Customer Reviews

A Maze of Stars

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

 

 

This is the eighth Brunner novel I've read and it's perhaps the most mature novel he has written. A Maze of Stars is an exhibition for Brunner's talent at developing extrasolar planets (see Bedlam Planet and Polymath) as well as creating distinctive cultures (see Crucible of Time and The Sheep Look Up). The maturity is revealed through his use of vocabulary with rarely read words such as `munificence,' `adumbrated,' `insalubrious,' and `fecundity' (two of which I had to look up myself).

Brunner impresses the reader by creating twenty (I counted) unique planets with twenty unique environments and cultures. Whether it is fauna, atmosphere mixtures, soil composition or living conditions, Brunner covers so many planetary circumstances that there is little else left to cover: de-evolved barbaric humans, spaceship-building humans and dwindling housebound humans are just some examples. Add to this a fluid cast of humans among the evolving putty-like intelligence of The Ship.

The Ship, as it is known in concurrent histories, visits each of the hundreds of seeded planets during a cyclic course. With these periodic sojourns, The Ship has the choice to retrieve a human or humans who are in peril, who may also ride with The Ship until another suitable planet has been selected. The Ship, intelligent and exploring human emotions, grows attached to the humans it has selected to come aboard and each visit enriching its human sentiment.

There's a lot packed into this 326 page novel, which reads much like a series of short stories glued together through the medium of The Ship. The reading is mostly dry with very little atmospheric inflections- short on humor but heavy on insight. The philosophy Brunner demonstrates in A Maze of Stars is isn't exactly thick but it is sporadic and intuitive. Regular readers of Brunner won't be disappointed nor will first time readers as this novel will leave a fatty yet flavorful residue of talent on your literate tongue.

A Maze of Stars, published in 1991, was the next to last of the 53 science fiction novels written by John Brunner 1934-95. Having read most of his novels I can opine that it is one of his best space-exploration themed stories. The fact is that most of Brunner's novels utilize the subject matter of planetary exploration as a backdrop for his tales. Surprisingly after plowing the same field many times Brunner, near the end of his life and career, was able to invigorate this theme with a unique perspective, sympathetic characters and fascinating planetary societies. To be candid I sometimes found his earlier works unimagitive and generic of the type published by other authors. I was very gratified that he was able to infuse so much imaginative creativity into this novel.

The main character is the Ship. So large it cannot land, the Ship was designed to travel the "Arm of Stars" (presumably an spiral arm of our galaxy) and seed humanity on planets likely to support life. When the story begins we are informed that six hundred planets have been seeded with human stock over a five hundred year voyage. The Ship, as part of its program, surreptitiously revisits the seeded planets to observe how the experiment is progressing.

Brunner employed a non-liner narrative method in this novel. Many short narratives describing the successes or failures of the humans "seeded" by the Ship take up the story line. The narratives are small gems in themselves. In a few pages Brunner details credible societies, emotions and ecological challenges and as sense of "otherworldliness'" that were lacking in many of his other full-length novels. The Ship cements theses story segments with observations and commentary while all along it is slowly questioning its ultimate goals. During the voyage the Ship rescues three different individuals for relocation to another world. As expected these folks dialog with the Ship and we learn some of the methodology used by the Ship to achieve its goals.

Brunner avoids subjecting us to the easy crutch employed by most science fiction authors: intelligent, sentential, aliens good, evil or indifferent. You wont find any in this book. Humanity is alone and must contend with alien microbes, chemistry, flora and fauna but no BEM's. (Bug eyed monsters)

I highly recommend this book because for this reader it rekindled the "sense of wonder and adventure" that is one of the private pleasures of reading.

I read this book in 1991 and recently found myself hunting for it to re-read (yes, 17 years later). That's how compelling a story collection it is. It is in fact a collection, held together in a common framework by the Ship's journeys and at times somewhat ponderous ruminations. Yet there's a vivid kaleidoscope of descriptions of what humankind might become, from the surprising timidity of the settlers of the outermost worlds to the many bizarre biological adaptations of humans in different local environments.

Those looking for an action-packed space western should look elsewhere. Those looking for something much more thoughtful would be advised to give this book a read or two.Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device

All right, I'll admit I'm a diehard John Brunner fan (hey, I even managed to get through about half of Shockwave Rider) but this is a great book. Quite possibly one of the best current science fiction novels out there. No joke. By the way, the story does not 'fizzle out' at the end, as the previous reviewer said, although it does end quickly. I had to re-read the ending to get it. It shows the Ship as growing in humanity, but not quite in the way you'd expect. I was shocked at the end, to tell you the truth. Anyway, buy this book. It's worth it.

This book is both memorable and terrible. It is Brunner's 2nd last novel, and the writer within him threw away convention. Normally a novel has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but "A Maze of Stars" has a beginning and a progression. Characters (most are personality-lacking talking heads) are picked up and discarded rapidly (poor Stripe), with the last page of the book only another destination on The Ship's eternal journey. This ending is flat and evokes an eternal maze; artsy and non-functional.

"Maze of Stars" is a non-linear progression of short stories (each planet) visited by a demi-god like confused Ship, which tachyonically travels through both space and time, meaning it 'remembers' future events. The passengers of the ship serve no purpose in the story other than to act as enablers for the Ship's self-reflection, as it's emergent sentience struggles against ennui and hardware damage.

Setting is what makes this novel both memorable and terrible. Usually, the more words an author makes up, the worse the novel is. Brunner makes about a hundred new words in this book (even leaving out weird character and place names). Just in chapter one: betokened, flexibox, anticheeching, kaftan, lampedusas, strelligers, Accandantan Pier (could be a place or idiom), kirtle, stickasweet, chulgra, antis, cheeching, fusees, highslider, whipbush, gullitch, supplex, stiffex, reddery, greewit, seineman, tagglefish. Most of the made-up words are flora, fauna, or food, but the reader only gets context to describe them; these strange names are rarely elaborated upon, making the book a demanding exercise in imagination. Terrible in the sense of lazy descriptions, memorable in the sense that if you do make the hundreds of mental pictures (unique to you) it is unlikely you'll ever forget them.

As an 'art experience' that transcends the medium, this is a smashing success. Plenty of vivid settings, nearly two dozen strange panoramic worlds. But if you just want good science fiction and not a tour of Brunner's galactic arm, this isn't what you are looking for -- the structure is convoluted, the science not explained, and the characterization absent.

This is an artist's fiction, set in a far and strange future, and the amount of enjoyment you take from it will equal the effort you put into it. Personally, I found it hard to classify and lacking in areas I use for evaluation, so I'm settling at three stars.

A vast vessel, the Ship, is visiting inconspicuously in seemingly random order its 600 seeded colonies of human stock after 500 years from its initial voyage. On the odyssey, the Ship discerns people at risk of their lives and save them with their consent. It does not like to be alone. Consequently each human passenger evokes a processes that makes the Ship dig deep into its memory banks to reveal more about its mission; which keeps evading and being barred from closer study. The Ship's lack of control or knowledge over its course may be due to programming error or malfunction by space particle: it doesn't comprehend that for sure. At each planetary inspection stop the reader gets a peek at how humankind has adapted, merged or blent in with the organisms.

This is very thoughtful, considerative, musing book: a contemplative Ship who doesn't know its exact mission parameters no more, the human companions which help it to develop concepts of black humor, pity, terror and sadness and termination of existence, the death. This is an intellectual book to the point that the Ship's thinking is obscure and vague to keep the interest only for the first 30% of the pages. The momentum towards to the end is lacking because the stops and human rescues become predictable. There is no grand finale, but a more like a exhalation of a steady breath.

Three (3) stars. The idea of stops with self aware ship that learns human mannerism and the ending where the builders' complacent plans are exposed, is interesting. But not that interesting. The sensation is like being attended to a retrospective Sundance cinema festival. The book is like a independent showcase of wildflower that the mind remembers after years go by. Yet, recommended only for those that can hold sustained intellectual exertion in spite of thoughts of "I want to quit".

One of the last books written by the great SciFi master John Brunner but alas not a good one. According to the rule SciFi writers tend to ruminate when getting old, JB gets ideas across not in actions as he used to but in long debates. A lot of talks I ended up skipping. A confusing story encompassing too many themes with an unsatisfactory ending.

I can't quite tell whether this is a novel or collection of connected short stories, but I really don't think it matters. Whatever it is, it's a mature work by a major voice in science fiction.

The Ship embodies mankind's grandest technologies in the wealth of planets, to carry out its mission: to spread humanity among the stars. Then, when it has reached the end of the spiral arm, it returns. Nominally, it checks to see whether the colonies have flourished or need to be evacuated. At one level, it's an automated scan controlled by The Ship's deepest programming. At another, though, The Ship seeks something for which it has no name - possibly a kind of humanity of its own. So, as it wanders the trail of inhabited stars, it takes on occasional passengers. Even more than the glory or pathos of the visited worlds, these descendants of Man bring out the latent mind within The Ship.

"A Maze of Stars" comes from the later years of Brunner's spectacular career. It lacks the flash and impact of earlier works includingThe Shockwave Rider, but more than makes up for that in thoughtful speculation and characters to care about - and in a startling turn at the very end. I recommend this to any SF fan, and especially to those who may have gotten a bad impression from books that Brunner put out while becoming the writer who could create a work like this.

-- wiredweird

Interesting stories as the Ship revisits colony planets along its sweep of the Arm of Stars. The automated Ship is developing more humanity as the story proceeds, but we don't get to see that fully develop.

It was a chore getting through this one. A sentient starship travels from planet to planet, observing boring episodes on boring planets, like a poor girl's family being murdered by a religious mob, the corrupt dean of a college being deposed, some people confronting a forest fire, a religious mob stoning a young couple, and on and on. There is no real plot, the book is just a sequence of boring vignettes, each with its own set of dull characters (generally people opposed to corrupt establishments) whom we see only briefly, interspersed with some painfully boring conversations. There is no drama or tension or excitement, just a boring mystery (the ship's origin) and some boring lessons (religion is dumb, war is dumb, elites are corrupt) that we have all been taught a million times already and a million times more effectively.

I bought the 1991 Del Rey hardcover with the John Berkey cover of a big space ship hovering above a landing field as astronauts and technicians look up at the massive vessel. Don't make the mistake I did of buying the book because you thought it might be about a bunch of astronauts and technicians going on some grand adventure.