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adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Some good old fashioned 1970s hard science fiction. Hallucinogenically imaginative, with careful, at times fussy, attention to certain technical details in a mind-bending world that encompasses both Known and not-Known Space, populated with ever-living humans, a race of giant bloody-minded psychotic pussycats, and a strange race of beings that can best be thought of as a couple of emus crossed with a small camel, clearly inspired by some Jim Henson creation. Despite all this borderline lunatic weirdness, there are some fun ideas in here, about luck and chance and time and physics, all the things that sci-fi was invented for. There are also ideas and a writing style that make me wonder if Niven was what got Douglas Adams started. It doesn’t take much of a push to get from Louis to Ford Prefect and that plodding, pedantic narrative voice is hard not to ridicule. But if you don’t mind a somewhat dated classic of the genre, this is a fun one.