eBook
English language
Published Jan. 4, 2003 by Random House Publishing Group.
The year is 2010. More than a century of ecological damage, industrial and technological expansion, and unchecked population growth has left the Earth on the brink of devastation. As the world's governments turn inward, one man dares to envision a bolder, brighter future. That man, Reid Malenfant, has a very different solution to the problems plaguing the planet: the exploration and colonization of space. Now Malenfant gambles the very existence of time on a single desperate throw of the dice. Battling national sabotage and international outcry, as apocalyptic riots sweep the globe, he builds a spacecraft and launches it into deep space. The odds are a trillion to one against him. Or are they?
I read it because ive heard of the Downstreamers in scifi discussions and found the idea enticing. But while the book does deliver in the hard scifi department, i felt the execution of the downstreamers lacking and disliked the actual story the book had and its characters. I probably wont read the other two books in the series.
To cut to the chase, I didn't care for this book much at all. I've never read a sci-fi book so heavy on science, by which I mean he spent a LOT of time explaining various scientific principles. There were LONG passages where various ideas and theories are discussed, explained, etc, so much so that, for me, it killed the flow of the story. I like science, and I like novels. For me, this was NOT a good mix. Tell me what's going on, not why. I don't care, in the context of a novel, about Relativity, quantum theory, etc. Just tell about that darn space ships! :P
Another issue I had with this book, which may or may not carry as much weight with others, was that if the author needed a bad guy, it was probably some crazy Christian. I get that people don't accept Christianity as I …
To cut to the chase, I didn't care for this book much at all. I've never read a sci-fi book so heavy on science, by which I mean he spent a LOT of time explaining various scientific principles. There were LONG passages where various ideas and theories are discussed, explained, etc, so much so that, for me, it killed the flow of the story. I like science, and I like novels. For me, this was NOT a good mix. Tell me what's going on, not why. I don't care, in the context of a novel, about Relativity, quantum theory, etc. Just tell about that darn space ships! :P
Another issue I had with this book, which may or may not carry as much weight with others, was that if the author needed a bad guy, it was probably some crazy Christian. I get that people don't accept Christianity as I do. Though I think the'yre wrong, obviously, I'm not going beat them with a buckler and force them to convert. By the same token, I'd rather not spend countless hours reading what I had hoped to be a fun sci-fi novel, only to see it make baseless caricatures of my faith. Call me petty if you will, but that part of the story was impossible for me to ignore.
I finished the book, but I don't think I'll be reading any more in the series.
