From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jan 5 13:29:42 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!sunic!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!postmodern.com!not-for-mail From: ecl@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper) Subject: END OF AN ERA by Robert J. Sawyer Message-ID: <9412141709.ZM14946-repost@mtgpfs1.mt.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Sender: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Organization: The Internet Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 02:57:50 GMT Approved: mcb@postmodern.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) Lines: 34 END OF AN ERA by Robert J. Sawyer Ace, ISBN 0-441-00114-9, 1994, 222pp, $4.99 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper Sawyer did a lot of research on dinosaurs for his "Far-Seer" series, and apparently decided that it would be a pity not to make maximum use of it. So he's written a time-travel novel in which the protagonists travel back to the late Cretaceous to find out what really killed off the dinosaurs. The fact that it just happens that the wife of one of the two time travelers left him for the other one, who used to be the first one's best friend, indicates that the plotting is not what one might call minimalist. And what they find when they go back is even less likely. I know science fiction requires a willing suspension of disbelief, but there's also a rule of allowing only one divergence from reality. Unfortunately, this piles several together. It's true that what Sawyer postulates does explain what killed the dinosaurs (and some other stuff besides), but it's so convoluted an explanation that it's not at all satisfying. %A Sawyer, Robert J. %T End of an Era %I Ace %C New York %D December 1994 %G ISBN 0-441-00114-9 %P 222pp %O pb, $4.99 -- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com There's always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong. -- H.L. Mencken From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 27 01:08:53 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!solace!paladin.american.edu!news.jhu.edu!aplcenmp!night.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!boulder!ucsub.Colorado.EDU!brock From: silverag@ix.netcom.com (Steven H Silver) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Review of Robert Sawyer's The Terminal Experiment Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 24 May 1996 02:58:21 GMT Organization: University of Colorado at Boulder Lines: 77 Approved: brock@colorado.edu Message-ID: <4o38kd$5h7@peabody.colorado.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ucsub.colorado.edu NNTP-Posting-User: brock Originator: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.books.reviews:1658 rec.arts.sf.reviews:959 rec.arts.sf.written:153916 REVIEW THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT by Robert J. Sawyer HarperPrism 0-06-105310-4 333pp/$5.50/May 1995 Archived at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3286/index.html When I first became aware of Robert Sawyer, his books had cute little dinosaurs on the covers and I avoided them. Eventually, I heard some good things about them and I picked up the first book of the series (Far-Seer) and discovered that, although the book still had a cute dinosaur cover, the material inside the cover was well worth reading. The Terminal Experiment is Sawyer's sixth book, and only his second book without a dinosaur on the cover. Instead, the cover looks like a medical mystery along the lines of something Robin Cook would write. At the start of the book, Peter Hobson (the book was titled "Hobson's Choice" when it appeared in Analog is a medical student attending an organ-harvesting on a motorcycle victim. When the patient shows a pulse and reacts to the procedure, Hobson begins to wonder where the line between life and death actually is. After graduation, Hobson pursues research into the development of a super-sensitive EEG to determine the actual instant of death. During his research, Hobson and his good friend Sarkar Muhammed develop a technique for creating a perfect neural scan of a person's brain. Hobson and Muhammed create three duplicates of Peter Hobson inside computers at Muhammed's lab. One "Hobson" is immortal, one "Hobson" is dead and one "Hobson" is the control. While this is going on, Hobson's personal life is falling apart. His wife has begun to have an affair with a co- worker (as soon as Sawyer describes how perfect their relationship is, you know she's going to have an affair) and Hobson's father-in-law dies because of a medicinal reaction. To make matters worse, a police investigation focuses on Hobson's life and work. Sawyer is writing a mystery with this book, and, to a certain extent, succeeds. The pace is good, keeping you turning the pages, and the characters are likeable, even the libidinous Hans and the un-enlightened Rod. However, because of the way Sawyer creates his mystery, there is no real chance of figuring out who is responsible. In some ways its reminiscent of the way Conan Doyle would always have Holmes solve the crime by pointing out a piece of evidence that was known only to Holmes and not to Watson. Nevertheless, just as the Holmes stories are well-worth reading, I would also have no hesitation to recommend The Terminal Experiment to a friend. Oh, yeah. Go out and get Sawyer's other books, too. At the very least, you'll be entertained. More likely, you'll begin to think about our society. %A Robert J. Sawyer %T The Terminal Experiment %I HarperPrism %C New York %D May 1995 %G 0-06-105310-4 %P 333 %O PB, $5.50 -- Steven H Silver Bibliographies on Jews in SF, Harry Turtledove, SF set in Chicago http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4208/sfbiblio.html HOMEPAGE: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4208/index.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 12:41:28 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Evelyn C Leeper" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: FACTORING HUMANITY by Robert J. Sawyer Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 08:31:52 -0400 Organization: none Lines: 38 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2078 FACTORING HUMANITY by Robert J. Sawyer Tor, ISBN 0-312-86458-2, 1998, 350pp, US$23.95 A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1998 Evelyn C. Leeper After the relative simplicity of his last book, ILLEGAL ALIEN, Sawyer is back to his typical high-density story. A. E. Van Vogt claimed one should write by having a plot twist every 600 words; sometimes I think Sawyer has decided to throw in a new idea every few thousand words. I mean, I would think that deciphering the messages from our first alien contact and from their instructions building a machine with the functionality of the machine in FACTORING HUMANITY would be enough without adding an entire sub-plot of artificial intelligence, suicides, accusations of abuse, and repressed/manufactured memories. Yes, they all tie together, but they make for a very busy novel. It's all the busier because Sawyer keeps his novels to a reasonable length. He doesn't take a thousand pages to cover all this--he does it in 350. Hang onto your hats. I'm sure I could work up an explanation of how this novel ties in with Sawyer's Canadian-ness and hence feelings of isolation, as Clute did with fellow Canadian Robert Charles Wilson and DARWINIA, but I don't think that has anything to do with it. I do think that this does deal with isolation, but on the level that everyone feels when they are trying to communicate with or understand someone else. %T Factoring Humanity %A Robert J. Sawyer %C New York %D June 1998 %I Tor %O hardback, US$23.95 %G ISBN 0-312-86458-2 %P 350pp Evelyn C. Leeper | eleeper@lucent.com +1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824 "That's how things are--you open the door to a possibility and the next thing you know, an actuality has you by the throat." --Russell Hoban From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sun Jun 20 12:19:39 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!arclight.uoregon.edu!gatech!18.181.0.27.MISMATCH!sipb-server-1.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!usenet From: "Aaron M. Renn" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 07 Jun 1999 13:30:24 -0400 Organization: GNU's Not Unix! Lines: 53 Sender: wex@tinbergen.media.mit.edu Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: tinbergen.media.mit.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2363 Factoring Humanity by Robert J. Sawyer Review Copyright 1999 Aaron Renn Conclusion: Worth Reading Sawyer makes a valiant attempt to write a science fiction story that is as much about real human relationships as it is about science. While this is a worthy goal, Sawyer only partially succeeds in attaining it. His characters and situtations reminded me too much of a Lifetime made for TV movie (martial troubles, child abuse, eating disorders, sexual harrassment, repressed memories, etc) for comfort. In the end I just didn't really find that I cared much about anyone in this story. The rest of the plot was likewise made up cliched elements (first contact with aliens, collective consciousness, artifical intelligence, etc), but they were woven together into a mostly entertaining tale. My main complaint is actually there was a lot of potential in this book that just wasn't explored. I got the feeling I was reading a novella instead of a novel. It is the year 2017, and Earth has been receiving daily transmissions from Alpha Centuri for several years. These abruptly stop, triggering a mad dash to decipher their meaning. Heather Davis is a psychologist working on this problem. Her estranged husband is Kyle Graves, a computer scientist specializing in quantum computing. As Heather works to discover the meaning of the signals, her family life is in a state of major upheaval. The resolution of the family problems are really the heart of the book, and when they come to their conclusion, it basically fizzles out. As I said, the premises that Sawyer set up in this story were so full of potential that I was expecting a lot more. I was very disappointed when I didn't get it. This book is fairly light reading, so I was surprised to see that Factoring Humanity is a Hugo Award nominee. I haven't yet read the other candidates so can't really compare, but I didn't really think think this book even deserved to get issued in hardcover. Don't get me wrong, it's a workman-like job that entertains and was worth the money I spent on it, but I don't think it is one that will linger with me for long after I've finished it. Interestingly, Factoring Humanity is Sawyer's fourth consecutive Hugo nomination. He's yet to get a win, though his 1995 novel The Terminal Experiment won a Nebula. At the rate he's going he's in danger of becoming the Susan Lucci of the Hugos. %A Sawyer, Robert J. %T Factoring Humanity %I Tor %D 1998-06 (original publication date) %G ISBN 0-451-45747-0 %P 348 pp. %O mass market paperback, US$5.99 C$7.99 -- Aaron M. Renn (arenn@urbanophile.com) http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Dec 2 12:35:03 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: "Illegal Alien", Robert J. Sawyer Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 29 Nov 1999 13:24:55 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 69 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 943899897 267 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2506 Illegal Alien, by Robert J. Sawyer Review copyright 1999 Robert M. Slade The book jacket loudly trumpets the surprising plot twists of the book. This is the fault of the publisher, rather than the author, but it does rather detract from the enjoyment of an otherwise very pleasant piece of science fiction when you find that all of "intriguing" plot twists are predictable well in advance, including a weapon first invented by Isaac Asimov, if I remember correctly, and re-used in a modified form in such non-sf works as Michael Slade's "Ripper." The plot ... well, the plot *is* convoluted enough, and yet simple enough, that to discuss it at all is almost to give the game away entirely. Most of the action centres around the trial of one of the first aliens to land on Earth, who has been charged with the murder of one of the first people to meet him. Yet, in the end, the trial itself is almost irrelevant to the story. There is a token effort to present differing cultures and attitudes between the aliens and ourselves. In an interesting reversal of recent sf dogma, the aliens are the religious ones while the earthlings are the more atheistic. However, the book assumes a rather stunning similarity in psychology. A number of actions take place that, in view of the story in its totality, really make very little sense at all. Again, this series is about technology. Now, there isn't an awful lot of technology on offer in this text. But one part notes that the aliens are able to cross interstellar space because of an ability to hibernate. Very useful ability, that. They need nothing more, to sleep for two hundred years, than a comfortable bed, and a cool temperature in order to induce the hibernation state. Now that comfortable bed is one thing. The aliens have an arm running down the middle of the back, and therefore a slot in the bed to accommodate it, and therefore they don't toss and turn much. After two hundred years you would have one heck of a set of bed sores. Hibernation as we know it does not drop your metabolism all that much. Get a good supply of body fat, and you can actually go for a month without eating. Bears only have to extend that a few times. But even if you were able to drop your metabolism to one percent of normal, a two hundred year trip would mean that you would have to pack on a two year supply of nutrients. That'd be a fair sized pot. The aliens, though, haven't developed hibernation to get them through the winter. Or, rather, their periodic winters are four hundred thousand years long. Let's say that you can drop your metabolism to one percent of one percent. That would be equivalent to a heart beat every three hours or breathing about twice a day for us, just a bit beyond the time suggested in the CPR lessons. You would still have to carry forty years worth of goodies, or roughly a lifetime supply, to get you through that period. Put another way, can you see something living on the same time scale that we do, being able to survive for a time that starts to be significant in geologic terms? %A Robert J. Sawyer %O ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sawyer %C 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 %D 1997 %G 0-441-00592-6 %I Ace/Penguin/Putnam %O http://www.penguinputnam.com %P 301 p. %T "Illegal Alien" ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade