Warner Books - 1988, Printed 1989, 408 pages
ISBN: 0-446-35601-8
Read: August 2010 (at age 32)
First time read
What this book is:
This is a standalone piece of near future science fiction – the date of the story is set in 1993.
From the back cover:
“Arthur C. Clarke brings his thrilling, eerie vision to a spine-tingling modern adventure that ranges from the unguessable past to the edge of tomorrow, from the vast oceans of stars to the bottom of the sea. For here, something powerful waits to awaken. Something terrifying that might trigger the dawn of human extinction. Something that’s about to be found…”
And that sounds like a better book that the one that I read. The one I read was a slow build-up to nothing, with unbelievable characters, no terror, and no epic scope.
My comments: (spoilers ahoy!)
Overall:
I think that this was supposed to be a science thriller, but I didn’t feel any tension. The characters didn’t feel like people, and the story wasn’t much. Other than the sections where the main three characters were dealing with the alien ship, there wasn’t any wonder in the story. In addition, there was a whole lot of “tell, don’t show” exposition. I kept reading hoping it would get better, but it never really did.
My kid woke up with 10 pages left in the book. I put it down to deal with him, and didn’t bother to pick it up again for two days. That says to me that the book was not very good.
Rating: 2
Characters:
Weak. The characters did not seem like people to me. The character design was sound, I guess, if not particularly exciting, but the execution was very poor. Each character had exactly one deep dark secret that had shaped their lives, which they all knew shaped their lives, and they were able to tell us in a few pages of exposition. For almost every one of them, it was the first time they’d ever told anyone. Our four main characters were:
· Carol – a Barbie doll of a woman who hated when people noticed that she was attractive. She was also smart, and ambitious, and a journalist. Did I mention that she was attractive? Maybe I’d better be clear. The author took every available opportunity to talk about how attractive she was. And smart. And flat, as a character.
· Nick – He’s a bit of a jerk, and a bit of a sports junkie, although that’s only really mentioned once. He reads a lot, and seems like a bit of a Mary Sue. Of course the girl falls in love with him, even though there seems to be no reason why.
· Troy – He’s nice, personable, and funny. And black. Kind of like Carol’s attractive, the author takes every opportunity to mention it. It got really old. I may not be the best reader in the world, but even I’ll pick up that a fellow named “Troy Jefferson” just might have some African ancestry.
· Vernon – He’s a military officer in a bad marriage. And he likes acting, and is in a crisis of faith. I’m not really sure what his role in the story was. There was a lot of detail about him, but it never really came together.
I won’t spoil the deep dark secrets, but they’re not that terrible, really. They give the characters some motivations, I guess, but it would work better if it wasn’t in a “because I have daddy issues, I’ll do XYZ” sort of execution.
Premise:
Good. This is a first-contact type of story, and the space alien part of the book was well done. The idea of an advanced alien race saving endangered animals from all parts of the universe and keeping them in a zoo, tweaking them a little, and releasing them back into their environments was interesting.
Setting:
Fair. Florida circa 5 years into the future. Woo. There were technical gizmos like video phones in all the hotels, but people didn’t use them like I think people would. And they made a point of how modern and futuristic they were being while using them. Other than that, it really wasn’t that exciting.
Plot:
Weak. Like the characters, the plot seemed to have been written by checklist. It didn’t flow organically, and the events seemed far fetched – not so much the events themselves, as they were pretty much standard thriller fare, but I thought that how the characters responded to the situations was poor.
Readability:
Good. The pacing was fine. I finished it to see what the payoff was going to be – unfortunately it didn’t really deliver, but it wasn’t hard reading. I did put it down a few times because it was too ridiculous.
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