Customer Reviews

Dragon's Egg

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert L. Forward has written an absolutely wonderful account of an alien life that simply has not been done as well as this in any other SF book I've read.

To set the tone, picture a neutron star. This is simply one of the most hostile astronomical bodies out there, something that man can orbit only with the most sophisticated equipment and technology, but from which man could learn a lot about the universe. So, when one such star is within reach of a human spacecraft, we go.

And find life on the surface of the star.

In dealing with the development of the alien race, the Cheela, Forward has crafted a magnificent piece of SF. It's unfortunate that the sophistication that he shows in regards to these aliens doesn't quite shine through with the human characters in the story. Often the humans come off flat and a little less then interesting, but this is completely overshadowed by the Cheela. Playing with notions of relative time, alien forms of perception, and with a SF ending that puts most other "alient contact" books to shame, "Dragon's Egg" is required reading for any fan of SF.

'Nathan

As others have noted, the alien cheela, despite being only 0.5 mm tall, have far more depth than the human characters in this novel. This story is about the cheela, and the humans serve mainly as a plot device. Further, the cheela are a *very* different from us, in almost every way -- size, speed, environment, and culture. This will doubtless put many readers off, as there is little to relate to our frame of reference. If you prefer your aliens to be humans with bumpy noses, look elsewhere.

If, on the other hand, the idea of aliens that really *are* alien appeals to you, this is a great read. Reading about the development of civilization in such an alien context is fascinating. There are parts where the story of the cheela becomes very compelling. Swift-Killer's Climb is nothing short of heroic (yes, something unexciting can still be heroic). The brief "Visit" between humans and Cheela is a blast.

I don't give it five stars, because the human characters *are* flat. It may well be impossible to place both truly alien beings and interesting humans in the same story (as opposed to two different, co-located stories). A separate human story would still be something, though, and it appears the author either did not even try to develop one, or failed completely. The humans are a plot device -- they give the author a reason to tell the story of the cheela, nothing more. Likewise, the human discovery of the "Egg" and the expedition reads as very contrived. Every work of fiction is contrived, of course, but good fiction keeps the reader from noticing. These drawbacks mar what would otherwise be a true masterpiece of science fiction.

While it is radical fiction, this book is based on a strong foundation in reality -- both science fact and scientific speculation. The successful combination of strict science and pure fantasy is part of what makes for great "hard sci-fi", and this book has it, in spades. It truly does "stretch the mind", as one cover blurb says.

Strangely, I also found the story to be inspirational. The aliens live their lives in fullness in their frame of reference, but a cheela lifespan is only 30 of our minutes. Reconciling those differences and establishing a conversation over many generations is, to me, a truly noble act, for humans and cheela alike. Despite the differences between them and us, the cheela are people. If I can be as good a person as the cheela in this story, I will have lived my life well.

I read this back in the 80's, after reading a recommendation in a book by Arthur C. Clarke. Altho Forward was not the only scientist to speculate on the possibliity of exotic life on a neutron star (Steven Baxter does a better job of it in his excellent novel, FLUX ), and altho the character development and writing style are at times severely lacking in Dragon's Egg, the author does tell a story worth reading. The technological details will fascinate some, and bore others, but the concept of life existing under such conditions will hold your attention, and the characters do sort of grow on you after awhile. The accelerated time frame of the Cheela is suspect, but it does add an interesting twist to the tale, particularly when their technology starts to bypass that of their human visitors.
This is not in the running for the greatest science-fiction novel ever written. And of this author's works, I personally liked Flight of the Dragonfly better. (Later expanded into Rocheworld, which I haven't read.) Dragon's Egg is , however, quite an interesting yarn taking place in one of the unlikeliest of locales. Read it and enjoy, as well as the sequel, Starquake.

Dr. Forward presents amazingly full-blown alternate realities to his readers gift-wrapped as sci-fi novels. Included for your $$ value is the research scientist's world-renowned expertise in the field of gravitational astronomy and radiation. My entire family agrees that Dragon's Egg and its sequel Starquake provide moments of profound enlightenment, immaculately constructed science, and the thrilling possibility of communication between vastly different species. I cannot recommend it too highly. [I wish others would abide by the review rules. Some sneer at the honest reviews of others, assuming a pseudo-intellectual, 'I know better than thou' stance. What purpose is served by printing the negativity of people who are incapable of producing a coherent review, let alone an entire novel that thrills millions?]

Most Si-Fi books look to life and situations that will, or could, arise in the future but this is so much more. Occasionally Si-Fi writers have branched out into areas outside the norms of Si-Fi, Asimov's Psychohistory to mention one. In Dragon's Egg Forward does this with great simplicity and yet keeps thrilling us with true flights into the imagination.

Dragon's Egg goes into the full mental and sociological development of a species from the development of mathematics, to GOD, and beyond. The story is not expected to become a reality but, in a way, has already happened.

I have lent my copy to so many people that it has about fallen apart, but until I get a new copy it will remain my most treasured book.

It's been a couple of decades since I first read this brilliant book, but the passage of time has not diminished my enthusiasm for it. Relativity is a difficult concept for most people to grasp, because we tend to see so little of it within the context of the 'ordinary' human scale. And yet--with the explosion of electronic communication, and the emergence of ubiquitous computing paradigms, we are beginning to come to grips with some of the implications Forward lays out in his clever tale.

I admit, you have to be able to suspend a certain amount of scientific disbelief, in order to get on with it--you have to accept that bio-chemistry could work on a neutron star to produce sentient organisms capable to learning to manipulate their environment with the sophistication of human beings. But given that, the story becomes an excellent window into the notion of converging scales of space-time continuums. This approach is common in speculative fiction with a strong scientific foundation. Given premise A, extrapolate conclusion B. It's analogous to what Einstein used to refer to as 'thought experiments'.

I used to refer to this book frequently, when attempting to explain the nanospheric implications of computer operations, and with chip speeds approaching the realm of quantum effect--there are a whole lot of cpu cycles that can execute a lot of different instructions in a single second, these days.

The Cheelah come to represent a wonderful metaphor for the process that all of us are struggling to adapt to, of ever increasing speeds and ever smaller footprints to our electronic computing devices. Consider that at the time the book originally appeared, the Mac platform had not been released, and neither had Windows, or the WWW. Consider the impact near instantaneous communications and just in time manufacturing has had on society, and Dragon's Egg becomes a rare and valuable didactic utility, and a whiff of what the future might just hold in store.

I discovered this novel after reading about the Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Blink of an Eye". In that episode, the crew of Voyager visits a planet where time passes many times faster then it does in surrounding space. That allowed the crew to observe the development of the native race's civilization in a matter of hours. This episode was based loosely on this novel.

The novel itself, is a great read for anyone that's into science fiction, especially those with interest in real science. Don't get me wrong, the author of this novel is also physicist, and the style is definitely on the technical side. As long as you can get past the sometimes wordy technical jargon, you'll be amazed by the story of the race known as the cheela. The cheela are aliens who've evolved on the surface of a neutron star, and live a million times faster then humans. Believe me when I tell you, the cheela are the most unique aliens you'll ever see in science fiction. It gets even more interesting when the cheela develop the ability to communicate with the human spacecraft that's orbiting the neutron star. Like the Voyager episode, the humans mere presence plays a major role in the cheela development, from religion to science to culture. Read this book, if you love sci-fi, I promise you won't regret it.

The reader gets to witness the evolution of a fast-minded, fast-living alien species (the Cheela) on the face of a neutron star. Most of the book is reading about this civilizing of the Cheela race, only sparsly mentioning the humans around the neutron star. There should have been heartier reading about the scientists on board their vessels, which would have been more interesting to read than groups of Cheela gathering pods or trekking across the "hard way." Only when the interaction between the humans and Cheela begin does the book take an interesting turn.

Once messages are relayed between the two races, the Cheela become bored with the "slow-minded" humans while humans are astonished to find that they live 1,000,000 times faster than humans do... and they also send messages at 1,000,000 times the speed as the humans do. Thence on, it's impressive to witness the technology of the Cheela rise. The ending is, ultimetly, satisfying. The only low point was suffering through the infancy of Cheela culture.

Ever wonder what life would be like on a 60 billion gravity Neutron Star? Right, probably not. Well, this guy did. And, he wrote a really good story about it.

Dragon's Egg tells a wildly imaginative story of the Cheela, a species of creature that lives on a neutron star. As a consequence of living on a neutron star, molecular chemistry and life itself advances at a rate millions of times faster than us humans are used to. The book tells their story from the Cheela's absolute beginnings when life began on the star all the way to their achievement of becoming sentient beings. In this way, the author makes many interesting and funny parallels to how humans may have evolved from primordial slime to what we are now.

The story focuses on the Cheela, but also includes the side-story of a group of space-exploring humans who happen to be in orbit around the Cheela's home star taking studies. What the humans don't realize is that their presence in the night sky has caused great influence on the Cheela; most notably their ever changing religious beliefs. When the Cheela finally make contact with their supposed human-Gods, they have more to teach them than the humans have to teach the Cheela.

A really fun, imagination-expanding read.

I read this book back in the 1980s, re-read it recently, and felt as if I were rediscovering and old friend. Dr. Forward begins with the discovery of the neutron star on earth, then moves to life on the star itself. We watch the cheela evolve as a species, from ignorant superstition to scientific genius, and wait breathlessly as they and the earthlings encounter each other. Dr. Forward, being a real scientist, lost me a few times with his technical terms, but instead of making me bored or frustrated and left feeling outside, I was just sorry I couldn't speak his language and really appreciate the true depth of the story, which I feel will hold the reader's interest regardless of their level of education. It's a fascinating story of life on another world, how it might evolve, and what might happen when humans find it. A must-read for serious sci-fi fans and amateur astronomers.