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Conference noted::sf

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
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