Customer Reviews

Iris

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I couldn't even make it to the hundred page mark. There are better mysterious space object books out there. There are better troubled artist books out there. There are better sex books out there. There are better unsympathetic character books out there.

Don't be fooled by the blurb comparing this to Samuel R. Delaney. Barton & Capobianco aren't even close to being in his league.

This book was left at one of those free book exchanges, now I know why. First, there was a typo in jacket sleeve, identifying the goal of the colonists as being Titan not Tritan, so I started confused. I struggled through incomprehensible technology, self-indulgent introspection (in the form interminable flashbacks), almost no narrative and constant sexual encounters. Finally, still struggling at 150 pages I decided to go online to see if I was the only one who had trouble with this book, apparently not. I love science fiction, but this is just a high tech book about sexual fantasies, with characters not even mothers could love. Just because it's in space doesn't mean it should be called science fiction. These are explorers who live in holograms, scientists with no curiosity or scientific methodology. Save your money, save a tree don't bother with this book. Pick up something by Pohl, Bradley, Niven, Bradbury, McAffrey, Bova, Clark, Asimov or LaGuin and explore.

Sadly I was disapointed even then. This book starts out with painfully undefined terminology that requires 1/3 of the dead trees to be read in order to understand. It was literally a chore to read this book- but I bought it and I would finish it.

3/4 of the story could be a typical survivor movie with the 'DR's happening instead of the 'time outs with a video camera'.

I was afraid I was losing my taste in SciFi when reading this book- but as it turns out it really is just a poor read. Skip it.

Staggeringly, unmitigably awful.
Traditional science fiction used to present the notion that humanity would carefully select only its very best for that initial encounter with an alien civilization. Recent stories have left the selection up to chance, (Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama" sequels actually postulated a sampling of people dominated by criminals.) but "Iris" leaves first contact up to the most pathetic assortment of head cases, psychos, deviants, perverts, sadists, masochists, schizophrenics, co-dependents, and just plain neurotics that Earth (and the Moon!) could rustle up!
This shipload of losers rockets off into space, seeking to...
find themselves...
or find out who they are...
or gather their feelings...
or learn how to relate...
or heal...
or grieve...
or get in touch with their inner beingness and personism...
or some such nonsense!
No kidding. Every plot twist comes in a blizzard of "issues," and is followed by a period when the characters decide "to move on!"
Here they are, orbiting a hostile rogue planet on the outskirts of the solar system, and en masse they plunge into a computerized virtual reality world to escape from, well, real reality!
The very first few disgusting lines of the very first page of the first chapter are a valuable flag for the unmitigable avalanche of literary sewage to come.
One woman actually freezes to death because her shipmates are too busy with life and death survival concerns to rescue her, as she expects them to, from her own narcissistic stunt out on the subzero surface of an airless asteroid.
Whew! Fortunately, the only aliens they all find are a long dormant shipload of resentful biomechanoids, rebellious robots and ambiguously unfriendly computer programs.
With ambassadors like this to the cosmos, the human race would be lucky not to get blown to oblivion just so the universe could be rid of our whining!
Be sure to miss this one!

IRIS is perhaps the worst book I've ever finished (I had to complete it for a review). What totally killed it for me were the characters -- I've read books with unsympathetic characters before, but never one populated exclusively with them. And it's something of a tragedy, because the plot itself is fairly compelling.

It's bad enough that the characters argue constantly, have bad sex every few pages, and eventually elect the most repugnant of them as leader. But when they finally discover the first ancient alien ship and literally punch buttons at random until the priceless relic destroys itself, I wanted to hurl the book across the room.

The bulk of the novel is taken up with the crew's desperate attempt to reach a second (and much larger) alien craft buried on IRIS. Why is there such desperate tension? Because there's a ship on the way from Earth, and the crew knows that when it arrives they won't be allowed near the alien craft. No kidding! After what these criminals did to the first one, I wouldn't have allowed them near a toaster oven.

I kept reading in the vain hope that the Earth ship would arrive and stop them. I'm not happy I did. Don't make my mistake -- try one of the authors' other novels, such as Act of Conscience or Burster -- instead.

First, I have to say that I rarely start a book that I do not finish. I only made it through 14 pages of this book. I checked it out from the library so had no reason to put myself through the torture that these reviews obviously indicate would not have ended until I stopped reading this book.

In only fourteen pages, I was both disgusted by the prolific sexual content and completely confused by the scientific jargon. I only wish I had read the reviews before I wasted my eyes on those measly fourteen pages.

So I made it about two thirds of the way through this novel, and I've had enough. I tried really hard to like this book, and the blurb made it sound reasonably interesting, but very soon into the story I found myself engaged in these writers unfettered, vebose self-indulgance.
Shallow, boring characters who never know when to shut up (and never say anything really interesting... unless you find ugly characters navel-gazing really interesting), and yet another re-tread on the hoary old Ancient Giant Hollow Artifact scenario, which follows the usual and very predictable paradigms.
And you know, if I'm really keen to tittilate myself with some hard-core sex descriptions, I'll go out and purchase a copy of Hustler.
Having spent the last year living and working in L.A. (I'm from the UK), I'm tempted to think that this nonsense was written by two bisexual chemists from Santa Monica (no offence to any bisexual chemists living in Santa Monica).
Avoid this badly written drivel at all costs, and spend your 7 bucks on a Greg Egan novel instead. Truly, truly dreadful.

PS: I finally DID throw it across the room.

One hundred and twenty-four pages was all I could stomach. I'd feel better if I hadn't paid an inflated price in the airport. Sophomoric at best, this exercise in peurile rambling is not worth the paper on which it is printed.

First thing you need to know about William Barton: he doesn't write feel-good stuff. If you want tidy endings where everyone smiles, never has sex, and face cut-and-dry problems with cut-and-dry solutions, go read Jack McDevitt.

If you like compelling, fully-realized universes with real people with real problems faced with situations that require the reader to venture far into the gray area of human existence, then stick with Barton.

Barton does what only a few writers (in my experience), can do, and do well. He can make me feel the alien-ness of his characters, planets, universes. Like in this novel. I'll never forget the first time I stepped into the bleak, dead landscape of Iris. I liked that he was able to find links between humanity and the aliens of that system who lived there millions of years ago. Just thinking about it makes me want to read it again.

Another thing: there are very few authors whose books I can re-read several times. I've read "When Heaven Fell" several times, and "Transmigration of Souls." Fantastic stuff!

If you find yourself to be really straight, you'll probably blanche reading this novel. If you like twisted people and truly alien lanscapes, read "Iris."

I'm a hardcore SF fan the authors seem too interested in the physical lives of there characters. I like the premise of the novel but I wouldn't recommend this book.