Customer Reviews

Heart of the Comet (A Bantam Spectra Book)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My dad, who got me started on sci-fi as a kid, recently complained that too much of today's sci-fi is more fantasy than science. I'm going to send him this book for Christmas, because it tackles so many areas -- space travel, biology, even sociology. I thought it was one of the best hard sci-fi books I've read, ever.

I enjoyed this book immensely! The perfect balance of exploring scientific concepts and telling a riveting story. Like "Earth" (novel by David Brin), some of the scientific ideas are a little farfetched, but not just silly. They are well thought out, and explained in relatively simple terms. There are explorations of biology (the interplay of hostile and symbiotic microscopic life forms - germs), astrophysics (using sublimation to steer a comet), and even the psycology (small groups of people under stress - a la "Lord of the Flies"). I think this is why it took two authors to write this book... there are just too many interesting concepts going on for just one person to have thouroughly researched. Oh, and did I mention that it has lots of action and a great story. Not nearly as dry as you might guess from the title - quite a treat.

Finally!! The blurbs on the book cover do it justice. What a woderful book written by two science fiction masters. I had put ofrf reading this book and had it for several years. I picked it up after a friend recommended it and WOW!. It is truly a world building story and the characters are lovingly portrayed and the plot moves along quickly. This is one "hard" science fiction book that does not get bogged down in science facts and details. Just enough to keep you interested. I can;t say enough good things about this book. Too bad these two authors didn;t collaborate on another project.

I'm from the Heinlein, Colin Wilson, Lovecraft wing of SF, but I really enjoyed this book. It would make a great movie.

The strength of this novel is the unique premise of building a colony on a moving comet and it's scientifically plausible solutions to the scary dangers they encounter. It's definetely hard sci-fi, that is filled with techy stuff, but very well done and well thought out.

However the weakness of the book for me was the characterization and the cliched plot device of superhumans(percells) vs normal people (orthos). This idea has been done to death in sci-fi and even in comics, ie. Marvel comics X-men (mutants vs humans). Also I didn't care too much for the characters themselves. Characters seemed a bit flat, and without depth (not enough character motivation to explain actions).

But despite this, I liked the book for it's inventive solutions and epic timeline. It has a great ending also. Out of ten, I'd give it a solid 8.

I couldn't put the book down. It was a surreal, awe-inspiring adventure. The imagery was such that I could visulaize it in my mind as I was reading. I felt like I was there. A wonderful masterpiece of science fiction that doesn't degrade itself by including sex, slave girls, etc. that a lot of other 3rd rate science trash puts out. This is a classic forever!!!

Separate these two guys are awesome and if you haven't tried anything by them yet (Benford's Timescape and Galactic Center series and Brin's Uplift series) you owe it to yourself to give them a decent shot if this book at all interested you. Their styles mix quite well, Benford is normally the more straightforward of the two and I think it's his influence that keeps the novel from getting as selfconsciously complicated as the Uplift books tended to get (hey, I love 'em too, but don't tell me that all of them at some point had you scratching your head and going "What's going on?"). Still, it's far too long and by the end the twists aren't as shocking as they were in the beginning, you sort of keep plugging along because you want to see what's going to happen. But that's the minor bad points, there's plenty of good points. For one, the scenario is awesome, Halley's comet is coming back into the solar system and a team of colonists are on there attempting to live there. And of course everything goes splendidly and people live in perfect harmony because everyone got it right the first time before they sent these folks out. Ha, ha, that's funny, right. Not only is there conflict between the genetically tweaked "Percells" and the nonmodified "Orthos" Earth itself is in turmoil and the wacky planet's decisions often directly affect the poor cometfolk. If that's not bad enough, Halley's inhabited and the colonists have to figure out how to live with a bunch of aliens that see them as midnight snacks. Plus there's romance! And riots! And philosophy! And science! And . . . you get the idea. This book has something for everyone and that might be its biggest fault and why it's so danged long, it's not sure whether it wants to be the hard science Alien, or the hard science Tower of Glass or the hard science {insert famed novel/movie here} the book gets a tad schizo after a while, they go right through one genre cliche and tear it to pieces before just moving right onto the next one. Entertaining? Heck, yeah. But tiring after a while? Oh yeah. On the plus side the characters are well drawn if a bit flat and singleminded at times, everyone has their own little personal obsessions but then you'd probably have to be a bit obsessed in the first place to want to go riding a comet for eighty years. A good example of the "thinking man's SF" and a great alternative to the derivative stuff that often clutters the marketplace. I don't think I'd want to see a sequel to this book (the ending wraps things up nicely) but I wouldn't mind seeing these two pros work together again.

Space tribe time.


An expedition to explore a comet is not exactly filled with the most stable of individuals. This causes long term problems when they begin to use the giant ball of stuff as a space vehicle. When a virus strikes, atavistic tribal behaviour comes to the fore, and some of the more rational still among those on board struggle to keep things together.

Ah, this was such a satisfying novel. It follows three primary characters over a century as they are part of the effort to study Halley's comet. They discover a primitive life-form which attatches itself to the humans in a symbiotic relationship and eventually causes them to be an imagined threat to Earth.

The theme of genetically enhanced humans (Percells) and the rivalry between them and the normal humans is explored. Some consider this an overworked theme, but the authors here approach it from a logical perspective.

This is a good read and quite recommended for science-fiction readers.

I just finished this book and anyone who enjoys hard s/f would probably enjoy this book. My main reason for a review is to request that the authors consider a sequel as I have noticed several people hoped for the same thing in other reviews.
I thought the start of this journey is fantastic and it needs to be continued!