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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Concept, but Lee a Weak Link,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cradle (Mass Market Paperback)
Having thoroughly enjoyed Clarke's solo works, especially Rendezvous with Rama, I thought I would give Cradle a shot as that story idea looked interesting. I would soon be disappointed however as I began sinking in the quicksand that is Gentry Lee. If you are looking for a really good science fiction book, you should pass on this one and continue your search.The first few hundred pages are filled with more-or-less pointless character development, clearly written by Lee, that would be perfectly at home in a Harlequin romance novel. A few pages of sci-fi, clearly written by Clarke, are interspersed so that the reader may be reminded that they paid $6 for a Clarke novel and not $2 for a grocery store romance tome. To be fair, I will admit that the general character interaction and background does come into play later on. But it just drags on and on and is littered with unnecessary sex scenes. I fail to understand Lee's obsession with writing about sex in the middle of a science fiction novel. Once would be OK, but after about the 4th time I found myself dropping the book and thinking "again?!" In addition, Lee's obsession with race, with each character being introduced as being black, white, Arab, Mexican, etc. is very annoying. The way that the race is then portrayed in the most cliché way is increasingly so. Lee may be an able and accomplished scientist, but his writing does not belong on the same pages with that of Arthur C. Clarke. For some reason, probably because I had paid 900 yen for the book, I decided to stick with it and see the story through to the end. Around page 250 (of 408 total) the book got interesting. From that point forward I found myself wanting to continue to see what would happen next. But 250 pages is a lot to plod through before hitting something worth reading. In the end, the book wasn't that bad. The story could have been rather good had Clarke gone at it alone and focused the book on the sci-fi. As is stands, the bulk of this novel has very little to do with! sci-fi. So all-in-all, Cradle disappoints. The back cover says basically that something terrifying lies at the bottom of the ocean and could mean the extinction of the human race. This whole concept lasts maybe a dozen or so pages at the end of the novel and is never terrifying. The "scary" part is introduced and resolved so quickly that there is hardly time to assimilate it. And as the final words were read, I found myself wondering if the duo had just grown tired of the story as it seemed to suddenly end with several issues unresolved.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Gentry Lee begins his sabotage of Arthur Clarke,
By
This review is from: Cradle (Mass Market Paperback)
I remember receiving this book with excitement. Arthur C Clarke was up until then a consistently good read: capturing, like few others, a real sense of wonder without belabouring his points.This book was his first "collaboration" with Gentry Lee, and from here on his books completely lost me. Lee seems to be obsessed with rubbing our noses in the lesser qualities of humanity while Clarke always made me feel there was something better about us. In this respect I consider that Lee sabotages and subverts Arthur C Clarke's original style and visions. Likewise, he emphasises religious topics where Clarke was always refreshingly free of this. He did the same thing with Rama, taking something wonderful and piling it up with low-grade human dross. In some respects his writing is realistic, but he is too pessimistic and seems to be fundamentally at odds with the genre he is in; he wants to write basic human drama but for some reason insists on doing it within science fiction trappings. As others have said he is unfortunately not all that great at human drama anyway. There is a lot of effort expended, but characters somehow fail to convince me. At the end of Cradle I was left feeling flat and uninterested, and I can't really remember much of the story. The politest way to view this "collaboration" is that the "marketing department" simply chose to use Arthur C Clarke's name to boost a less-than-average writer. Clearly, Clarke has lost interest in the mechanics of writing, or at least no longer has the time for it. As a result I consider that he stopped writing some time ago and discount Cradle and the Rama sequels entirely.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Weak Effort!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cradle (Mass Market Paperback)
I generally love Arthur C. Clarke, but I have never felt a book I paid for was so worthless.This book is far more about character development poorly done than the normal Clarke modus operandus of sci-fi well done. Spend your dollars elsewhere.
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