Robert L. ForwardCritiques

Fängt mit Weltraumkrieg an, was mir normalerweise nicht besonders gefällt.
2015-04-02
Nach 100 Seiten aufgeben. Der Krieg ist schnell vorbei, aber es ist einfach langweilig geschrieben oder übersetzt. Oder liegt es einfach am Alter des Buches?
Aber es wird eine zweite Chance geben, ich habe noch Das Drachenei von Robert L. Forward im Regal stehen.

If you can get past the rampant sexism, hamfisted dialogue, inexplicable alien orgies, and detachment from all realistic human behavior, there's actually an interesting physics thought experiment here.

As my expectations going into this book were badly disappointed, it was only at a certain realization that I was able to enjoy it sufficiently to finish it and give it 3 stars. The forced writing, two-dimensional characterizations, awkward infodumps of elemental physics and organic chemistry, churlishly convenient aliens, and one-note story prevent this from being anything like an adult hard-SF novel; taken as a "gee-whiz, what-if" SF story for bright 12-year-olds, however, I could stand it as a kid's book.

That biological life could exist on a Kuiper Belt object in such a way as Forward proposes is the great leap of faith here. OK, taken. I'm willing to accept that. But for this life form to conveniently exhibit a recognizable civilization similar in operation to King Arthur's Camelot, and that this species could easily communicate with humans and establish clear understandings is too much. And don't even get me started on the evolutionary aspect of things; Forward should have stuck to his forte and not peddled the _Big Surprise at the End_ as sound evolutionary theory.

This is a neat read to get a kid to read more SF and maybe do science homework with a sense of fun. But this is not in a league with Lem, Reynolds, or even Clarke's "Meeting With Medusa" for aliens or non-terrestrial selection.

Wow, this book surprised me and I am glad I stuck with it. Let me explain. When I started reading/listening to this book I will be honest and say that much of it was going over my head. The scientific descriptions of the sun and the dragon eggs star were something I was not understanding, and I tended to skim or daydream at first. Then the whole descriptions of the cheela's evolution and growth as a society was to me a yawner. But I stuck with it, mainly because this is a short book compared to some I read.
Sticking with it paid off for me. I cannot say much more I think but once communication between the cheela and the humans is attempted it started getting much more interesting. By the end of it I had that "sense of wonda" that I really enjoy.
So, give it try and stick with it.

The concept is brilliant: intelligent life evolves on a neutron star, which means they experience the world a million times faster than us.

The question of how to communicate with a being whose lifespan unfolds over your coffee break adds an interesting personal dimension, as we see relationships develop in which each side has a very different experience of their shared time. The progress of the civilisation as a whole is just as compelling. The cheela (inhabitants of the neutron star), while capable of reasoning and abstract thought, had been acting essentially on instinct, under the harsh constraints of their environment. But with the slightest prod from human contact, they explode into civilisation.

Given their ability to spend a lifetime planning a response to any move from the humans, the cheela are able to run rings around us; no spoilers, though, about what they choose to do.

As usual, I'd love to be able to read a book like this without having to hear how hot all the female scientists are, but hey.

Buu permanecía tendido en su nido, ubicado en un frondoso árbol, y miraba las estrellas sobre el fondo negro del cielo. El peludo y joven humanoide debería estar dormido, pero su curiosidad le mantenía despierto. Medio millón de años después, en el futuro, esta chispa de curiosidad podría dirigir su pensamiento hacia el universo para explorar los misterios matemáticos de la relatividad. Ahora… Buu seguía contemplando el brillo de las estrellas sobre él. Asustado, y a la vez fascinado, vigiló el creciente punto de intensa luz hasta que desapareció detrás de una tupida rama de árbol. Podría observarlo otra vez si se desplazaba hasta el claro cercano. Descendió de su nido… para caer en los dominios de Kaa. Kaa no disfrutó de su captura por mucho tiempo. Para él, las cosas eran difíciles en un mundo con dos soles. El nuevo sol era pequeño y blanco; en cambio, el otro era grande y amarillo. El nuevo sol describía círculos constantes allá en lo alto. No se ponía nunca, y Kaa ya no podía cazar a oscuras. Kaa murió, como los otros depredadores que no pudieron cambiar sus hábitos a tiempo. Durante un año, la nueva luz relumbró desde arriba, quemando el cielo. Luego, poco a poco fue apagándose, hasta que al cabo de unos años volvió a existir la noche en el hemisferio norte de la Tierra.

Impulsada por un revolucionario motor láser, la primera nave espacial interestelar alcanzará el planeta doble que orbita alrededor de la Estrella de Barnard en el plazo de apenas veinte años. Algunos de los mejores científicos del mundo se encuentran a bordo de esa nave y llegarán preparados para vivir aventuras, peligros y, lo que para ellos es más importante, la emoción del descubrimiento científico. Pero lo que van a encontrar, tanto desde el punto de vista del peligro como del descubrimiento, sobrepasará con mucho todas sus expectativas.

Did not finish

good structure and good science, but dialogue is dry and some parts too long and boring; did not appreciate alien Messiah parallels; good beginning, great ending

Honestly, this book doesn't have that much of a plot, but it's quite interesting nonetheless.

It describes the emergence of an alien civilization on the surface of a neutron star, where the chemistry is nuclear rather than atomic because the gravity has crushed atoms. It's more like a "what if" book: what if an alien civilization could develop in such a different environment? What would the creatures have to look like? How would the very different physical environment affect things? And what happens if humans, one day, eventually encounter such a civilization? The author has obviously thought deeply about this, and the book feels very plausible.

It is interesting mostly because of what the author thought about this very different form of life, not because of plot or characters. It is composed of short stories, little snippets taken out of the thousands of generations of these alien creatures, as they progress from a hunter-gatherer society all the way to a centralized technical civilization. Interwoven with this is the story of how humans discover and interact with them; because humans work on a much much slower timescale, the alien civilization changes much faster, and humans see a large part of this progress.

This is not a book you read because you want a thriller. This is the kind of book you read because you want something different and interesting, where at the end you sit back and say, "Huh. I wonder...."

A classic "hard" sf novel and a very unique first contact novel. Over 30 years old it is still an amazing read.

New Year Resolution
2018

Avoid Roger Penrose's 'I loved this' shelf.

I dare say all the positive reviews of this are right, but it's not for me.

This sequel to [b:Dragon's Egg|263466|Dragon's Egg|Robert L. Forward|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403166825s/263466.jpg|2530528] picks up right after the first... which is already rather extraordinary for regular time-constraint purposes.

Just imagine first-contact with little super-dense and fast-living aliens living on a neutron star passing through our Solar System. Now imagine how fast they live: one-million times faster than we do. Civilizations rise and fall in a single day. Technological breakthroughs, cultural revolutions, vast discoveries, and vaster falls can happen in the space of moments.

This happened in the first book. A week for us saw the Chela try to interpret the super slow movements of gods in the sky, go through revolutions, scientific breakthroughs, and finally society capable of waiting for whole generations to speak a few words to us. :)

Add to that some pretty awesome science on both sides done realistic enough to surprise the crap out of me, end the book on a really high note of a new alien civilization having taken all our combined knowledge to take it further than we ever dreamed... and then give us book two. :)

This is where we begin... and within a day, the massively amazing technologically broken-through society, even now fulfilling a dream of time-travel... falls.

Easy come? Easy go. The fall and the redemption of both their species and the fate of our astronauts. So fun. :)

My only complaint? The Chela may look weird and have VERY strange biology, but psychologically they're pretty much exactly like us.

Fortunately, the science and the ideas more than make up for this slight flaw. :)

Classic Hardcore Hard-SF. :)

Really hardcore, even, written by an astrophysicist and wild with the worldbuilding. :) It's the concept that shines. Think about the extended growth of a people from hunters and gatherers all the way to a massively accomplished civilization in the space of a single novel and add a little wrinkle: this happens in the space of how long it takes us for apes to notice a neutron star passing through our Solar System, to put together an expedition, and then to throw scientists at it.

This alien civilization is on the surface of the neutron star. :) They live fast, think fast, and pass through generations really fast. They had time to ponder and build religions and wage wars and learn, looking at our science expedition. It's pretty awesome. :)

I'm reminded of several novels that came out after this one, of course, such as Baxter's Flux, which might be a bit wilder and far-future, but has humans living on a neutron star, too, but I'm also thinking about Children of Time and Crucible of Time from other authors. :) Long-span civilizations and alien cultures. Great stuff. :)

I'm so glad to have caught this classic! :)

I'm not really sure what to think about this book. I liked the parts with the cheela best. I didn't really find any of the humans believable. Maybe there was too much effort in making them "from the future"? Whatever the case, I connected much more with the cheela than the humans.

It took me a long time to get into it. The concept is fascinating, though, and I'd be curious to see what it was like if we ever did meet an alien race who lived on a different time scale from us. (Well. I'm curious to meet another (peaceful) alien race, period.)

I had the same complaint others had about all the humans being intelligent and (in the case of the women) beautiful. Also: why did there need to be mention of not wearing a bra in space? And did anyone else stop to think about the no-bra-in-zero-G logistics? That could get really annoying and potentially painful for the woman. Yeah. Give me the cheela over the humans any day.½

(Original Review, 1991)

I just got around to reading DRAGON'S EGG. It is probably one of the best hard science fiction novels I've ever read. I thought the human characterization was weak in places (not enough introspection, lack of diversity of characters), but clearly Bob knows about the scientific establishment! Actually, I thought that the alien characters were better drawn.

But there is a nit to pick, which I do not believe I have seem mentioned in SFL (*). With a very high Gauss field, not to mention the dense atmosphere, would not there be some strange optical effects? The atmosphere should make for strange refraction patterns, similar to those on Venus, where the horizon curves UP into the sky. And the high Gauss EM field should make optical effects dependent upon the direction you are observing them. If this is correct, then the optics practiced on the DRAGON'S EGG must be far more complicated than were presented in the book.

The only real mention I recall of strange optics were those at the poles, which were attributed to relativity. Are they the EM effects mentioned above? Or were they effects due to the high gravity (acceleration) at the surface? (I believe the distinction here is between the special and the general relativity effects).

Note to Dr. Forward: the book had to be special ordered... how many are out and why are they so scarce? Also, do you ever think a single book will win the Nobel, Pulitzer, Hugo, Nebula, and Moebius {?} prizes? Somehow, no matter how good a book it is would seem not to appeal to at least one of the judging groups! Also, how fast is long and short talk? Does the reference to acoustic waves mean "sound" speed? The speed of sound seems fantastically slow communication method to beings a million times faster than us.

The ending of DRAGON'S EGG in the original draft sent to Ballantine/Del Rey was a long, rambling discussion on the future of intelligent life. It was full of philosophy on robotics and the nature of intelligence, space, time, and the universe. It encompassed all of space and time and contained zero plot, characterization, and action. Fortunately Lester del Rey got to Bob Forward before the readers had this rambling letdown ending imposed upon them. HOWEVER, those masochists among you who would like to plow through 4000 words of the stuff (cut from 7000 words) can send me their NETMAIL address and sometime next week I will inflict a copy on you...I've got it on my BBS but it's still not publicly available.

I also note that there is a sequel to Hal Clement's "MISSION OF GRAVITY" called "STARLIGHT" which evidently has been out since '71, but which I just noticed. I enjoyed "MISSION", though I found "DRAGON'S EGG" a much more interesting discussion of much the same problems. A major difference between the two is that Clement assumes the Mesklinites run on real-time (e.g. "human" time), and the cheela run on mega-human time (1 million times faster). It Is interesting that Clement did think of this, as witnessed by his character remarking "We knew things would fall faster here, but we just assumed you (Mesklinites) would therefore have faster reaction times."

[2018 EDIT: This review was written at the time as I was running my own personal BBS server. Much of the language of this and other reviews written in 1980 reflect a very particular kind of language: what I call now in retrospect a “BBS language”.]

[2018 EDIT (*): "Science Fiction League" for those of you who have no idea what it means...]

Nice gentle story, They get marooned, they work on getting along, meet a new life-form. It was a nice relaxing read. Just what I was in the mood for.

Long on "hard science," short on character, this book is just over the top. I have to admit I am not a big Forward fan anyway, but this book is rather like a Heinlein wannabe.

Forward is a genius and his own brand of hard sci-fi is technically amazing. I also like how developed the alien culture is in this novel (part of the Rocheworld series). I have not read any of the sequels.

You can read Dragon's Egg without reading this but you cannot really read this without having read Egg. The story continues on without a break. In the 5 years between the publication dates Forward has learnt a thing or too about the storyteller's art. I think he's also been reading Frank Herbert and some very alien things happen to the cheela. It's quietly written and is left to your imagination to see what it would be like to be reborn over and over again. Yes, a thoroughly enjoyable novel.

If you are obsessed with plot and character then you need to read this novel. It has neither and still works. In concept it is what is technically termed, I believe, 'far-out'.

It's quietly and calmly written which works well with the technological aspects, though if I'm honest, I don't understand the science and in place of 'magnetic monopoles' or whatever I just read 'flux capacitor' and 'inverted tachion field'.

The lack of characterisation is caused by the sheer amount of time that passes. A cheela can barely come on stage before they're dead and during the latter sections so little time passes for the humans that you only see them for a few seconds at a time. The cheela are wonderfully conceived and you really get a sense of how physically weird they are. Love the way that inside they're just like us and how the development of their civilisation mirrors and comments on our own.

Yes, a thoroughly enjoyable novel. I love the bit with the black holes at the end. It's complete in itself but there's also a sequel called Starquake.

It anyone's interested there's a very loose Star Trek Voyager adaptation called The Egg.

I was amazed at how much my interest in this novel sped up as I read it. It starts slowly enough half a millions years ago and much of it takes place one day in the not too far future as a space expedition to visit a neutron star approaches within a manageable number of diameters of the solar system. Apparently this is a classic of hard science fiction and I can see why. Quite a number of characters appear and pass on limiting their time on the scene, but there are quite a few heroic and epic stories told. I was quite satisfied when I finished it in one day. I just did not want to put it down.

Author autographed copy

I enjoyed the book very much. The opening bit of the Cheela's story is a tad slow and the ending, while providing perfect closer is also a tad hokey. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It reminded a great deal of The Listeners by James E. Gunn.

Life on a neutron star, from a physicist. Who knew something so prosaic could be spellbinding?