Paul Cook (1) (1950–)

This book is not worth your time. The plot is obvious and has been done better by other authors. The characters do not grow or change. They have no motivation and it often seems as if they are acting at random. The writer feels the need to call out the age of almost every character he introduces, which is odd because he also makes note that the age of the body can be halted in this setting. The writer also mentions the race of two characters, which annoyed me for two reasons. First, that's information I just don't need to know in an already bloated book. Second, he doesn't mention the race of any white characters, forcing you to assume that all of his characters are white except the two he calls out. There is also some homophobia that pops up at once point and all characters in the ending scene (which is unnecessary, does not feel earned and makes me wonder why no one is freak out by it) are assumed to be straight (or at least are partnering off as boys and girls). The plot has a few interesting moments but no interesting ideas. If not for the mildly offensive homophobia (a character is upset when his doctor asks if he's gay), it might have been a two-star book. CW: Homophobia, possible racism, sex, murder, dead animals, genocide.… (mehr)

I read this novel when it first came out, back in 1985. I kept my copy through many moves, and just reread it. It is a nice recovery after apocalypse story. It is shaped by what was going on in the world at the time. Thinking back, I can recall some of the fear that everything might end soon, because of the actions of the military complex that think they know everything that infuses some of the book. Mr. Cook is a bit heavy handed in a few places on making Monaco, the main antagonist, into someone truly unlikable. It is quite easy to suspend my disbelief at pretty much all of the scientific excesses and just take the book as it is, and to just let myself be in that time, 580 years from now, but shaped by the world as it was 30 years ago.… (mehr)

I'm not sure how to rate this book, so I'm giving it 3 stars. The book was so uneven. Parts were brilliant & quite creative. Other parts weren't so hot. (There's a pun.) I was tempted to give it 4 stars up until close to the end.

I liked most of the characterization. There was a real mix of characterization types. Most were boldly drawn, too boldly in some cases. Think Doc Savage. Others were quite well done, though.

The plot was very interesting, especially for the first 2/3 of the novel. It was almost unfortunate when I finally figured out what was going on. That part was so well done & once the revelations started, they fell flat. They just didn't live up to the earlier work, unfortunately. There was too much magic & exposition in the final solution.

I have no idea why I read this. I thought I was reading a new author's free novel for some reason & was surprised when I finished & didn't find his email to send him back these comments privately. Oh well, although my plate is very full with other books to read, this one certainly wasn't a waste of time. Everyone else will just have to be patient a bit longer.
;-)… (mehr)

This began as a 2-star story for me, at best, with its 1970's college milieu transplanted mostly unchanged to a 4500-student university on a large starship piloted by the alien Enamorati centuries from now. Though the book opens with "Twenty-seven-year-old Benjamin Bennett rolled over in his dormitory in the middle of the interstellar night...," the primary characters come across much more like undergrads. Perhaps that's because they're all dropouts but more likely it's lazy writing, just as the sexual slang is also straight from the 1970's. Once the story got rolling, though, I was ready to give it another star. There was an undeniable energy to the accumulating SF puzzles and conspiracies. No spoilers here beyond saying the major mysteries and coincidences are resolved, to my mind satisfactorily. The denouement though is back to the triteness of the opening sections and hence my final compromise on 2-and-a-half stars. (Curious note: the author's web page, in summarizing this book, calls Bennett a professor, but he's clearly a student, at least in this edition.)… (mehr)