Mining the Oort [Hardcover]

Frederik Pohl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 1992

Mars was harsh and unforgiving, but for the colonists who called it home, its future was as bright as the comets that hung in the night sky, for locked in those icy bodies were the water and gases that would make Mars live again, mined from the vast Oort Cloud beyond Pluto. Young Dekker DeWoe yearned to become an Oort miner. But when he finally arrived on Earth to begin training, the mining project was abruptly canceled. Then he began to hear rumors of a plan to force the restoration of the mining -- a plan that would result in the deaths of millions . . .


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Martian-born Dekker DeWoe's desire to become a miner of the Oort Cloud takes him first to Earth for rigorous training and then into space, where he collides headfirst with those who oppose his dream of terraforming Mars. Pohl is a master at the intricacies of space adventure, and his realistic detail and likable, if ingenuous protagonist make this a good choice for sf collections.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Medium-future didactic novel about the terraforming of Mars and the human impulse to violence, from one of sf's longest-serving and most distinguished professionals. Cold, arid, airless Mars can be terraformed--for a hefty price--by bombarding its surface with comets captured from the Oort Cloud, a huge collection of dirty snowballs orbiting far beyond Pluto. Young Martian Dekker DeWoe longs to become an Oort ``miner'' as his father once was. Yet when his dream comes true and he travels to Earth to begin training, Dekker learns that the price Mars has to pay for Earthly finance may be decades of near-slavery while its product sales are undercut by new Earth-orbiting habitats. Schooled in nonviolence and cooperation, Dekker finds himself increasingly at odds with current Earth attitudes: armies have been banished; social-awareness training is required; but full-sensory ``virts'' offering intimate vicarious experiences are freely available--including those featuring violence and war. But just as it seems that the Oort project will be canceled outright, Dekker's training schedule is accelerated; soon he and his classmates join a Mars-orbit station whence they direct incoming comets. The proffered explanation for the speed-up doesn't wash, and gradually Dekker uncovers a conspiracy among his colleagues: Their monstrous purpose is to smack a small comet into Japan, whose financial dealings (coupled with their own racism) they blame for jeopardizing the Oort project. Pohl's message--that humans must be tutored in nonviolence; simply abolishing war is not enough--meshes flawlessly with the story. Otherwise, a professional recycling of mostly standard notions, with above-average characters and a rather thin plot. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st edition (July 21, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345371992
• ISBN-13: 978-0345371997
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #611,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars dull main character, December 5, 1999

By 

Benjamin Crowell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mining the Oort (Hardcover)

A disappointment from one of my favorite authors. The main problem is that the point-of-view character is dull as dishwater. The treacly tone is also jarringly out of line with his frequent allusions to Mark Twain (who knew how to write a sermon without preaching), and the mystery aspect of the story falls flat. Pohl covered the same coming-of-age territory much more effectively in his wonderful novel Homegoing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fine writing torpedoed by idiot plot. 2.6 stars, March 14, 2007

By 

Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mining the Oort (Mass Market Paperback)

_Mining the Oort_ opens well, with one of Pohl's trademark everyman protags -- here, Dekker DeWoe(!), a teenager in Sagdayev deme, an inconsequential Martian settlement -- who's uprooted to take shelter from the first comet crash in a grand long-term effort to terraform Mars!

Dekker's Dad was an Oort miner who washed out -- drink & drugs -- and never came home. His Martian Mom rises quickly (and rather implausibly) from struggling single mom to the Senator from Marsgov. Dekker meets an Earthgirl, his Mom's new suitor, and the boyfriend's obnoxious kid. We learn that all is not well with The Bonds, the Earthies financing of the terraforming project. Then we learn, sigh, that The Bonds will be paid off by (wait for it) shipping Mars farm produce back to Earth! If that's not bad enough, the Mars project is facing new competition from (groan) new farm-satellite habitats! Boy, I thnk I'll buy some of those bonds myself! Easy money!

Good lord. What was Pohl thinking? I mean, he has antimatter spaceships, and beanstalks, but space travel is explicitly difficult and expensive.... Sigh.

Dekker wins a coveted position at the Oort Academy, and his dear old Dad dries out enough to front him the spacefare. Dekker has Interesting Times at the Academy, and on Earth in general -- good enough to gloss over the idiot premise for the novel, for awhile anyway. Dekker makes a new girlfriend, the beautiful, rich, predatory, war-hungry Ven Kupferfeld [1], who's involved in (gasp!) a Mysterious Plot....

OK, I'll put in some **SPOILER PROTECTION** here, even though the experienced reader will have seen this one comming a hundred pages before (and cringed):

S
P
O
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A
H
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A
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The Martian Rebel Plot is to threaten the Earth with -- quelle horreur -- firing a comet at them! Left uninvestigated is the likelihood that the Oort project would have passed its preliminary EIS (and this is after the Project's 'Farmer in the Sky' premise miserably fails its Giggle Test): "The downside of this project is the possible impact on Earth of a Dinosaur-killer, resulting in millions to billions of human deaths, and probably the end of civilization as we know it. Fortunately, this is no more likely than the ridiculous fantasy that terrorists might fly fully-loaded jetliners into tall buildings..." OK, boys! Go right ahead! [2]

Sigh. So there you have it: a Pohl novel, written about as well as his best, but with a hopelessly stupid, unsalvageable plot and backstory. Which I guess is why I didn't read it when it first came out.

Caveat lector. It's still a pretty good yarn, if you don't care about plausibilty. I love Pohl, but even Homer nods....
___________________
[1] --and another of Pohl's aggressive Amazons, though Ven's cuter (and perhaps nicer) than the man-eating, thoroughly nasty Colonel Marge in JEM....

[2] Now, if this were a *Russian future*, this would be a lot more believable -- just slip the EPA-ski a few thousand rubles...

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good enuff for a science project, June 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mining the Oort (Mass Market Paperback)

Loved this book. My 14-year old son was similarly impressed and based his science project on the probability of the Oort Cloud creating/destroying life on earth. Pohl deserves the A it brought. Lots of fun figuring this one out.