[Search for users]
[Overall Top Noters]
[List of all Conferences]
[Download this site]
Title: | Arcana Caelestia |
Notice: | Directory listings are in topic 2 |
Moderator: | NETRIX::thomas |
|
Created: | Thu Dec 08 1983 |
Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
Number of topics: | 1300 |
Total number of notes: | 18728 |
907.0. "Gregory Feeley" by LUGGER::REDFORD () Tue Aug 28 1990 02:34
"The Oxygen Barons"
Ace Science Fiction Special 1990
Diamond-hard SF with a ludicrously thin plot. If this is
what the Ace Specials have turned into since Terry Carr's death,
it's no wonder that he was hailed as such a brilliant editor. It
should be the editor who says "You know, this section has
absolutely nothing to do with the previous section except that
the protagonist has the same name", not the reader. The new
editor of the series, Damon Knight, has a lot of catching up to do.
The book is assembled from five stories. They're all set in a
future where the Moon has been terraformed to the point of having
a breathable atmosphere, but is being fought over for reasons
that stay obscure throughout the book. The hero, Galvanix,
starts out as a rather low-tech engineer of the Lunar Republic, a
nation recognized by no one but one that is trying to turn the
Moon into a real world. He's caught up in the diversion of a
comet that is supposed to gracefully deliver water to the
atmosphere but instead is due to hit the Moon full on. That
starts this Candide on a whirlwind tour through the oceans on the
far side of the Moon, the innards of low-orbit arcologies, and
the slums of Madras, India.
Much is left undeveloped, perhaps for sequels. We never learn
much about Beryl, an indestructible agent of the Orbital
Consortium and Galvanix's guide. The Pearl-Harbor-ish attack on
Nearside is never described beyond the first strike. The
individual scenes are interesting (especially those of how the
Moon is terraformed), but so little effort is made to string them
together that you're left unsatified and irritated.
/jlr
T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines
|
---|