A sadly inadequate exemplar of a beloved, classic series that is clearly long past its sell-by date.
Anne and Todd McCaffrey return once too often to the planet Pern, where humans ride telepathic dragons to fight a mindless alien menace.
Illness and accident has robbed Pern of many of the planet’s people and dragons. Fiona, Weyrwoman of Telgar, her lovers, Weyrleader T’Mar and Harper Kindan, and Kindan’s other lover, the ex-dragonrider Lorana, seek desperately for a way to get the Weyrs up to fighting strength against the threat of Thread, the devouring alien spores that periodically invade the planet. The solution involves riding the dragons backward and forward in time, so frequently that it’s almost impossible to figure out just when anything is actually happening. Lorana, riding a borrowed dragon, even sacrifices her own unborn child on an apparently urgent mission to find help, a quest frequently interrupted by her meddling in the personal timelines of her friends. The best parts of the plot are pulled from previous, far superior books in the series. Small bits of action—devastating battles with Thread, a dragon-egg hatching gone drastically wrong—infrequently punctuate this histrionic soap opera, which, despite its incredibly relaxed attitude toward polyamory, is devoid of sex scenes. Readers may also question why they should bother trying to keep track of the interpersonal drama when the characters are so poorly sketched out that it’s tough to understand why we should care for them.
A sadly inadequate exemplar of a beloved, classic series that is clearly long past its sell-by date.Pub Date: June 28, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-345-50089-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
First of a three-book series covering the world of remote tomorrows, the effectiveness of this first volume is curtailed by its attempt to cover more than a century in time with its many generations of characters. Psychohistorian Seldon senses the coming crash of the galactic empire, prepares a chosen corps of his best students to colonize a remote planet where war cannot impede his work. The story of this colony's survival and eventual command of the broken empire sustains the narrative which is- this time-better science than fiction.
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1951
ISBN: 0553382578
Page Count: -
Publisher: Gnome Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1951
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An overlong but imaginative entry in the revived Foundation series, with a talky opening, an intriguing middle, and an illogical fade-out. Councilman Golan Trevize, having opted for the formation of a galaxy-wide, totally empathic super-organism, Galaxia, is now having second thoughts—and his doubts focus on a possible threat from the long-lost planet Earth. So, supplied with clues by historian Janes Pelorat, and protected by the powerful Gaian woman, Bliss, Trevize begins his search. (The debate pro and con Galaxia continues, meanwhile, in tiresome detail.) In the novel's best section, they touch down on various planets, including the old Spacer world Solaria, where the hermaphroditic Solarians live in solipsistic splendor, totally isolated from each other on their vast robot-run estates, casually controlling energy by means of their enlarged brains. Finally, on Earth's Moon, Trevize encounters robot Daneel Olivaw, now 20,000 years old; Daneel, with his highly advanced brain and psychic powers, has secretly been guiding the development of Galaxia all along. And, in a total non sequitur, Trevize realizes that what he really fears—why Galaxia must be formed—is the threat of invasion by extra-galactic aliens. Dreadfully long-winded—would that the characters sometimes reply with a simple "yes" or "no"—and many longtime fans will prefer Daneel as a plain old robot-detective rather than a galactic super-brain. Yet, much here qualifies as vintage Asimov—Solaria has long been one of his finest creations—despite that disappointing, artificial finale.
Pub Date: Oct. 3, 1986
ISBN: 0553900943
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
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