Customer Reviews

Centauri Dawn (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Book 1)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When you write a book based on a standout computer game environment, special skills are required: you have to write the book for non-game-veterans as well as players. In this regard, Ely doesn't really succeed here, but he's got enough storytelling talent to carry the day. He could have made it a first-rank SF book doing true justice to the game, but we don't get that.

What's good is the character development, the growing suspense as tensions between factions increase, and the degree to which Ely took advantage of the rich environment Brian Reynolds created in the computer game. What's not so good, and heavily impacts the suspension of disbelief, is the lack of detail as to the development of the factions. It is too easy to assume that they just sprang up out of pods that scattered from the mothership, and that's too sanitary a conclusion. There was tremendously fertile ground here for storytelling about how the factions went from 'the bunch of castaways who happened to land with Deirdre Skye' to 'the Gaians', and Ely bypassed it--pity. How'd they end up factionalizing as they did, beyond the on-ship bickering prior to the start point of the book? Where'd they get their faction names? How about a map to put this into spatial perspective? No luck.

A decent SF book mainly of interest to fans of the computer game, but one that radiates missed potential.

And winning the narrow catagory of "Best Book Based on a Video Game" is . . . Centauri Dawn!

If you enjoy playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, this book will expand the game a little bit for you, and develops some of the neat story-elements in the game. If you don't play SMAC, you might still enjoy the books, and then you can have the added bonus of buying the games and reliving some of the story elements.

For those not familiar with the game, it (and the book) take place on a habitable planet on Alpha Centauri. An interstellar colony ship arrives, only to learn that the developing war on Earth has apparently cut off all contact with Earth. Seven archetypical leaders (a scientist, a merchant, an environmentalist, etc.) start factions on the new planet, and risk repeating Earth's destruction.

If you enjoy this book, then I have two more recommendations for you. First, try Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars, by Kim Staley Robinson. Those books explore very similar themes, from a little bit more of a "hard sf" perspective. Second, if you haven't read it yet, try the Iliad, by Homer. Most of the second half of Centauri Dawn is a retelling of the story of Achilles, Patrokolus, and Hector, and it's fun to trace the two stories together.

I bought Centauri Dawn yesterday, and I enjoyed it a lot! I stayed up until I was done reading it. I have to admit, every time I played the Alpha Centauri game, I wondered how it would look like for "real", and this book, I think, has brought that image into my mind like I always expected it would be. Although it might be a tad more easy to understand things that occur in the book if you have played the game, it's still an excellent book! I recommend buying it!

This book is an really interesting and great for teens and adults, especially those who played the game.

The story begins at the landing on the sanctuary planet, called Alpha Centauri. It shows how the different fractions survive with limited resources and wars between each other! It reflects on the nature of humans (e.g. the way we react to a problem, hard-headed, regret etc.)

Actually, this book is best for beginners in Sci-Fi reading. I can't wait for the 2nd book!

I got this book for christmas and didn't start it for awhile. But once I did start it I couldn't put it down. The story really moves along, and I finished the whole book in a day and a half.

If you're looking for a book with some great action and interesting characterizations (and a cut above the usual novelization), I'd recommend this one. In particular, the ending is interesting for what the writer does with (and to) his main characters. No one escapes this book unscathed.

I stumbled across this book by accident browsing on one of my favorite bookstores. I have played the game "Alpha Centauri" and enjoyed the complexity and the depth of it and was excited at the prospect of a novel based on its premise and its characters

Any book based on a video game is bound to have some difficulties but the sheer scope of `Alpha Centauri" should have provided a fertile groundwork for a book many times the size of this novel. Mr. Ely manages to shrink the setting and the situation is size and scope rather than expand it.

Colonists on the spaceship Unity have fled a dying earth to establish a life on Chiron, a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. After enduring forty years of interstellar travel they arrive at their destination but before landfall the ship falls to infighting and possible sabotage. The Unity's seven escape pods having landed well apart from each other across the uncharted new planet, and seven infant societies are formed around each of their charismatic leaders and social ideals.
The seven factions are:
Gaia's Stepdaughters a faction of environmentalists
The Human Hive a police state based on atheistic communism.
Morgan Industries a society based on industrialization and free market ideals.
The Lord's Believers a religious society opposed to science and materialism.
Peacekeepers a collection of bureaucrats.
The Spartans military oriented survivalists.
The University of Planet a faction of scientists and researchers

Missing is the book is the construction of the colonies and the interplay between factions. I believe Mr. Ely missed a great opportunity to explore the view of this new world from the average citizen of these factions. Say for example not every one was correctly sorted into the differing faction pods when the colonies were first established, how does a sentimentally minded scientist cope with living with the fanatical Believers?

The book is largely about the conflict between the Peacekeepers faction and the Spartans. Here the Peacekeepers were painted too much to be the good guys to be believable and the Spartans seem to be there simply to provide a face to the enemy. The Spartans became more of a characterization of our current societies fear of militias and terrorists then a possible society. Rather than a society where the strong lead and prosper Mr. Ely paints a society of sociopaths who kill any they view as weak.

Missing entirely is any sense of wonder tat the landscape of Chiron or its native flora and fauna. Also missing is the sense that the book is taking place in the future. True lasar guns are tossed around but there is no sense that this is taking place far away from what we daily experience.

While I did enjoy reading this book I do not feel compelled in any way to seek out the next two books in the trilogy.

This book is truly for anyone familiar with the computer game. I wish it had come out about a month after the game came out. The universal theme of man's inhumanity towards itself is present throughout this book. Having escaped Earth's destruction history seems to repeat itself. Would this happen in real life is an interesting question brought up by the author. Each faction represents a different aspect of mankind. I'm looking foward to the next two titles in the trilogy. I hope this trilogy eventually leads into a series so the authors can have more space and time to get into the details of the origins of each faction.

For those of you who are tired of reading Star Trek novels; this one has characters that experience change. I look forward the the other two novels in this triology. It's refreshing to see a new world that doesn't adhere to any rules,that must preserve a franchise that sells action figures and toys. Michael Ely has taken the concept of the Alpha Centarui game and gave it a life I never expected. The characters and story in this first volume are worth a look.

I bought the book because I really like the game but I have to say that the game is a WHOLE LOT better than the book. The book starts off with several good scenes that set up an interesting situation but the author isn't able to sustain his momentum and ultimately devolves into a disappointing us vs. them fight that nobody wins.

Perhaps the author is stating that fighting a war is a lose-lose proposition. This is a generally true statement given the amazing destructive power of modern warfare. But he gets too caught up in the increasingly self-destructive motivations of his protagonists and the story becomes nothing but a chronology of the horror of war.

I really can't express my disappointment at how the book went from the intriguing high-level scope of the game to watching a couple of factions beat each other to death. I finished the book but it was a constant struggle between boredom and disgust.

I'm a latecomer to the series, but becuase of that I got to read them all at once. As video game books go, they are fantastic. I was expecting flat characters and cliche's, but got an ambitious book with characters' lives set against a brutal war.
It's the mixing of individuals with big events that made this first book a compelling read. If I had to pick a fault it's that the writing is kind of rough around the edges at time, but this doesn't get in the way of the fast-paced story. And it is fast-paced...more action than sci-fi.