Customer Reviews

The Descent of Anansi

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

 

 

In the not-so-distant future, Falling Angel Industries is headquartered on a Lunar-orbiting space station, constructed from used STS External Tanks. FA has just produced 1,400 kilometers of the strongest cable ever produced-single-crystal iron suspended in an epoxy matrix, .8 millimeters thick. Two companies- Brazil Techimotores-Electronics and Oyama Construction have bidded for the cable, and Oyama has won. Transporting the cable from Falling Angel to LEO via the Space Shuttle Anansi/Ion Drive Tug Gabriel, the six-day voyage gives BTE enough time to join forces with a group of Iranian terrorists. Stealing and launching a Soviet Prometheus ground-to-orbit missile, they destroy the Gabriel and cripple the Anansi and cable re-entry pod, also killing an Anansi crewmember. With the Anansi stranded in orbit, with no way to re-enter and no way to get back to Falling Angel, BTE launches two Space Shuttles. Their mission: retrieve the cable, and finish the job that the missile didn't complete . . . . Destroy the Anansi and her crew.

Wonderful book ! Pay no attention to other carping comments.The book that made me understand about tides. It has believable characters, great plot, tension--this should be made into a movie. I'm already casting the principal characters in my mind...

This book is a fluffy but fun read about some Brazilians going to the moon. It has a large cast of characters with difficult names. It reminds one of "Outland" more than any known space books. What the heck...it's a hoot. Not much substance but an entertaining airplane book.

I found this paperback in my piles of old books. I have no memory of ever reading it before. It feels like it is written today, although it is from 1982. I had trouble understanding what was going on until halfway through the story, when I was finally able to picture the two shuttles connected by a thread and orbiting the Earth, each of them getting further and further apart as the ANANSI ( shuttle ) descends. Either the title should be changed or there should be a diagram on the cover of the book. The concept alone is so good and my visual in my head is so cool that the story is great. It would never work as a movie, though. The cable is too thin and the action is in real time... very slow. The concept of Muslim terrorists, Hispanic space mercenaries, end of the shuttle program, nano-cable, products produced in zero gravity, rock-like pot-metal that burns off in re-entry, smelly spacesuits, and former and current love affairs in space close quarters are fabulous. Good to have in your memory bank. Also reminds me of the very first Niven story that I ever read, Neutron Star... TIDES !

I had a bit of trouble following some of what was going on. The romance seemed a bit forced to make the story more interesting.