If you can get past the rampant sexism, hamfisted dialogue, inexplicable alien orgies, and detachment from all realistic human behavior, there's actually an interesting physics thought experiment here. ( )

Wow, this book surprised me and I am glad I stuck with it. Let me explain. When I started reading/listening to this book I will be honest and say that much of it was going over my head. The scientific descriptions of the sun and the dragon eggs star were something I was not understanding, and I tended to skim or daydream at first. Then the whole descriptions of the cheela's evolution and growth as a society was to me a yawner. But I stuck with it, mainly because this is a short book compared to some I read.
Sticking with it paid off for me. I cannot say much more I think but once communication between the cheela and the humans is attempted it started getting much more interesting. By the end of it I had that "sense of wonda" that I really enjoy.
So, give it try and stick with it. ( )

The concept is brilliant: intelligent life evolves on a neutron star, which means they experience the world a million times faster than us.

The question of how to communicate with a being whose lifespan unfolds over your coffee break adds an interesting personal dimension, as we see relationships develop in which each side has a very different experience of their shared time. The progress of the civilisation as a whole is just as compelling. The cheela (inhabitants of the neutron star), while capable of reasoning and abstract thought, had been acting essentially on instinct, under the harsh constraints of their environment. But with the slightest prod from human contact, they explode into civilisation.

Given their ability to spend a lifetime planning a response to any move from the humans, the cheela are able to run rings around us; no spoilers, though, about what they choose to do.

As usual, I'd love to be able to read a book like this without having to hear how hot all the female scientists are, but hey. ( )

good structure and good science, but dialogue is dry and some parts too long and boring; did not appreciate alien Messiah parallels; good beginning, great ending ( )

Honestly, this book doesn't have that much of a plot, but it's quite interesting nonetheless.

It describes the emergence of an alien civilization on the surface of a neutron star, where the chemistry is nuclear rather than atomic because the gravity has crushed atoms. It's more like a "what if" book: what if an alien civilization could develop in such a different environment? What would the creatures have to look like? How would the very different physical environment affect things? And what happens if humans, one day, eventually encounter such a civilization? The author has obviously thought deeply about this, and the book feels very plausible.

It is interesting mostly because of what the author thought about this very different form of life, not because of plot or characters. It is composed of short stories, little snippets taken out of the thousands of generations of these alien creatures, as they progress from a hunter-gatherer society all the way to a centralized technical civilization. Interwoven with this is the story of how humans discover and interact with them; because humans work on a much much slower timescale, the alien civilization changes much faster, and humans see a large part of this progress.

This is not a book you read because you want a thriller. This is the kind of book you read because you want something different and interesting, where at the end you sit back and say, "Huh. I wonder...." ( )