Subject: _Godspeed_, by Charles Sheffield, a micro-review

From: [email-masked] (Selden E Ball Jr)
Date: 15 Dec 93 02:15:52 GMT

_Godspeed_, by Charles Sheffield,  a micro-review by Selden Ball

Save your money, read the original text:
_Treasure_Island_ by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

I really don't understand how Sheffield got this past his editors.
I wouldn't have minded reading about similar circumstances, but the first
half of this book seemed to follow the original almost scene for scene.
Leaving out Blind Pew was the biggest difference that I noticed. 

Sheffield then failed to follow through with the societal implications of
some of his own contributions. Having the POV character be an inexperienced 
prepubesent teen is no excuse.

Oh, well. Hopefully his next novel will be back up to his usual quality.

%T Godspeed
%A Charles Sheffield
%D November, 1993
%G ISBN 0-312-8517-3
%I Tor

*minor spoilers* follow

The POV character never even mentions knowing anyone else his own age. 
There is no discussion of what kind of schooling he might have had, 
or what he might have needed to become a spaceship crew member.

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From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper)
Subject: FUTURE QUARTET by Bova, Pohl, Pournelle, and Sheffield
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      FUTURE QUARTET by Ben Bova, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle,
                         and Charles Sheffield
           AvoNova, ISBN 0-380-71886-3, 1995, 294pp, US$5.50
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Well, since the directive given to the authors here was for each
to write a "speculative essay" and a story set in 2042, one very
pessimistic, one very optimistic, and two in between, it's not
surprising that what resulted was pretty didactic and preachy.  After
all, that's basically what was asked for.  It is certainly possible to
write stories set in the future that are entertaining first and give
the reader a message almost as a side effect--but that was not the path
taken here.

     Bova leads off with "2042: A Cautiously Pessimistic View,"
supposedly a speech given by the Chairman of the World Council in 2042,
and follows with "Thy Kingdom Come" (which has the Chairman as a
character).  The story has speeches almost at the level of the
essay/speech itself, and I was somewhat irked that all the main
characters found their common heritage (rather conveniently for the
plot, I might add) in the Lord's Prayer.  Yes, it's possible, but given
that the Chairman is Vietnamese with a Chinese name, it seems contrived
(in my opinion).

     Frederik Pohl's essay, "A Visit to Belindia," is as much a story
as his official story, "What Dreams Remain," but again, both spend a
lot of time in lectures and speeches by various characters.  Pohl says
he was chosen to give the most pessimistic future, but even here there
much have been a lower limit, as he doesn't postulate any massive
nuclear, chemical, or biological wars.  And just as Bova MAKES his
future "cautiously pessimistic" with his particular story ending, so
does Pohl make his pessimistic.  The worlds the two of them draw could
be swapped, or become optimistic, without much change to the stories,
so in that sense they aren't drawing their society to order--they're
meeting their goal only in how they end their story.

     Charles Sheffield's "Report on Planet Earth" would lead the reader
to believe his future was to be the most optimistic one, yet his "Price
of Civilization" is not what I would call a positively portrayed
future, but rather a fascist one of superior and inferior classes,
secretly enforced anti-miscegenation policies, and so on.  Whether
Sheffield realized what a negative picture he was painting is not
clear, since superficially his characters seem to be the best off of
those in any of the four scenarios.

     And finally there is Jerry Pournelle's "Democracy in America in
2042" and "Higher Education."  This is the "cautiously optimistic"
scenario, but it reads like a lot of other science fiction: rookies
being trained in the dangerous job of asteroid mining.  And true to
what one friend predicted, it has a character who explains it all to
the young newcomers.

     This book might work as a catalyst for discussions about the
future in a high school classroom, but even there one can find better
stories to trigger discussion.  These are merely preachy, and not at
all satisfying.

%A      Bova, Ben 
%A      Pohl, Frederik 
%A      Pournelle, Jerry 
%A      Sheffield, Charles 
%T      Future Quartet
%I      AvoNova
%C      New York
%D      February 1995
%G      ISBN 0-380-71886-3
%P      294pp
%O      paperback, US$5.50 [1994]

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"No one is ever fanatically devoted to something they have complete
confidence in.  No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to
rise tomorrow.  They *know* it is.  Whenever someone is fanatically
devoted to a set of beliefs or dogmas or goals, it is only because
those beliefs or goals are in doubt."  --Robert M. Pirsig

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From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: Review: "The Ganymede Club" by Charles Sheffield
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	"The Ganymede Club" by Charles Sheffield
	A Postview, copyright 1996 p-m agapow

The Great War shattered the solar system, killing half the human race and
leaving the future in the hands of those off-planet.  But among the powerful
in post-Earth history is a shadowy organisation that brutally attacks anyone
who eve suspects their existence.  Lola, a refugee from Earth and therapist
on Ganymede, is propelled into their orbit when one of her patients turns
out to be a man who cannot exist.

Although set in the same universe as Sheffield's earlier "Cold As Ice," this
book is largely separate and doesn't rely upon you having read its
predecessor.  Unfortunately "The Ganymede Club" also doesn't quite live up
to the reputation of "Cold As Ice."

That is not to say it's a bad book, just that it is perhaps less than it
could have been.  There's no one big gaping flaw with the book, just a
general falling short of its goals.  For example, you'll probably pick the
nature of the conspiracy well before it's unveiled.  I can't believe that
no-one tumbled to the conspiracy's existence before.  Are these people
blind?  Similarly, Lola is aided by two teenage technology savants who as
caricatures are far too familiar.  You'd think by now that supervillians
would live in fear of adolescent uber-hackers.  Will they never learn?  Add
in a few outrageous coincidences and the effect is to stifle the book
somewhat.

But Sheffield manages to save the book despite these faults.  The post-war
devastated solar system is an intriguing backdrop for the story and it's
unfortunate it couldn't be explored more.  Then again, "Cold as Ice" has
done this territory already.  The characterisation is restrained but
effective.  The book is not light hearted but it is non-pretentious and
well-intentioned, which makes up for a lot.  A quote from "Locus" on the
inside cover compares it en passant to a juvenile novel, which is about
right - unambitious, perhaps unoriginal but solid.  Those who might be
thinking of this as a book for a young adult should note there is some low
level sex and violence.

This review may seem faintly damning, but that is not the intention.  This
is a minor work for Sheffield, an entertaining read, and his more ambitious
works are still worth a look.  [**/ok] and holiday reading on the Sid and
Nancy scale.

%A Charles Sheffield
%B The Ganymede Club
%I Tor
%C New York
%D 1996
%G ISBN 0-812-54460-9
%P 342pp
%O paperback, Aus$13.95

paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
[archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/]

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From: doug reeder <[email-masked]>
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Subject: Review: "Proteus Unbound" by Charles Sheffield
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	Proteus Unbound by Charles Sheffield
	Review Copyright 1998 P. Douglas Reeder

_Proteus Unbound_ is a hard SF mystery-adventure in the tradition of 50's
SF, but with a modern feel and modern science.  It takes place in a solar
system divided into two federations and a anarchic borderland.  The Inner
System extends to Pluto, the Outer System exists among the Oort Cloud of
cometary material extending out a light year or two, and the Kernal Ring
is a fictitious intermediate area rich in small rotating black holes --
kernals -- from which energy is extracted.

The Cloulanders, the inhabitants of the Outer System, have been having
trouble with their "forms-change" equipment, which allows one to change
one's body shape, and so recruit an expert from the Inner System, Behrooz
Wolf.  He is aided by several Cloudlanders: Leo Manx is a psychologist
with an interest in Wolf's mental problems, Aybee Smith is a arrogant
young polymath, Sylvia Fernald, the chief of programming, and Cinnabar
Baker, the head of Outer System security.

The problems soon broadens, and the characters must prevent war and save
the solar system.

The mystery involves black holes, entropy and Black Ransome, the
mysterious, half-legendary leader of a Kernal Ring group with poorly
understood objectives.

The writing is adequate but uninspired; while one can identify with the
characters enough to follow the book, they never really come alive.  There
are lots of hints as to how the book will turn out, and I was able to
predict the ending in general terms.  The characters make some progress
toward understanding the mysteries, but most of them are foolishly
captured by the villains, but then turn the tables by clever use of forms-
change equipment, but this clever use is a fairly obvious, and the villain
and indeed all society should have safeguards against this obvious tactic.

There are lots of potentially interesting elements in Sheffield's future,
but most of them are inadequately used, leaving his cultures
uninteresting.  One of the better bits involves people's reactions to the
unreliability of forms-change, which has superceeded all other medical
skill and technology.  People turn to "neo-Asclepians" with their pills of
dubious value.  However, this episode is dismissed in a few paragraphs and
never mentioned again, and the main characters continue to use forms-
change equipment without any problems. Also, I wondered why no reporters
showed up for a major disaster in an apparently open society of the
not-too-distant future.

Devotees of hard SF and adventure (and perhaps those unfamiliar with black
holes and entropy) should find this book at least an adequate read, but
others will want to pass it by.

P. Douglas Reeder      Lecturer, Computer. Science. Dept., Ohio State Univ..
[email-masked]  http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~reeder/reeder.html
GE/S d+ s+:- a- C+$ UH+ P+ L E W++ N+ o? K? w !O M+ V PS+ PE Y PGP- t 5+
!X R>+ tv+ b+++>$ DI+ D- G e+++ h r++>+++ y+>++ 

%T Proteus Unbound
%A Charles Sheffield
%I Del Ray/Ballantine
%D copyright 1989
%O paperback $3.95
%P 262 pp
%G ISBN 0-345-34434-0