Tor, copyright 2004, 470 pages Read: April 2010 (at age 32)
First time read
What this book is:
This is one of many of Bova’s books based on the solar system (his “Grand Tour”), which do follow each other, but can mostly be read out of order without too much being lost. This one, however, seems like it would be directly linked to the next in the series, Titan, but having not read Titan yet, it’s hard to say. Some characters do appear from other novels, which may give a bit more background into their motivations.
So far in this series, I’ve read Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury. All these stood alone fairly well.
My comments: (spoilers ahoy!)
Overall:
It started with a lot of promise – clearly delineated forces, some motivations, some interesting characters, and conflict clearly spelled out.
Rating: 2
Characters:
Weak. Nobody really jumped out and grabbed me, and there seemed to be a lot of them.
Let’s see. Our viewpoint characters:
· There was an approval/power-hungry “bad guy” who is sort of redeemed at the end, along with his clique of actually bad bad-guys. He was kind of interesting, but I never saw what the heroine liked in him, which made a lot of the interactions seem to be forced.
· Our heroine is competent, but is sort of along for the ride, and spends most of her time mooning over the bad guy, before abruptly falling for another fellow. It seemed abrupt, anyway, since any romance prior to the “love the rescuer” moment was conducted off-camera. Fair enough, I guess, since she’s supposed to have the emotions of a teenager, but it wasn’t engaging for me.
· Our superman-stuntman plot hook and knight in powered armour. Meh. He didn’t do too much for me, but was one of the more sympathetic viewpoint characters.
· The station head. Who was perfect, except for the weakness needed by the political intrigue subplot.
There were several other viewpoint characters that had bit roles, and probably larger roles within the series, but in this book, they didn’t add too much. Really, I think there were too many viewpoint characters. I didn’t get attached to any one of them
Premise:
Fine. This is a colony-ship story – a ship is flying to Saturn to set up a research colony. Not unusual sci-fi fare, and can be interesting. In this book, the closed civilization was treated as a sociological experiment, which was different than I’d read before, but – couldn’t you do that on earth, for much cheaper? Or on the moon, or Jupiter, or any of the other places that are already started toward colonization? It was ok, nonetheless.
Setting:
Fair. This was the focus of the story and the setting is intricately tied into the premise of the story. Take a closed civilization, mix in some political intrigue, and see what happens. From the few I’ve read, the Grand Tour seems almost like Heinlein’s Future History series, in that there’s an intricately plotted out setting. Too much worrying about what can happen with the setting can sometimes block the flow of the story, and I think that’s what happened here.
Plot:
Weak. This story seemed mostly setting driven, as noted above. I’m defining political intrigue as “setting” rather than “plot” in this case, because the characters are mostly reacting to scheming from off camera, rather than actively plotting anything. Even the “bad guy” who’s plotting to take control of the station, the politicking seems to just happen to him, rather than be something he does. Of course he’s elected president-for-life, or whatever. It was heavily telegraphed through the whole book. What’s left are:
· A romance arc for the main character, which is somewhat unsatisfying due to the abrupt ending.
· A stunt-arc, which was ok, but it went with a second romance arc that appeared to be there merely to have somebody get all angst-y about the stunt man.
· The exploration arc, where of course they found life – it’s been everywhere else in the solar system, it seems.
· The “what exactly is going on on the station” arc – what is the true experiment? Which was resolved, and fairly neatly, too. It was the most interesting arc to me, but didn’t carry the story on its own.
Readability:
Fine. Clear writing and evocative descriptions. It didn’t grab me and carry me away, though. Even when I had more than a half-hour to read, after about half an hour, I wanted to get up and do something else. I think that this had to do with me not really caring too much about any of the characters, and again, the sheer number of viewpoint characters.
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