Customer Reviews

Encounter with Tiber

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In my long and often fruitless search for decent sci-fi once in a while a gem is found. This is one of those cases. Also this book written in '96 predicted a 2nd shuttle accident which of course happened in Feb. 2003. The current science is very well researched and yet also leads us to see how future things may develop. The characters and the plot are very believable: characters and events are subject to wise decisions but also the flaws that exist in even the best people and governments have their part to play.

Not since the original writings of Asimov have I seen such decent and well planed out sci-fi writing.

Note to the 1st reviewer: B. Aldrin has a doctorate in astronautics from MIT. How can he be "in over his head" in writing a sci-fi book???

I have read other reviews on amazon about this book and am slightly disappointed. Those who are true sci-fi fans do there best to see the big picture but let bits and pices of rational thought slip so they can take in the fantasay of it all. Some who have reviewed this book have not looked at things with an open mind all the way. This text is wonderfully written and in time will be one of the sci-fi treasures of the 20th century. Aldrin has lent his insight of alien worlds come through, but Barnes has certanly worked all the magic. If you are a true sci-fi fan this is a must read.

Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes wrote the long, but quite thought-provoking science fiction story "Encounter with Tiber". At almost 600 pages, it takes a reader at least a couple of days to trudge through the story, especially the early highly technical parts of the story. Aldrin essentially predicted commerical space travel, and from the news, we may not be far off from the scenerio that Aldrin and Barnes present here. The story is told through five different narrators with three humans at various points in the 2lst Century, and two "Tiberians" who came to Earth(or as they called it Setepos) in ancient times. Basically, the message is that science and space exploration takes time and commitment, but it's worth pursuing. The novel leaves the reader wanting more, as Clio(an astronaut traveling in the late 21st Century) discovers that her journey is just beginning. It leaves room for a sequel, which depending on your attitude towards the story is good or bad. I enjoyed this rich novel, and recommend this for anyone who really wants to know why we should try to go to Mars.

I really liked Tiber. I like the concept of going back and forth in time and enjoyed seeing the view points of the different Tiberian races and the earthlings

- maybe the BC earthlings should have had a bit more character. After all they were able to trick a species about 8000 years ahead of them, they should have had some more depth to them.

I enjoyed the technical explanations to a point - I am a long time fan of Arthur C. Clarkes books and there is quite a bit of SF technical descriptions there - but at times it got to much from Aldrins descriptions of how things exactly might work. Even I had to scan over some paragraphs to not get too bored.

Maybe the middle section with all the Tiberian views were a little too long and could had been interrupted a couple of times - also the end was very anti climactic - but it was fun anyway.

This is a science fiction story that blends different stages of technical engineering developments around the character development of two civilizations, one from Earth. Plot discussion leverages off known existing technological challenges, solutions and observed facts. This becomes insightful and relevant to today's space efforts and developments. The book contains canonical hooks that could be evolved into many discussion issues around space technology, space law, planetary settlement (nation building), physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, metallurgy, everything. The credibility associated to the discussion by the experienced elder astronaut author takes the book out of the realm of the throwaway science fiction diatribe into discussable scientific trial balloons that warrant further discussion. This book should be turned into an epic movie.

This is not a read for those who could "never get past the whale blubber" when trying to read the great Moby Dick. The space science, often engineering science, is real like you have never seen it before (just as Melville's account of whaling in the age of sail is authentic). There is a problem, however, especially in the beginning, in being able to always distinguish between what NASA has done, the technical ideas others have developed and that might be done, and authentic technical ideas by Aldrin and perhaps Barnes. It is a shame not to know which are Aldrin's ideas, for some of them are ingenious and created in me a sense of wonder. Do not skip the technological descriptions (hard to do anyway as they are ubiquitous), for as was true of Moby Dick, they provide the book's tone and ultimately define it. Melville's prose sometimes carried a rolling thunder to it, said to be the result of his reading Shakespeare and the King James Bible. This book does not have anything like that quality and therefore will not escape the genre label of SF. But the insights are sometimes astonishing. The whys and the ways of massacre warfare are flatly logically stated, and the killing is carried out by humans and aliens who you otherwise generally think of as good beings (the pain and killing at Kosovo could just as easily be explained). This is Barnes' contribution, I am sure. The nature of race and prejudice is explored with an at times subtle parallel to American history. The politics of space travel are laid out, and it is clear how much hangs on ulterior motives, reactive (as opposed to proactive) thinking, and chance, including disaster. Sad to say, Aldrin and Barnes' implication that it probably would take a Tiber Encyclopedia or planet crushing cloud of comets to galvanate Earthlings to reach for the planets, let alone the stars, is believable. The interelationships of people, whether human or alien, are at times insightful and good, but mostly they are described rather than revealed through their behavior. And a major character (the younger Terrence) is described at length in a way that is so flat and without the novelist's dynamic, that I wondered if it was Buzz Aldrin's autobiography. Nonetheless, the characters are well defined characters. In other words, the fictional quality is not as good as one would like but it works, partly because of the intelligence that has gone into it. The carefully constructed aliens, human characters, and plot, along with the technology, make this story plausable. You may have to remember the stories by the aliens are supposedly dumbed down translations for high school students. Many readers who equate SF with fantasy, whether they realize it or not, and many who want ceaseless action will drop by the wayside; they will never finish this long book. The book is long and alternates from one "novel" to another, but in the end the separate stories are nicely joined. Well done, Aldrin and Barnes.

People tend to love or hate this book I noticed, but personally I found it akin to Barnes's other novels which I have enjoyed, but simultaneously get annoyed by. Buzz's authorial voice is hard to pull apart from Barnes except where there's a lot of technical concepts flying around - definitely Buzz's material there. A curious omission that many have missed is its silence about the violation of conservation of momentum that the deccelerator loop on the Earth Starship causes - at no point do the authors note the large accelerations such a thing would cause. Also its flight-time seems to be based on non-relativistic calculations - these aren't major errors, but odd considering Buzz's meticulous details on other technical matters.

This ambitious novel weaves five narratives together to tell the epic story of mankind's encounter with the alien Tiberians. The Tiberians came to our solar system thousands of years ago but left behind only mysterious artifacts, most notably advanced information storage devices known as Encyclopedias. The story of the Tiberians's adventures on our world is framed by the tale of the humans's multi-generational effort to retrieve an Encyclopedia and use the data therein to seek out the homeworld of the Tiberians.

Buzz Aldrin's contribution is evident here. Although perhaps too detailed at times, the description of the politics and hardware involved in man's conquest of space is fascinating. A flaw of the novel becomes evident in the lengthy Tiberian mid-section, which probably came predominantly from co-author Steven Barnes. The aliens are far too human in their psychology-so much so that it is easy to forget that they are aliens at all. The novel ends beautifully on just the right note of mystery and romance as humankind, now fully matured as a star-faring race, seeks the elusive descendants of their ancient alien predecessors.

The book is made up of many parts some good some bad 1) The first part is much of a NASA propaganda story full of ...back in the good old days of space exploration, when we just wanted to beat the Ruskies and do science. Lots of technical info about the next step, a sad but probably true view of space politics (politics are always sad) too many un-tecnical technical explanations. 2)First contact - a lot of unexiting over simplistic stories about how a unfortunate child growing up with rich well educated parents show him how to be successfull all the while following a sub plot from Dallas the soap opera. Of course the only people who can figure out an alien messasge is an astronaught. (Buzz I sure that you are very proud to be an spaceman but don't keep going on about it) 3)The Aliens - Well if only somebody like David Brin had done this bit (Racisim, war and ignorance, Slavery and Slang are Universal it seems oh! and Politics and religion) poorly done with too much effort to tell the evolution of an entire alien race in 1/3 of a book. 4)Here all the character building over a great time period fails to come together the whole promise of 'This will change your life!' ends with the reliasation that 'Nothing has changed' though maybe that was the point. Too Much Politics, Soap and fiction Not enough Good Science Fiction Still some interesting stuff and some food for thought if you can slug your way through it Cheers

Sure, some spots are slow and very detailed, however the rest of the book makes up for that. I am amazed by the future technology that he discusses, technology that is just now being discussed in the press, and much that is a reality. Such as laser engine drives, or optical storage, and nano technology. So believable, in fact I am not surprised when I hear another news report of a new technology that Buzz wrote about in 1977.