I recently realised that for all that I supposedly love science-fiction, I have apparently read almost no hard science fiction in my life, outside of the Foundation series, and not even that much soft science fiction outside of Star Wars. Now trying to catch up and read some things.
I read Sundiver, the first book in the Uplift series. I guess this one is actually a little divorced from the timeline of the rest of the series, basically showing the very basic beginnings of the new era humanity finds itself in? The writing style in this book seems really strange. It's more than just the stereotype of hard science fiction presenting cool ideas but having a relatively lacklustre story proper. A lot of terms and background events are thrown at the reader without ever really trying to elucidate on it, outside of a few repeat mentions to give ever slightly more context. The writing itself seems flighty, sometimes having scenes that are literally only a half a page long before skipping over to another point of view. There's a weird crescendo and rising action for a false climax about two thirds of the way through the book, and it struggles to build up after to the real climax. There's innuendo, both sexual and otherwise, that feels strangely sanitised. More amusingly, the story is actually a mystery novel wrapped up in a science fiction shell.
My library offered this as a digital read, so that's what I used, otherwise it would take weeks to get a physical copy. I feel like I should have, since apparently the book would have had a map of the in-story starship about half the book takes place on, which would give a better read on a lot of the scenes. Also, this may be the first book I've read in...maybe ever, where I absolutely struggled to visualise the scene descriptions. A lot of that was descriptions of the sun surface, trying to describe filaments and spicules in ways that never really clicked.
Anyways, I'll still give the next book a rise, since that's apparently the proper start of the series.
I read Sundiver, the first book in the Uplift series. I guess this one is actually a little divorced from the timeline of the rest of the series, basically showing the very basic beginnings of the new era humanity finds itself in? The writing style in this book seems really strange. It's more than just the stereotype of hard science fiction presenting cool ideas but having a relatively lacklustre story proper. A lot of terms and background events are thrown at the reader without ever really trying to elucidate on it, outside of a few repeat mentions to give ever slightly more context. The writing itself seems flighty, sometimes having scenes that are literally only a half a page long before skipping over to another point of view. There's a weird crescendo and rising action for a false climax about two thirds of the way through the book, and it struggles to build up after to the real climax. There's innuendo, both sexual and otherwise, that feels strangely sanitised. More amusingly, the story is actually a mystery novel wrapped up in a science fiction shell.
My library offered this as a digital read, so that's what I used, otherwise it would take weeks to get a physical copy. I feel like I should have, since apparently the book would have had a map of the in-story starship about half the book takes place on, which would give a better read on a lot of the scenes. Also, this may be the first book I've read in...maybe ever, where I absolutely struggled to visualise the scene descriptions. A lot of that was descriptions of the sun surface, trying to describe filaments and spicules in ways that never really clicked.
Anyways, I'll still give the next book a rise, since that's apparently the proper start of the series.