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A review by kangamoo
Colony by Ben Bova
4.0
This book was so interesting to read, I picked it up randomly not knowing anything about it (including when it was written) and after a few chapters I had to find out WHEN it was written, and found it was from 1978. Suddenly so many of the attitudes in the book made more sense. It's set just a decade from now, but history since 1978 has been vastly different.
From the aspect of how the world has evolved, kinda of an alternative history, it was interesting, and I found myself thinking about themes in the book a lot. The way women characters are treated in the book was hard to not find annoying, it was pretty much just about their love lives. Even the character who was a lead revolutionary, only did things that related directly to who she loved. It's like women didn't progress in any way since the 70's.
Setting that aside, I thought it was interesting both how close and how far apart our technological advances were. When computers were referred to, it was a pre-PC world, where central computers have terminal access. Though regular people were in space! In some ways the people in the book were far advanced, and in others, we are.
The world population spoken about in the book is comparable to actual world population now, but in our world it's not causing global famine (thankfully!) though a few corporations holding a lot of power rings true.
I'm interested in reading something more recent from the author, and curious to see if the way he writes women has changed.
From the aspect of how the world has evolved, kinda of an alternative history, it was interesting, and I found myself thinking about themes in the book a lot. The way women characters are treated in the book was hard to not find annoying, it was pretty much just about their love lives. Even the character who was a lead revolutionary, only did things that related directly to who she loved. It's like women didn't progress in any way since the 70's.
Setting that aside, I thought it was interesting both how close and how far apart our technological advances were. When computers were referred to, it was a pre-PC world, where central computers have terminal access. Though regular people were in space! In some ways the people in the book were far advanced, and in others, we are.
The world population spoken about in the book is comparable to actual world population now, but in our world it's not causing global famine (thankfully!) though a few corporations holding a lot of power rings true.
I'm interested in reading something more recent from the author, and curious to see if the way he writes women has changed.