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A review by reeshadovahsil
Corona by Greg Bear
4.0
It took them nine years, three months, and three days to defeat Corona. Eventually, they did it by encouraging empathy. ::stares in one year of quarantine:: Interesting...
I enjoyed this one. The writing does go off the tracks a few times when attempting somewhat clumsily to explore esoteric topics, but doesn't go on for long enough that one can't push through it.
The main original character, Mason, is mildly interesting, if not fully fleshed out. The bits of her personality we are allowed to explore are worth the look, however, especially her admitted and rather outdated flaws. Honestly, it's just nice to have a woman join the ship and not be falling all over herself to seduce someone, for a change.
The secondary human original character, Veblen, was also mildly interesting, as he's put in an untenable position, disliked by the crew while disliking his own role, but is honour-bound to do his duty nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the original Vulcans in the story are not fully realized individuals, most especially the father and the daughter, who both might as well have not been there. I got a strange sense that the author was uncomfortable trying to write Vulcan personalities, so they were being side-stepped, and kind of came across as blank slates.
The main plot was fun and interesting and even a little mysterious at times, and the Big Bad was fascinating and sympathetic when you get right down to it.
The secondary plot was an obvious disaster from the beginning. One's eyes begin to roll back into one's head at the pure stupidity coming out of Starfleet Command sometimes. It's very difficult to believe such a hairbrained idea would make it all the way to a starship before someone realized, Hey, you know, this is actually incredibly stupid! (But I guess these are the same idiots who thought it was a good idea to channel the phasers through the warp core, because why would one ever need phasers if the warp core is imbalanced, certainly that could never happen in a battle...[ST:TMP])
One thing that was driving me batty throughout the story was the author's regular references to "Andorrans." I'm assuming he meant Andorians, since he was referencing them as aliens, so he can't have literally meant the people of Andorra (a tiny speck of a country being smooshed on either side by France and Spain), who are human. I don't know if this was a case of an author not bothering to look into the correct spellings for what he's writing or an editor not bothering to look into what they're editing, but it sure bothered me!
All told, I enjoyed this one and might even read it again someday. I'd probably nestle it in around 3.75 stars if you could get that exact on this site.
I enjoyed this one. The writing does go off the tracks a few times when attempting somewhat clumsily to explore esoteric topics, but doesn't go on for long enough that one can't push through it.
The main original character, Mason, is mildly interesting, if not fully fleshed out. The bits of her personality we are allowed to explore are worth the look, however, especially her admitted and rather outdated flaws. Honestly, it's just nice to have a woman join the ship and not be falling all over herself to seduce someone, for a change.
The secondary human original character, Veblen, was also mildly interesting, as he's put in an untenable position, disliked by the crew while disliking his own role, but is honour-bound to do his duty nonetheless.
Unfortunately, the original Vulcans in the story are not fully realized individuals, most especially the father and the daughter, who both might as well have not been there. I got a strange sense that the author was uncomfortable trying to write Vulcan personalities, so they were being side-stepped, and kind of came across as blank slates.
The main plot was fun and interesting and even a little mysterious at times, and the Big Bad was fascinating and sympathetic when you get right down to it.
The secondary plot was an obvious disaster from the beginning. One's eyes begin to roll back into one's head at the pure stupidity coming out of Starfleet Command sometimes. It's very difficult to believe such a hairbrained idea would make it all the way to a starship before someone realized, Hey, you know, this is actually incredibly stupid! (But I guess these are the same idiots who thought it was a good idea to channel the phasers through the warp core, because why would one ever need phasers if the warp core is imbalanced, certainly that could never happen in a battle...[ST:TMP])
One thing that was driving me batty throughout the story was the author's regular references to "Andorrans." I'm assuming he meant Andorians, since he was referencing them as aliens, so he can't have literally meant the people of Andorra (a tiny speck of a country being smooshed on either side by France and Spain), who are human. I don't know if this was a case of an author not bothering to look into the correct spellings for what he's writing or an editor not bothering to look into what they're editing, but it sure bothered me!
All told, I enjoyed this one and might even read it again someday. I'd probably nestle it in around 3.75 stars if you could get that exact on this site.