review of
James P. Hogan's Outward Bound
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Schmeck. This is one of those bks that has ZILCH originality to the writing. As such, despite my liking aspects of the plot, I found it a very monotonous read. This virtually pukes w/ taught writing. AND it's a "JupiterTM" [imagine "TM" in superscript] novel - Jupiter's trademarked. Trademark my dick, why doncha?!

The basic story's about a gangster kid repurposing his life for outer-space, discovering a more positive side to himself.

"Linc waved the rest aside with a shake of his head and peeled a fifty off a roll he produced from his belt.

""Say, are you sure? . . ." But his father was already reaching for it. "I'll have it back for you by—"

""It doesn't matter. Keep it," Linc said curtly.

"And he left before the taste in his mouth could get any worse. Bad luck could happen to anybody, and anyone might be in need of a helping hand one day. But to have no pride. That was something else." - p 17

I kindof found it unconvincing. maybe the author has direct experience w/ impoverished desperate living, maybe his version of it is based on watching TV. Dunno.

As Linc get recruited into off-Earth living, he gets this spiel:

"["]Command through loyalty, not authority. Respect in place of fear. Competence and knowledge, the only true wealth." The Director looked around at their expression as they puzzled over the words. He gave them several seconds and then explained, "Because out where we are, you can't afford to waste human talent. You have to harness the potential that exists in everyone for doing something worthwhile and being needed. There isn't any room for passengers. And in particular, there is no room for a mass of unthinking, obedient sheep, whose only function is to be exploited and controlled by a privileged few. Everyone must be free to become the most they are capable of."" - p 100

& it's thanks to anarchistic passages like that that this bk squeaked by w/ a 3 star rating. Otherwise, it wd've been 2 stars.

""We're not recruiting for some elite unit of the army or anything like that. We have beginnings of a whole society taking shape. New people are going to be born there—in fact, they are being born already—and that means as varied as people come. A society that couldn't absorb all kinds wouldn't be much use. is it supposed to eliminate the ones who don't fit? Society should be shaped to fit people they way they are. It's trying to do it the other way that causes the problems."" - p 106

This is the (near) future but entertainment is still what's become the same-old-same-old: "A brown-skinned kid called Muddy (he was presumably from Mississippi) did a creditable job as deejay, and others who fancied their talents took turns at rendering live vocals." - p 110

Despite alternative expectations, Linc gets recruited into the outer-space army ANYWAY: "In some ways Linc's first impression was that his existence had regressed from the quality it had attained at Coulie and Seville Trace to something more like the detention conditions he had known previously. A crop-headed sergeant called Schultz, who was in charge of cadet basic training, shouted incessantly and was satisfied by nothing. Every minor infraction became a reason for personal degradation and abuse. Linc gritted his teeth and reminded himself that he had chosen to accept it." (p 121) Ah.. "Every [deviation] became a[n excuse] for personal degradation and abuse.": I'm reminded of life in BalTimOre where the prison/military mentality permeated 'normal' social relations.

"The smart ones were the worst: throwing kids in the slammer for leaning on a few jerks in order to get a decent car and a suit, while themselves looting nations wholesale and counting the corpses in millions." (p 126) Maybe Hogan does know what he's talking about after all.

I reckon you might not even need to be an SF nerd anymore to recognize the origin of one of these words: "a mile from the remote-directed "waldo" assembly robot he'd been controlling." (p 146) Heinlein's coinage might be one of the most successfully assimilated.

"Their perceptions had been shaped by media depictions, which Linc now had no doubt were contrived deliberately to mislead and misinform." (p 207) Indeed. Its interesting to me that Hogan's analysis is very anarchist & apparently uncensored here but I wonder if his publisher would draw the line on any linguistic eccentricities. ( )

A Jupiter™ novel ( )