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Andromedan Dark #1
Altered Starscape
Galaxies collide in a thrilling new series from bestselling author Ian Douglas, as the last humans in the universe face off against a new threat.2162. Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people--especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future.Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Andromeda Galaxy is drifting into the Milky Way. And Earth is most certainly a distant memory. All that matters now is survival. But as the ship's Marines search for allies amid ancient ruins and strange new planetary structures, St. Clair must wrap his mind around an enemy capable of harnessing a weapon of incomprehensible power: space itself.
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First published December 29, 2015
About the author
Ian Douglas
89 books554 followersIan Douglas is a pseudonym used by William H. Keith Jr..
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
January 11, 2018
When galaxies collide
Full review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Altered Starscape has its jumping off point (literally) in the year 2162. Humanity has been in contact with other galactic races for thirty-eight years, and still feels itself at a disadvantage in comparison with the many more advanced races. Earth’s government has entered into an alliance with some of those alien civilizations, receiving FTL travel capabilities, fusion power and other advanced technology in return for promised assistance in a vaguely understood alien war. Now the massive colony starship Tellus Ad Astra (“Earth to the stars”), carrying over a million people and AIs, is traveling to the Galactic Core on a cultural union mission.
The mission gets ripped off course when catastrophe strikes, resulting in the starship’s encountering the powerful black hole at the Galactic Core. When the dust settles, Commander Grayson St. Clair and the Tellus Ad Astra are some four billion years in the future. Their starship is confronted with a vastly different starscape ― our Milky Way galaxy has begun colliding with the Andromeda galaxy ― and alien spaceships and forces that attack without provocation. Can they find any help … and can they ever find their way back to their own time?
Altered Starscape combines a time travel plot and military space opera. It has an intriguing premise, but Ian Douglas seems intent on stuffing into its plot as many physics and space theories as humanly possible. The plot incorporates a myriad of scientific facts and theories, which is often quite interesting but may lose readers who aren’t well-versed in physics or don’t have the inclination to puzzle out unfamiliar scientific concepts. Actual and theoretical items like Fermi Paradox, SMBH (supermassive black hole), O’Neill colony, computronium (programmable matter), Alderson Disks, and countless other tricky concepts all elbow each other for room in the pages of this novel. Characters have a way of coming out with statements like “Either relativistic time dilation, or we encountered a Lorentzian manifold through frame-dragging” ― which then require a pause while these concepts are explained by one of the characters or the omniscient narrator. The plot often lags as a result of this frequent sidetracking.
This emphasis on science also comes at the cost of character development. The characters are easily recognizable stock types: the noble and tough-minded ship commander and Marines; the power-hungry, self-centered governmental personnel. It’s patently clear that Douglas sympathizes with the honorable military personnel and doesn’t have much use for career politicians. Human women are treated equally but there are intelligent “gynoids” (robots manufactured and sold as sex objects) that will rub some readers the wrong way, though Douglas does include a minor subplot about a movement to free these robots and other AIs from their enslavement to humanity.
Altered Starscape ends on somewhat of a cliff-hanger; the second volume in this ANDROMEDAN DARK series, Darkness Falling, was just published in November 2017. I’m interested enough to continue with the series, so we’ll see where the story goes from here. I recommend this novel for fans of hard science fiction who will appreciate its rather single-minded focus on imaginative scientific concepts.
Initial comments: The publicist for Harper Voyager sent me a paperback copy of the just-published sequel to this book, Darkness Falling: Andromedan Dark: Book Two, and I told her I was only interested in it if she wanted to send me the first book in the series too. (I've had bad luck with jumping into series midstream). So here we are!
Thoughts so far: intriguing premise, time-travel and military SF. The hardest of hard SF novels that I've taken on in a long while. All the science talk is making my head spin.
Content note: Scattered F-bombs.
December 1, 2022
Nice SiFi book. If you have read any of the writer's other series then you will enjoy this one as well. Several themes of science and tech that seem to run through his books are well done. Recommended
July 18, 2018
So far, I've been very impressed with this author's vision of our future technology, and our potential to expand into space. If only I could live long enough to see something like that in my lifetime! I have very much enjoyed the Star Carrier series by this author, and with this first book in a new series, am glad to have another series of his to enjoy as well. This book has lots of hard sci-if topics as well as lots of interesting science. On to book #2!
November 28, 2016
See also the blog version of this review: http://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/20...
I have mixed feelings about this one. While there are a lot of cool ideas, none of them came together in a satisfactory way for me.
First, the good bits. I picked this up because the basic premise sounded cool: a group of humans are thrown four billion years into the future by a super massive black hole. By this time the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are merging. There are galactic civilizations, vast megastructures (aka "Big Dumb Objects"), god-like artificial intelligences, post-humans adapted for life in space, and much more that I don't want to spoil. There's even a discussion of hedonism that explicitly mentions Epicurus and Aristotle, and the Buddhist concept of Bodhisattvas comes into play. All of that is pretty cool.
Next, the bad stuff. It feels like the author had a lot of really cool ideas but had no idea how to bring any of them to anything resembling a satisfactory resolution. It's like he was working from notes and didn't have time to fill in the details. I get that this is supposed to be the first book in a series, but a first book should have more of a resolution than this. There's a half-hearted attempt to tie up some of the loose ends, but the knots aren't tight enough to work. Something about the breeziness of this book doesn't give me much faith that all of these concepts will receive anything resembling in-depth treatment in future volumes.
There are a few more specific annoyances. The main character is a cookie-cutter curmudgeonly general type. He's "married" to a sex robot, but it's supposed to be okay because he has qualms about it. There's some interesting stuff about this robot maybe getting emancipated, but then you don't hear anything about it again for hundreds of pages. Perhaps the weirdest thing is that none of the characters seem all that disturbed or awe-struck by the fact that they've jumped ahead four billion years. This bizarre fact is even mentioned in the book at one point and then, like so many other ideas, oddly forgotten.
Iain Douglas (a pseudonym of William Keith) is mostly known for various series of hard core military science fiction. Military SF isn't really my thing, but I picked this up because it sounded like that aspect was downplayed. Thankfully you don't get too many confusing space battles with acronym-spewing space marines in this book, but there's probably not enough of that to satisfy military SF fans and too much of it for people like me. There's also a bit of a militaristic undertone to the way civilians are represented that's reminiscent of the Ur-text of military SF: Starship Troopers.
I really wanted to love this book. I love vast, mind-bending space operas. But this one has neither the intellectual depth of Iain M. Banks nor the intricate world-building of Peter F. Hamilton, neither the humor of John Scalzi nor the engaging characters of Lois McMaster Bujold. Maybe none of that is what this space opera was trying to be, but the problem was that I felt like the book couldn't decide what it was trying to be, either.
I have mixed feelings about this one. While there are a lot of cool ideas, none of them came together in a satisfactory way for me.
First, the good bits. I picked this up because the basic premise sounded cool: a group of humans are thrown four billion years into the future by a super massive black hole. By this time the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are merging. There are galactic civilizations, vast megastructures (aka "Big Dumb Objects"), god-like artificial intelligences, post-humans adapted for life in space, and much more that I don't want to spoil. There's even a discussion of hedonism that explicitly mentions Epicurus and Aristotle, and the Buddhist concept of Bodhisattvas comes into play. All of that is pretty cool.
Next, the bad stuff. It feels like the author had a lot of really cool ideas but had no idea how to bring any of them to anything resembling a satisfactory resolution. It's like he was working from notes and didn't have time to fill in the details. I get that this is supposed to be the first book in a series, but a first book should have more of a resolution than this. There's a half-hearted attempt to tie up some of the loose ends, but the knots aren't tight enough to work. Something about the breeziness of this book doesn't give me much faith that all of these concepts will receive anything resembling in-depth treatment in future volumes.
There are a few more specific annoyances. The main character is a cookie-cutter curmudgeonly general type. He's "married" to a sex robot, but it's supposed to be okay because he has qualms about it. There's some interesting stuff about this robot maybe getting emancipated, but then you don't hear anything about it again for hundreds of pages. Perhaps the weirdest thing is that none of the characters seem all that disturbed or awe-struck by the fact that they've jumped ahead four billion years. This bizarre fact is even mentioned in the book at one point and then, like so many other ideas, oddly forgotten.
Iain Douglas (a pseudonym of William Keith) is mostly known for various series of hard core military science fiction. Military SF isn't really my thing, but I picked this up because it sounded like that aspect was downplayed. Thankfully you don't get too many confusing space battles with acronym-spewing space marines in this book, but there's probably not enough of that to satisfy military SF fans and too much of it for people like me. There's also a bit of a militaristic undertone to the way civilians are represented that's reminiscent of the Ur-text of military SF: Starship Troopers.
I really wanted to love this book. I love vast, mind-bending space operas. But this one has neither the intellectual depth of Iain M. Banks nor the intricate world-building of Peter F. Hamilton, neither the humor of John Scalzi nor the engaging characters of Lois McMaster Bujold. Maybe none of that is what this space opera was trying to be, but the problem was that I felt like the book couldn't decide what it was trying to be, either.
January 15, 2024
Ian Douglas doesn't believe in telling small stories. As time travel stories go, this one's a doozie. Time travel stories generally involve people zipping around by a few centuries or maybe a few thousand years. I recall one with a trip some millions of years into the past to visit Earth's dinosaurs, but even that is dwarfed by the magnitude of what happens to the crew of the Telus Ad Astra when they get zapped
4 billion
years into the future, with no way of knowing whether they can ever get back to their own time. It quickly becomes a whopper of a space exploration and survival story as well, filled with amazing alien megastructures, the artifacts of long-dead civs, and super-AIs of godlike intelligence and power. It then goes to some pretty crazy places like the concept of a highly advanced technological civilization ascending not just once, but possibly many times, and galaxy-spanning intelligences. No, Mr. Douglas does not do half-measures.
Douglas throws in a lot of ideas that have external referents in the real world of science fiction and science speculation, like Kardashev civilizations, Alderson disks, Bishop rings, Dyson spheres, Matrioshka brains, the Fermi paradox and Fermi predators, frame dragging, computronium, star lifting. Unlike some authors who dump concepts and leave you to figure them out, he also tends to drop some explanation of these things. There are so many of these it becomes like a form of name-dropping. The idea of Fermi predators is pretty common in sci-fi – I've seen it in James S.A. Corey's The Expanse series and Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space. Sometimes Douglas goes a little too elementary in explaining things – I hope no one vreading this book really needs to have the Rosetta Stone explained to them.
This is space opera with a lot of the classic earmarks of space opera – faster-than-light travel, lasers, anti-gravity tech, sexbots, AIs orders of magnitude smarter than humans. But one thing I found fun is how Douglas describes the tactics of space encounters with other ships who can make FTL jumps while the crew is also dealing with the limitations of the electromagnetic energy their sensors rely on. Whether you can “see” your enemy, when you can see them, and sometimes whether you can see two instances of them, all matter very much to staying alive. When your enemy is 5 light-minutes away from you, they can jump to another position, and you won't see them disappear from their last known position for 5 more minutes. But if they jump to a spot closer to you, you'll briefly see them twice. It's a little like fighting a displacer beast which can throw its image several feet away from where it is. I hear Douglas is better known for his pure military sci-fi, and it shows in his descriptions of tactical encounters.
A lot of things about this future have a clean, shiny “Star Trek” feel – even when things get awful, this isn't a dark, gritty dystopia like Altered Carbon. It's like someone with a straight-forward, normal mind was challenged to imagine the zaniest things he can think of, and you get this big, ambitious, but basically straight-forward space adventure instead of the twisted, dank shit that comes from the pens of Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, and China Mieville. It pretty obviously draws a lot of inspiration from Ringworld, which is mentioned in the text, and it reads almost like a survey of every type of space megastructure humans have ever imagined might be feasible in some far-off future of stellar macro-engineering.
It was fun but felt a bit unfinished. There are a lot of very big interesting ideas, but it began to feel like Douglas was running through a checklist of ideas that needed to be dropped in. “Oh wait, we haven't seen a Dyson sphere yet!” And the sub-issue of AI autonomy was handled in a way that seemed a bit fatuous for such a complex issue, which is the subject of many whole novels. See A Closed and Common Orbit for a story that really delves on that issue.
Does it pass the Bechdel test? No. The only female character with any extended time on stage is a female sexbot owned by the captain, who plays the role of a 1950s housewife. There are more than the average number of minor female characters found in a typical SF story, and they're doing a variety of things, from admirals on down. But they're all very minor characters who aren't really players in the story, and there's never more than one per scene. The result is odd. It reads kind of like an Asimov story where everyone important is a man, and there are women here and there bringing coffee and providing sex... but then the editor told Douglas he had to get the story out of the 1950s, so he switched the names of some minor characters and made the housewives sexbots instead of organic women. Commander St. Clare and his sexbot “wife” situation reminds me of George Washington and his slaves – he runs around fretting with guilt about the institution as a whole, and thinks about emancipating his slave, but struggles with actually doing it because it turns out he really likes owning a slave. Which leads to the question of whether slavery is better or worse when the slave is programmed to be perfectly satisfied living in captivity? See also Brave New World.
Douglas throws in a lot of ideas that have external referents in the real world of science fiction and science speculation, like Kardashev civilizations, Alderson disks, Bishop rings, Dyson spheres, Matrioshka brains, the Fermi paradox and Fermi predators, frame dragging, computronium, star lifting. Unlike some authors who dump concepts and leave you to figure them out, he also tends to drop some explanation of these things. There are so many of these it becomes like a form of name-dropping. The idea of Fermi predators is pretty common in sci-fi – I've seen it in James S.A. Corey's The Expanse series and Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space. Sometimes Douglas goes a little too elementary in explaining things – I hope no one vreading this book really needs to have the Rosetta Stone explained to them.
This is space opera with a lot of the classic earmarks of space opera – faster-than-light travel, lasers, anti-gravity tech, sexbots, AIs orders of magnitude smarter than humans. But one thing I found fun is how Douglas describes the tactics of space encounters with other ships who can make FTL jumps while the crew is also dealing with the limitations of the electromagnetic energy their sensors rely on. Whether you can “see” your enemy, when you can see them, and sometimes whether you can see two instances of them, all matter very much to staying alive. When your enemy is 5 light-minutes away from you, they can jump to another position, and you won't see them disappear from their last known position for 5 more minutes. But if they jump to a spot closer to you, you'll briefly see them twice. It's a little like fighting a displacer beast which can throw its image several feet away from where it is. I hear Douglas is better known for his pure military sci-fi, and it shows in his descriptions of tactical encounters.
A lot of things about this future have a clean, shiny “Star Trek” feel – even when things get awful, this isn't a dark, gritty dystopia like Altered Carbon. It's like someone with a straight-forward, normal mind was challenged to imagine the zaniest things he can think of, and you get this big, ambitious, but basically straight-forward space adventure instead of the twisted, dank shit that comes from the pens of Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, and China Mieville. It pretty obviously draws a lot of inspiration from Ringworld, which is mentioned in the text, and it reads almost like a survey of every type of space megastructure humans have ever imagined might be feasible in some far-off future of stellar macro-engineering.
It was fun but felt a bit unfinished. There are a lot of very big interesting ideas, but it began to feel like Douglas was running through a checklist of ideas that needed to be dropped in. “Oh wait, we haven't seen a Dyson sphere yet!” And the sub-issue of AI autonomy was handled in a way that seemed a bit fatuous for such a complex issue, which is the subject of many whole novels. See A Closed and Common Orbit for a story that really delves on that issue.
Does it pass the Bechdel test? No. The only female character with any extended time on stage is a female sexbot owned by the captain, who plays the role of a 1950s housewife. There are more than the average number of minor female characters found in a typical SF story, and they're doing a variety of things, from admirals on down. But they're all very minor characters who aren't really players in the story, and there's never more than one per scene. The result is odd. It reads kind of like an Asimov story where everyone important is a man, and there are women here and there bringing coffee and providing sex... but then the editor told Douglas he had to get the story out of the 1950s, so he switched the names of some minor characters and made the housewives sexbots instead of organic women. Commander St. Clare and his sexbot “wife” situation reminds me of George Washington and his slaves – he runs around fretting with guilt about the institution as a whole, and thinks about emancipating his slave, but struggles with actually doing it because it turns out he really likes owning a slave. Which leads to the question of whether slavery is better or worse when the slave is programmed to be perfectly satisfied living in captivity? See also Brave New World.
July 27, 2018
Started strong with a fresh take that introduces interesting scientific concepts through the narrative. Then it turned into a power fantasy with gross sex robot/slaves (all of which are female) and a conventional plot that breaks no new ground. After a strong beginning, I kind of can’t believe I took the time to finish this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2019
This book just felt like it was trying to put every remotely interesting science fiction idea into the story as possible and give it a bit of explanation then move on to the next thing. If you are new to science fiction mega structures I would recommend but otherwise skip it.
July 10, 2017
Visit to the far futures
A nice start to the story of moving to the future. Learning new and exciting thing. Trying to stay in Command of his own mind and worried and the others
A dark mind can find you
A nice start to the story of moving to the future. Learning new and exciting thing. Trying to stay in Command of his own mind and worried and the others
A dark mind can find you
January 16, 2017
Thrown 4 billion years into the future and across the galaxy the 1 million inhabitants of the Ad Astra find themselves under attack and craving to go home. They make friends, they think with an alien race but are soon fighting their battle and wondering how they got themselves in that position.
Book one of a trilogy from Ian Douglas.
Great book and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Author if you like Military Science Fiction
Book one of a trilogy from Ian Douglas.
Great book and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Author if you like Military Science Fiction
December 15, 2016
The author has a lively imagination, especially when it comes to world-building aboard a huge starship, the structure of alien intelligence, how to project a fourth dimensional being into a world of only three dimensions, and how to end a chapter on a cliffhanger. If that is all you require from a sci-fi novel, you may enjoy this book. However…
Time dilation; Fermi’s Paradox; Clarke orbital (or “Clarkeorbital” as it is called here); ancient names for the Milky Way: at first both these technical and historical terms, and many others like them, lend an air of respectability to the writing (here’s an author who Knows His Science!), but after a while they get thrown around enough to sound like nothing other than Ian Douglas saying, “I’ve spent lots of time learning everything there is about space and I’m going to tell you all of it whether it’s absolutely necessary to the novel or not.”
Particularly problematic are the book’s sexual politics, as evidenced by the gynoids, or female androids. There is some very perfunctory discussion between the starship’s captain and his gynoid (that’s a female android) about reprogramming her mostly subservient attitude that goes basically nowhere. Apparently in this book’s world, social nudity is the norm for both sexes -- all very well and good except that it’s the gynoids whose bodies get described in detail, repeatedly and for no apparent reason, while the men’s bodies are ignored. One can only guess that Douglas must have aimed the book at young teenage males who want something otherworldly to wank off to.
All in all, one would expect better from an author who has published seventeen previous books.
Time dilation; Fermi’s Paradox; Clarke orbital (or “Clarkeorbital” as it is called here); ancient names for the Milky Way: at first both these technical and historical terms, and many others like them, lend an air of respectability to the writing (here’s an author who Knows His Science!), but after a while they get thrown around enough to sound like nothing other than Ian Douglas saying, “I’ve spent lots of time learning everything there is about space and I’m going to tell you all of it whether it’s absolutely necessary to the novel or not.”
Particularly problematic are the book’s sexual politics, as evidenced by the gynoids, or female androids. There is some very perfunctory discussion between the starship’s captain and his gynoid (that’s a female android) about reprogramming her mostly subservient attitude that goes basically nowhere. Apparently in this book’s world, social nudity is the norm for both sexes -- all very well and good except that it’s the gynoids whose bodies get described in detail, repeatedly and for no apparent reason, while the men’s bodies are ignored. One can only guess that Douglas must have aimed the book at young teenage males who want something otherworldly to wank off to.
All in all, one would expect better from an author who has published seventeen previous books.
November 6, 2016
I have read all of Ian Douglas's (AKA William H. Keith) books, the entire Galactic Marines (9 books) and Star Carrier (6 books) series. They are usually fun, with a bunch of science interwoven throughout.
_Altered Starscape_ is a start of a new series. If you have read any of the previous series, then this time out will fill familiar. The characters are similar, as is the terminology. The Marines and fighter pilots are here, but a bit off to one side. The battle details are a bit glossed over vs. previous books. A bit more is placed upon human & AI interaction, what it means to be alive, and the concept of freedom.
In this new universe, the humans meet the evil menace early. In previous works, it could take several books to really dig into who is pulling the strings. Here, the author has created something truly terrifying. In his style, there is a bit of science behind the possibility of such an entity. Be ready for several paragraphs of explanation of terms and concepts while the characters grapple with their new reality. I embrace such things, as it gives weight to the situation.
It is a good start, though I found it didn't have the punch of Galactic Marines or Star Carrier. I do look forward to learning more about the galactic society & its attendant AIs.
_Altered Starscape_ is a start of a new series. If you have read any of the previous series, then this time out will fill familiar. The characters are similar, as is the terminology. The Marines and fighter pilots are here, but a bit off to one side. The battle details are a bit glossed over vs. previous books. A bit more is placed upon human & AI interaction, what it means to be alive, and the concept of freedom.
In this new universe, the humans meet the evil menace early. In previous works, it could take several books to really dig into who is pulling the strings. Here, the author has created something truly terrifying. In his style, there is a bit of science behind the possibility of such an entity. Be ready for several paragraphs of explanation of terms and concepts while the characters grapple with their new reality. I embrace such things, as it gives weight to the situation.
It is a good start, though I found it didn't have the punch of Galactic Marines or Star Carrier. I do look forward to learning more about the galactic society & its attendant AIs.
June 23, 2018
In some ways I like this book. I like the epic scale of it, and the author seems to have better awareness of the current thinking in AI and physics than many authors. Also, the author appears to have a better grasp of what it is actually like to encounter large objects in space; how such things would appear to us. The author also seems to have a better grasp of tactical plotting and does a better job of creating a believable fight than many authors.
But the failings are huge. The biggest one I have is in believability. The society he portrays seems to lack subtlety and reflect the ideological prejudices of the author. Also, AI does not seem to have had as much of an effect on human culture as it should. Or to put it another way, for super human intellects, they seem awfully dumb. To give you an example, in one of the critical points in the plot, marines flying in space synchronize their attack using a computer. Why have these marines not been replaced by AI androids, or larger self-intelligent ships? There is no explanation for why humans are involved in any way in combat.
But the failings are huge. The biggest one I have is in believability. The society he portrays seems to lack subtlety and reflect the ideological prejudices of the author. Also, AI does not seem to have had as much of an effect on human culture as it should. Or to put it another way, for super human intellects, they seem awfully dumb. To give you an example, in one of the critical points in the plot, marines flying in space synchronize their attack using a computer. Why have these marines not been replaced by AI androids, or larger self-intelligent ships? There is no explanation for why humans are involved in any way in combat.
December 21, 2016
This is the 1st book in the new Andromedan Dark series by Ian Douglas. This is a great example of Space Opera/Military Science Fiction. In this one Earth has made contact with an alien culture who will help us technologically in exchange for our help in fighting an interstellar war. Earth sends a huge ship with a large military contingent as well as many scientists, AI's and a group of diplomats. Upon arrival they find that the alien culture has been destroyed. Also they become trapped in the pull of a giant black hole. While trying to escape the black hole they are flung four billion years into the future to a time when the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way Galaxy are colliding. They are almost immediately attacked by unknown aliens and find themselfelves involved in a future intergalactic war where they are not sure who is friend and who is foe. This book is a great read and a great start to a new series by Ian Douglas and I highly recommend it!
February 19, 2019
This was the first book I've read by this author, and I didn't enjoy it. I found it odd how almost each solar system visited by the crew lead to a discussion about the bizarre super-structure, most of which had an actual reference to a science fiction story such as a direct reference to the Ringworld books. By the third reference to previously written science fiction, the fourth wall had crumbled and I was losing interest. Despite the talk of four or more dimensions, the characters were firmly two dimensional. The arrogant and foolish power hungry politician, the weary general, and a bunch more characters thrown in (too many, too quickly) to try and round it out. The tropes got a little too thick for my liking, and the idea that Humanity, the interstellar latecomers in technology, experience, and intelect, are somehow special and vital to fight off threats in two different timeframes is a bit much, especially in the final battle.
February 9, 2017
This was ok, but nothing overly wonderful. The story itself was a fine setup for a continuing mission. I can't really fault the story itself at all. That said, maybe it was the reader of the audiobook that turned me off. Either way, be it the writing or how it was read, it just seemed overly melodramatic. That kept taking me out of the story. When they end paragraphs of chapter with something along the lines of "And Sinclair lead them into the PITS OF HELL" with so much emphasis on the descriptor, its just too over the top. So something that should be dramatic ends up being melodramatic. It's really a shame too because the actual plot and pacing of the story isn't bad. The world he has created is very interesting, but I am not sure if the tone will keep me from wanting to pursue the story or not.
August 16, 2017
Douglas Puts the Awe in Awesome
I've read all of his books, but this one is the grandest, most farsighted, and awe-inspiring of all. It is epic far future science fiction with galaxy-spanning reach. Some readers have criticized his pedantic astrophysical asides but, to me, they just add realism to his visions. This book has Hugo written all over it for the masterfully way Douglas builds politics, war and deep ethical and moral questions into his world-building. Who are we? What is true freedom? What will we become?
The book has Douglas's standard characters, the emotionally beleaguered commander/brilliant tactician, the arrogant political leader, the loyal but challenging bridge crew, the brave Marines. But he puts them all together and makes it work beautifully.
I've read all of his books, but this one is the grandest, most farsighted, and awe-inspiring of all. It is epic far future science fiction with galaxy-spanning reach. Some readers have criticized his pedantic astrophysical asides but, to me, they just add realism to his visions. This book has Hugo written all over it for the masterfully way Douglas builds politics, war and deep ethical and moral questions into his world-building. Who are we? What is true freedom? What will we become?
The book has Douglas's standard characters, the emotionally beleaguered commander/brilliant tactician, the arrogant political leader, the loyal but challenging bridge crew, the brave Marines. But he puts them all together and makes it work beautifully.
January 4, 2017
Prima din trilogie, military science fiction, zic eu, dar și mult „wow” a la Clarke din ciclul Rama sau Niven din Ringworld dar, și aici îi găsesc o scădere, poate prea multe, prea aglomerate...
Avem discuri Alderson, sfere Dyson, creiere Matrioshka, propulsii Shkadov și structuri Topopolis (Cosmic Spaghetti) etc. Mai avem computronium, materie întunecată, IA de trilioane de ori mai puternice decît o inteligență omenească, ��i, în efect domino, singularități tehnologice.
Acțiune bună și bătălii spațiale.
Îi dau 7 din 10 și aștept cu nerăbdare urmarea...
Avem discuri Alderson, sfere Dyson, creiere Matrioshka, propulsii Shkadov și structuri Topopolis (Cosmic Spaghetti) etc. Mai avem computronium, materie întunecată, IA de trilioane de ori mai puternice decît o inteligență omenească, ��i, în efect domino, singularități tehnologice.
Acțiune bună și bătălii spațiale.
Îi dau 7 din 10 și aștept cu nerăbdare urmarea...
March 1, 2018
This is a big, big story. What’s bigger than a galaxy? Two galaxies! Colliding!!
I admit I’m a space opera junky. Expanding your imagination to take in a distant future, on a huge scale, with all sorts of speculative technologies, strange species, . . . what could be more fun?
Tellus ad Astra is a colossal colony ship, on a mission to join with the Coadunation, a MIlky Way Galaxy association of civilizations, in a conflict that representatives of Earth only vaguely comprehend. There appears to be much for Earth to gain, though, in technology and alliances.
But things don’t go well, and the Tellus ad Astra, in an attack on the Coadunation at the core of the Milky Way, is thrown ahead 4 billion years into the future, when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are colliding.
Douglas throws two principal themes into the story at this point.
The stronger of the two is the confrontation between the crew of the ship and a spooky, powerful enemy, whose real nature is still being divulged toward the end of the book. Remember this is only Book One of the series.
Douglas loves speculative physics. The enemy, not just the enemy of the crew of the Tellus ad Astra, but of a new galactic association in this distant future, is multidimensional. “Multidimensional” in the sense that it can move through spatial (and potentially temporal) dimensions beyond our familiar experience of three spatial dimensions. Douglas uses two-dimensional metaphors to explain how this enemy can suddenly appear at intersections with our own dimensions, appearing out of nowhere and otherwise taking advantage of its multidimensionality in combat.
In fact, you’ll find many favorites from speculative physics and extraterrestrial intelligence all through the book. Dark matter and black holes have starring roles. But you’ll also find Dyson Spheres and Alderson Disks, speculations about the Fermi Paradox, not to mention standards like faster-than-light-travel. All fun, and, made even more fun by Douglas’s propensity to explain how the speculative technologies he introduces actually work. It’s a fun blend of hard science fiction with space opera.
And, with that first theme of galactic scale conflict, Douglas plays to another of his strengths — the details of military combat, again in a speculative universe of specialized attack ships, weapons, and military tactics.
The second big theme is one I found less compelling. Douglas pits the military commander of the voyage, Grayson St. Clair, against the civilian authority, Gunter Adler. St. Clair is the protagonist in the story. His position is strained. He is a military commander who finds himself having to extend what had been a short mission, under clear military authority, into a long-term exploration and survival mission. St. Clair maintains strong democratic sensibilities, challenging in the aftermath of a second American revolution that has taken place, with a renaissance of authoritarianism.
St. Clair’s opposite in the power struggle, Adler, is, to my mind, too caricatured — an arrogant egomaniac, little disturbed by anything approaching self-doubt, even in private. Okay, there are such people, but here it makes for a pretty one-sided conflict — one where the reader could have been exploring issues of power and authority, especially between the military and civilian spheres, but ends up just rooting for good and competent over vain and arrogant.
For myself, I tried to look past that theme to the bigger story, with its huge scale and imaginative future history of galactic conflict. And I think that works.
At the end, there’s no slow petering out. Douglas throws in a big surprise that recasts everything we’ve read up to that point and, of course, sets up the next part of the story.
I admit I’m a space opera junky. Expanding your imagination to take in a distant future, on a huge scale, with all sorts of speculative technologies, strange species, . . . what could be more fun?
Tellus ad Astra is a colossal colony ship, on a mission to join with the Coadunation, a MIlky Way Galaxy association of civilizations, in a conflict that representatives of Earth only vaguely comprehend. There appears to be much for Earth to gain, though, in technology and alliances.
But things don’t go well, and the Tellus ad Astra, in an attack on the Coadunation at the core of the Milky Way, is thrown ahead 4 billion years into the future, when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are colliding.
Douglas throws two principal themes into the story at this point.
The stronger of the two is the confrontation between the crew of the ship and a spooky, powerful enemy, whose real nature is still being divulged toward the end of the book. Remember this is only Book One of the series.
Douglas loves speculative physics. The enemy, not just the enemy of the crew of the Tellus ad Astra, but of a new galactic association in this distant future, is multidimensional. “Multidimensional” in the sense that it can move through spatial (and potentially temporal) dimensions beyond our familiar experience of three spatial dimensions. Douglas uses two-dimensional metaphors to explain how this enemy can suddenly appear at intersections with our own dimensions, appearing out of nowhere and otherwise taking advantage of its multidimensionality in combat.
In fact, you’ll find many favorites from speculative physics and extraterrestrial intelligence all through the book. Dark matter and black holes have starring roles. But you’ll also find Dyson Spheres and Alderson Disks, speculations about the Fermi Paradox, not to mention standards like faster-than-light-travel. All fun, and, made even more fun by Douglas’s propensity to explain how the speculative technologies he introduces actually work. It’s a fun blend of hard science fiction with space opera.
And, with that first theme of galactic scale conflict, Douglas plays to another of his strengths — the details of military combat, again in a speculative universe of specialized attack ships, weapons, and military tactics.
The second big theme is one I found less compelling. Douglas pits the military commander of the voyage, Grayson St. Clair, against the civilian authority, Gunter Adler. St. Clair is the protagonist in the story. His position is strained. He is a military commander who finds himself having to extend what had been a short mission, under clear military authority, into a long-term exploration and survival mission. St. Clair maintains strong democratic sensibilities, challenging in the aftermath of a second American revolution that has taken place, with a renaissance of authoritarianism.
St. Clair’s opposite in the power struggle, Adler, is, to my mind, too caricatured — an arrogant egomaniac, little disturbed by anything approaching self-doubt, even in private. Okay, there are such people, but here it makes for a pretty one-sided conflict — one where the reader could have been exploring issues of power and authority, especially between the military and civilian spheres, but ends up just rooting for good and competent over vain and arrogant.
For myself, I tried to look past that theme to the bigger story, with its huge scale and imaginative future history of galactic conflict. And I think that works.
At the end, there’s no slow petering out. Douglas throws in a big surprise that recasts everything we’ve read up to that point and, of course, sets up the next part of the story.
January 11, 2018
I wasn't expecting much from Altered Starscape. I don't tend to like hard sci fi, and Douglas (Keith) pushes out so many books that I had a hard time thinking this one would be good. Add to that the preponderance of mixed reviews and I wasn't even sure I would finish it.
I'm pleased to have been wrong; Altered Starscape turned out to be really good. Not only did it give me a few hours of entertainment, it also may have reignited some interest in space that Endeavour initially ignited back in 5th grade, the first time that three humans 'walked' in space for the first time in history. I remember thinking about all the possibilities- everything we would achieve regarding space travel, even life in space.
One of the major problems with hard sci fi is the massive infodumping. Douglas doesn't escape that here, but it's (generally) woven into the story in a way that isn't as awful or jarring as you sometimes find. There's a great feeling of exploration, and the dumps tend to happen around that. They're probably too elementary for the regular or hardcore fan of hard sci fi, but for someone who doesn't read that much of the genre, they were just right.
Also great was the sense of a living universe happening with or without the protagonists. St. Clair isn't the galaxy's biggest player (yet), and he has no idea what's happening around him. While he didn't make any major mistakes in this book, he certainly doesn't have the air of infallibility that so many authors give a main character, and I appreciate that.
The book's not without problems. Civilians are painted as power hungry slimes, while the military personnel are honorable and farsighted. That got annoying very, very fast.
Humanity is also pretty damn anglo-American centric 150 years in the future, and Islam of course is mentioned twice in the book, both times disparagingly (the "war-torn Caliphate" and the weak willed leaders who failed to address Islamic terrorism).
Dialogue isn't the greatest, and rarely drives the story. Too many of the characters have no development whatsoever, and what development there is rarely seems earned. Most of them could be replaced easily with stock sci fi character A, or grizzled veteran C and it wouldn't affect the story.
This complaints aside, I honestly can't wait to read the rest of the series just to see where it goes.
I'm pleased to have been wrong; Altered Starscape turned out to be really good. Not only did it give me a few hours of entertainment, it also may have reignited some interest in space that Endeavour initially ignited back in 5th grade, the first time that three humans 'walked' in space for the first time in history. I remember thinking about all the possibilities- everything we would achieve regarding space travel, even life in space.
One of the major problems with hard sci fi is the massive infodumping. Douglas doesn't escape that here, but it's (generally) woven into the story in a way that isn't as awful or jarring as you sometimes find. There's a great feeling of exploration, and the dumps tend to happen around that. They're probably too elementary for the regular or hardcore fan of hard sci fi, but for someone who doesn't read that much of the genre, they were just right.
Also great was the sense of a living universe happening with or without the protagonists. St. Clair isn't the galaxy's biggest player (yet), and he has no idea what's happening around him. While he didn't make any major mistakes in this book, he certainly doesn't have the air of infallibility that so many authors give a main character, and I appreciate that.
The book's not without problems. Civilians are painted as power hungry slimes, while the military personnel are honorable and farsighted. That got annoying very, very fast.
Humanity is also pretty damn anglo-American centric 150 years in the future, and Islam of course is mentioned twice in the book, both times disparagingly (the "war-torn Caliphate" and the weak willed leaders who failed to address Islamic terrorism).
Dialogue isn't the greatest, and rarely drives the story. Too many of the characters have no development whatsoever, and what development there is rarely seems earned. Most of them could be replaced easily with stock sci fi character A, or grizzled veteran C and it wouldn't affect the story.
This complaints aside, I honestly can't wait to read the rest of the series just to see where it goes.
August 3, 2018
I'm not usually a big science fiction guy. I'm not sure what possessed me to pick up this book at the store, except perhaps the cover looked neat. Then I read the plot synopsis on the back (4 billion years in the future! holy cow!) and figured that was worth a shot.
What I liked:
The theoretical science. I've read a bit about concepts like megastructures and the far future (perhaps you've seen that popular wikipedia article about it), and this book has that in spades. There is a lot of physics and quantum mechanics going on, but it's never overwhelming to the point where you feel like you're reading a textbook. Smart people are trying to figure out how the hell this happened and what all these crazy things are they keep finding. I literally made a list of stuff to look up later, because I found it interesting.
The attempts to relate the current (i.e. the year 2162) state of the world to a time more akin to our actual reality (i.e. 2018ish). The author attempts to draw some through-lines about things like Islamic Fundamentalism and the collapse of a republican democracy due to outright corruption.
Some of the characters, I suppose.
What I didn't care for as much:
Honestly, everything that was an "enemy". A plot where humans jump forward 4 billion years seems like it has plenty of potential to just tell a story of a crazy journey without worrying about a Big Bad.
The primary antagonist was pretty cookie cutter and lame.
The last few pages setting up the next book.
I'll probably check out Book 2 just to see if it goes anywhere, but I'm not terribly optimistic I'll finish the series.
What I liked:
The theoretical science. I've read a bit about concepts like megastructures and the far future (perhaps you've seen that popular wikipedia article about it), and this book has that in spades. There is a lot of physics and quantum mechanics going on, but it's never overwhelming to the point where you feel like you're reading a textbook. Smart people are trying to figure out how the hell this happened and what all these crazy things are they keep finding. I literally made a list of stuff to look up later, because I found it interesting.
The attempts to relate the current (i.e. the year 2162) state of the world to a time more akin to our actual reality (i.e. 2018ish). The author attempts to draw some through-lines about things like Islamic Fundamentalism and the collapse of a republican democracy due to outright corruption.
Some of the characters, I suppose.
What I didn't care for as much:
Honestly, everything that was an "enemy". A plot where humans jump forward 4 billion years seems like it has plenty of potential to just tell a story of a crazy journey without worrying about a Big Bad.
The primary antagonist was pretty cookie cutter and lame.
The last few pages setting up the next book.
I'll probably check out Book 2 just to see if it goes anywhere, but I'm not terribly optimistic I'll finish the series.
August 4, 2024
The only reason this book escaped DNF is because I listened to it on audiobook, which gives me a bit more tolerance, as I’m usually not wasting time while listening to it.
So what bothered me about Douglas’ novel, I mean on the face of it the idea is intriguing, what would a human ship do if it is getting displaced so much in time that nothing they would relate to any longer is valid. It’s the combination of gigantomania and trope heavy storytelling.
4 billion years into the future.
Every conceivable science fiction superstructure is encountered Dyson spheres, Alderson discs combined with an info dump. The O’Neil Cylinders of Tellus made at least sense.
There is the immediate enmity between military leadership and civilian authority.
Republican standards are praised while democracy is dissed.
There is a new form of slavery/sex slavery with the gyndroids. Should they be free or are they things.
Earth is supposedly united but the US marine Corps carries on. And those marines kick butt.
A space battle sees millions of destroyed ships, and the remaining force is still mind boggling.
I feel every good idea Douglas put into this novel, and there are quite a few thought provoking ones, wasn’t further explored.
For me there is no appeal at all to look at any of the 17 other books this author has written. That would be a waste of time.
So what bothered me about Douglas’ novel, I mean on the face of it the idea is intriguing, what would a human ship do if it is getting displaced so much in time that nothing they would relate to any longer is valid. It’s the combination of gigantomania and trope heavy storytelling.
4 billion years into the future.
Every conceivable science fiction superstructure is encountered Dyson spheres, Alderson discs combined with an info dump. The O’Neil Cylinders of Tellus made at least sense.
There is the immediate enmity between military leadership and civilian authority.
Republican standards are praised while democracy is dissed.
There is a new form of slavery/sex slavery with the gyndroids. Should they be free or are they things.
Earth is supposedly united but the US marine Corps carries on. And those marines kick butt.
A space battle sees millions of destroyed ships, and the remaining force is still mind boggling.
I feel every good idea Douglas put into this novel, and there are quite a few thought provoking ones, wasn’t further explored.
For me there is no appeal at all to look at any of the 17 other books this author has written. That would be a waste of time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2017
Altered Starscape, Andromedan Dark: Book One by Ian Douglas
The last book I read from Ian Douglas was Star Corpsman: Bloodstar back in 2012. It was good, not great but good. This book is the first in a new series and it is excellent. It has obviously been impacted by other good Sci-Fi but how do you divorce you mind from your reading experiences. Earth has met aliens and is going to their capital. Their arrival is fraught with peril and they find themselves far from where they had anticipated.
St.Clair is the military commander of the humans and Adler is the political leader. Douglas illustrates a less than complimentary attitude regarding politicos and realistically with today’s political climate, how could he otherwise proceed. The proliferation of AI adds a equal rights component to the book which is thought provoking. As much as we would like to think that Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics actually might exist, Douglas thinks otherwise.
I found the author provide some interesting concepts to contemplate. Gasp!, he actually encourages you to think!
I really enjoyed the book and I recommend it.
Body of work of Ian Douglas
Web site: www.whkeith.com
The last book I read from Ian Douglas was Star Corpsman: Bloodstar back in 2012. It was good, not great but good. This book is the first in a new series and it is excellent. It has obviously been impacted by other good Sci-Fi but how do you divorce you mind from your reading experiences. Earth has met aliens and is going to their capital. Their arrival is fraught with peril and they find themselves far from where they had anticipated.
St.Clair is the military commander of the humans and Adler is the political leader. Douglas illustrates a less than complimentary attitude regarding politicos and realistically with today’s political climate, how could he otherwise proceed. The proliferation of AI adds a equal rights component to the book which is thought provoking. As much as we would like to think that Asimov’s 3 laws of robotics actually might exist, Douglas thinks otherwise.
I found the author provide some interesting concepts to contemplate. Gasp!, he actually encourages you to think!
I really enjoyed the book and I recommend it.
Body of work of Ian Douglas
Web site: www.whkeith.com
November 28, 2020
Le premier contact avec des extraterrestres a eu lieu. Maintenant, en 2162, les ET demandent une contrepartie pour leur aide technique: un support contre une faction dissidente. Pour ce faire, le vaisseau Tellus Ad Astra doit se rendre dans le coeur galactique avec 1 million de personnes à bord, militaires et civils. Peu après leur arrivée, un événement imprévu les précipite dans le trou noir, du centre de la galaxie, dont ils émergent 4 milliards d'année plus tard. La Voie Lactée et Andromède sont en pleine collision. Les civilisations de la voix lactée sont extrêmement avancées, mais sont menacées par un ennemi furtif et implacable provenant d'Andromède. Et les humains dans tout cela. que peuvent-ils faire ?
Des civilisations avancées pouvant utiliser presque complètement l'énergie de leur étoile, des intelligences artificielles inimaginables, des formes de vie supra dimensionnelles. Une incroyables imagination supportée par des idées scientifiques plausibles.
J'ai beaucoup aimé, même si l'action manquait un peu. J'espère me rattraper dans le prochain tome. Mais Ian Douglas ( pseudo de William H. Keith jr.) est maintenant un des auteurs que je préfère; dommage qu'il ne soit pas traduit.
Des civilisations avancées pouvant utiliser presque complètement l'énergie de leur étoile, des intelligences artificielles inimaginables, des formes de vie supra dimensionnelles. Une incroyables imagination supportée par des idées scientifiques plausibles.
J'ai beaucoup aimé, même si l'action manquait un peu. J'espère me rattraper dans le prochain tome. Mais Ian Douglas ( pseudo de William H. Keith jr.) est maintenant un des auteurs que je préfère; dommage qu'il ne soit pas traduit.
January 5, 2018
High stakes and chock-full of cool SF-nal ideas: black holes, Dyson spheres, dark matter, colliding galaxies, AIs and super AIs. Alas, the book falls down on characterization for me. I didn't care if they lived or died.
WARNING SERIOUS SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT
Most of the characters are their job titles and no more. There is some conflict between our main character St. Clair (the military leader) and Adler (the arrogant political leader) which looks like it will come to a head--and then Adler is brain-fried by the Big Bad. Whut? I mean, he deserved it, but... where's my showdown?
Another example: We get POV from Lisa, a robot. Originally a sex robot owned by the main character (yes, really), St. Clair increases her free-will and by the end emancipates her. So you'd expect her to have some kind of arc, right? Not so much. What does she do with her free will? She stays late at a party--but nothing plot important happens there. She doesn't make a friend or spy on Adler, it's all off-screen. Later robots, including Lisa, are instrumental in saving the ship--but it again is all off-screen. We never get to see Lisa do anything. Argh, argh, argh.
WARNING SERIOUS SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT
Most of the characters are their job titles and no more. There is some conflict between our main character St. Clair (the military leader) and Adler (the arrogant political leader) which looks like it will come to a head--and then Adler is brain-fried by the Big Bad. Whut? I mean, he deserved it, but... where's my showdown?
Another example: We get POV from Lisa, a robot. Originally a sex robot owned by the main character (yes, really), St. Clair increases her free-will and by the end emancipates her. So you'd expect her to have some kind of arc, right? Not so much. What does she do with her free will? She stays late at a party--but nothing plot important happens there. She doesn't make a friend or spy on Adler, it's all off-screen. Later robots, including Lisa, are instrumental in saving the ship--but it again is all off-screen. We never get to see Lisa do anything. Argh, argh, argh.
December 23, 2019
Puts the Science back in Science Fiction!
Ian Douglas’ “Darkness Falling:Andromedan Dark:Book 1” is a fantastic must-read book for any of you Sc-Fi lovers who can never get enough Science in your stories. I loved this book because it made me think, and re-think, about so many things I had previously encountered in other books but never on this scale or to this degree.
I never go into too much detail in my reviews because I don’t like to give anything away but if this book doesn’t make you re-think the “whys” of the silence of the stars I am not sure what would. Are we alone or are we just not smart enough to listen in the right way? Or are we not advanced enough to be bothered with ... yet.
Richard Dawkins once said; “In very different ways, the possibility that the universe is teeming with life,
and the opposite possibility that we are totally alone, are equally exciting.”
Lovers of Science-Fiction have stretched their minds and eyes to the cosmos for generations, and will for generations to come. The hope is, that for future generations it will become Nonfiction.
Ian Douglas’ “Darkness Falling:Andromedan Dark:Book 1” is a fantastic must-read book for any of you Sc-Fi lovers who can never get enough Science in your stories. I loved this book because it made me think, and re-think, about so many things I had previously encountered in other books but never on this scale or to this degree.
I never go into too much detail in my reviews because I don’t like to give anything away but if this book doesn’t make you re-think the “whys” of the silence of the stars I am not sure what would. Are we alone or are we just not smart enough to listen in the right way? Or are we not advanced enough to be bothered with ... yet.
Richard Dawkins once said; “In very different ways, the possibility that the universe is teeming with life,
and the opposite possibility that we are totally alone, are equally exciting.”
Lovers of Science-Fiction have stretched their minds and eyes to the cosmos for generations, and will for generations to come. The hope is, that for future generations it will become Nonfiction.
November 2, 2016
Legalese, legalese, legalese! Harper Voyager Super Reader program, I've mentioned it before. I've been part of it since it's inception, mmm, two years ago I think. Maybe three. Either way, I've received TONS of good books, and all for free in return for honest reviews. (Like a baby literally throwing it's candy at you. Hell yes I applied!) ;)
Ok, this book has some really good points going for it, but first the negative. (Let's just rip this bandaid off and get to the good stuff) Douglas is a little heavy-handed with the infodumps. Enough that I bagged it for a star. Granted, that's my personal opinion, you might like technical stuff, it just felt a bit repetitive and I wanted back to the action.
That's where he excels. The titular enemy is badass, the alienness of the future is never far away, and the end of the book hints at an even bigger stage being set. Infodumps aside, I'm in for the long haul on this one. :D
Ok, this book has some really good points going for it, but first the negative. (Let's just rip this bandaid off and get to the good stuff) Douglas is a little heavy-handed with the infodumps. Enough that I bagged it for a star. Granted, that's my personal opinion, you might like technical stuff, it just felt a bit repetitive and I wanted back to the action.
That's where he excels. The titular enemy is badass, the alienness of the future is never far away, and the end of the book hints at an even bigger stage being set. Infodumps aside, I'm in for the long haul on this one. :D
April 9, 2024
I’m not sure how or why I stuck with it through the whole audiobook. Very cool premise but I theorize this author once attended a writers workshop and the facilitator said “if you must have women characters, make sure they’re not wearing clothes when you introduce them” and he never forgot that advice.
So on the one hand neat premise, great tech ideas, and points for problematizing the trope of future space authoritarianism.
But on the other hand he protagonist owns a sentient sex slave robit (even though he is a little uncomfortable with the arrangement he still bones down with her), there is no character development, info dumps are epic, and we never get any perspective from the million or so regular people on this jumbo space ship who find themselves a few billion years in the future.
So on the one hand neat premise, great tech ideas, and points for problematizing the trope of future space authoritarianism.
But on the other hand he protagonist owns a sentient sex slave robit (even though he is a little uncomfortable with the arrangement he still bones down with her), there is no character development, info dumps are epic, and we never get any perspective from the million or so regular people on this jumbo space ship who find themselves a few billion years in the future.
December 6, 2017
A huge spaceship from Earth is going to another planet to leave a million people for a few years to learn about this new place. They were invited there. But before they arrived, there is a huge explosion in the milky way that transports the spaceship about 4 billion years into the future.
The story is mostly about what they find in outer space that far into the future. They assume Earth is gone by that time but don't have time to go look for it as they are kept busy with different alien species - some nice, some attacking them.
At the end of the book they are just starting to head back to Earth to see if maybe it might still be there. Then the book ends because it is just part 1 in a series. I enjoyed reading it and I want to know about the fate of the Earth.
The story is mostly about what they find in outer space that far into the future. They assume Earth is gone by that time but don't have time to go look for it as they are kept busy with different alien species - some nice, some attacking them.
At the end of the book they are just starting to head back to Earth to see if maybe it might still be there. Then the book ends because it is just part 1 in a series. I enjoyed reading it and I want to know about the fate of the Earth.
January 20, 2019
I have to say, what I enjoyed most about this book was Douglas's vision of the future. The plot and characters are serviceable. It's one part hard sci-fi, one part military sci-fi, and it works. There's perhaps a little too much eye-roll worthy patriotism, but it mostly comes in the form of Thomas Jefferson quotes, so I can forgive that little trespass.
Ultimately, this is a book is one big guess at what our far-future may have in store, and I gotta say, it's one of the more rational, yet interesting, guesses at what lies ahead for humanity.
Ultimately, this is a book is one big guess at what our far-future may have in store, and I gotta say, it's one of the more rational, yet interesting, guesses at what lies ahead for humanity.
October 30, 2017
I really enjoyed this and might have given it another star.... if only it had more of an ending instead of a set-up for the sequel. Pretty standard 'space opera' fare featuring some interesting characters... they took some time to develop, but I found myself pretty invested. I liked the backdrop for the story and am looking forward to see where he goes with it, but I doubt I'll pick it up again until the series is finished.
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