distances in kilometers. How likely is that? And how likely is it that they conceptually understand everything Delia tells them? Shouldn't they be more alien? Other planet, other developmental level, not mammals... (maybe the blue one, can't tell...)
There is no decent attempt to explore the alien cultures, the world building is very spotty. A hint here and there, a small info dump somewhere. Some fun ideas, too, but mostly this wasn't very well done.
Then there is the repetitiveness of some unusual vocabulary. What was that about? 'Favourite word of the month, let's use it a bunch of times in my current novel?'
So, bottom line, not a bad story. But the execution of it was poor. Shallow SciFi adventure with an irritating lack of world building or decent scientific backup. What a lot of wasted potential.
Nice plot idea, creat cover, looked like a great SciFi adventure when I picked it up. 10% into the book I felt mostly irritated, was rolling my eyes a lot and contemplated not to finish it.
Delia is a scientist on board of the Amsterdam. With the help of her Imp, an AI implanted in her brain, she manages to survive the explosion and to crash land on a nearby planet.
She is found and taken away by aliens. Here is where my issues with this book started. No communication attempts are made by them or her, she is unclear about her situation, so she let's her Imp sedate her to pass the traveling time. Several times. What?
Imp is a cool idea and a handy thing to have, but felt like a lazy plot device to me, so Delia can get out of tricky situations and overcome every obstacle just by asking. How convenient.
The original inhabitants of the planet do not have any apparent technology, but can recognize a depiction of their planet from space and read maps. They measure distances in kilometers. How likely is that? And how likely is it that they conceptually understand everything Delia tells them? Shouldn't they be more alien? Other planet, other developmental level, not mammals... (maybe the blue one, can't tell...)
There is no decent attempt to explore the alien cultures, the world building is very spotty. A hint here and there, a small info dump somewhere. Some fun ideas, too, but mostly this wasn't very well done.
Then there is the repetitiveness of some unusual vocabulary. What was that about? 'Favourite word of the month, let's use it a bunch of times in my current novel?'
So, bottom line, not a bad story. But the execution of it was poor. Shallow SciFi adventure with an irritating lack of world building or decent scientific backup. What a lot of wasted potential.
findbeauty_choosejoy's review
2.0
This book feels like it was written because his publisher gave him a deadline. Neither depth, nor joy and scarcely a convenient (and annoying) plot trope goes unused. Disappointing. Two stars for imaginative creativity of the alternate world.
deadgoodbookreviews's review
5.0
Full review and more up on my blog: http://bit.ly/2eHdNfT
You know what this book reminded me most of? The television series/book(s) The 100. Something about having to ascertain the hostility of a planet and encountering people/species and not knowing if they are hostile or not…there was a link there.
I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book, I wasn’t expecting to in any way shape or form but I think this is a really good example of how you write a science fiction novel that isn’t overly full of jargon or too complex for anyone without a masters degree in engineering to comprehend. The story was more about characters and about the journey and the action than about the specifics of alien worlds. That may be the exact opposite of what you want from a sci-fi novel but for me it hit right in that sweet spot.
The inclusion of an imp (a kind of implant in Delia’s head that has artificial intelligence) was a smart way of avoiding a lot of plot holes and opening a lot of opportunities in this novel. it’s quite nice not to worry about why you’re alien is able to communicate with a human when you can put it all down to AI. Rather than feeling like a cop out (which it could easily have done) this felt like a way of letting us really get to the action rather than having chapters of language learning or something like that.
There are a lot of really fun characters in this book, Delia included. I never thought I’d be finding myself saying ‘I liked the sentient spider crab alien character’ but that is indeed the case.
Bottom line this book was incredibly readable. It’s one of those titles where you just have to find out how it ends! It felt to me like a fantasy novel wrapped up in a sci-fi setting, not too dissimilar from the things I love to put me off while at the same time being new and exciting. It pulled me through and I was out the other side before I could really register what had happened. Which is certainly a good thing in my opinion as it means I was enjoying the story too much to look at how much of the book I had read/was yet to read.
My rating: 5/5 stars
By the way, I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher (Solaris) in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
You know what this book reminded me most of? The television series/book(s) The 100. Something about having to ascertain the hostility of a planet and encountering people/species and not knowing if they are hostile or not…there was a link there.
I actually thoroughly enjoyed this book, I wasn’t expecting to in any way shape or form but I think this is a really good example of how you write a science fiction novel that isn’t overly full of jargon or too complex for anyone without a masters degree in engineering to comprehend. The story was more about characters and about the journey and the action than about the specifics of alien worlds. That may be the exact opposite of what you want from a sci-fi novel but for me it hit right in that sweet spot.
The inclusion of an imp (a kind of implant in Delia’s head that has artificial intelligence) was a smart way of avoiding a lot of plot holes and opening a lot of opportunities in this novel. it’s quite nice not to worry about why you’re alien is able to communicate with a human when you can put it all down to AI. Rather than feeling like a cop out (which it could easily have done) this felt like a way of letting us really get to the action rather than having chapters of language learning or something like that.
There are a lot of really fun characters in this book, Delia included. I never thought I’d be finding myself saying ‘I liked the sentient spider crab alien character’ but that is indeed the case.
Bottom line this book was incredibly readable. It’s one of those titles where you just have to find out how it ends! It felt to me like a fantasy novel wrapped up in a sci-fi setting, not too dissimilar from the things I love to put me off while at the same time being new and exciting. It pulled me through and I was out the other side before I could really register what had happened. Which is certainly a good thing in my opinion as it means I was enjoying the story too much to look at how much of the book I had read/was yet to read.
My rating: 5/5 stars
By the way, I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher (Solaris) in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
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