Customer Reviews

Omega Sol

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

 

 

This book was definitely not the best entry into the realm of great science fiction books. I gave this book one additional star simply because the idea for the story line was phenomenal.

In essence, the book is about a group of scientists who are working in a base on the moon when an alien space ship lands. The lead scientist is taken into the ship and is shown visions of numerical symbols as well as his own subconscious. This leads to him being under suspicion by the government as being a traitor. As the book progresses, the aliens send a message to earth which overrides all of the computer systems on earth causing mass devastation, this is seen as an act of war and the military decided to attack, although such an action does nothing at all. In response the aliens start draining the power from the sun making it turn into a red giant, there by effectively setting it on the path to consume earth. The scientists have to find away to reverse this and save earth... There is a whole thing about hyper dimensional travel, manipulation of space-time, faster than light travel, yati yati yatta..

As I said, the concept is awesome, and is genius. Unfortunately the implementation was crummy. The characters were terribly developed, you had all the regular token clichés. The hard-ass military guy, the by the book, goody two shoe boring ethical scientist, the love story, the quirky Einstein-esque genius who no one believes. What a sucky cast! All of the characters were 1 dimensional, were boring as anything and really were as mundane as you can get. Additionally, the book starts out great, fast moving, intriguing, than it literally dies... Part 1 is great, part 2 is good but convoluted, than part 3 just hits a wall, and goes off on some bizarre tangent about the Chinese, a love story, the main characters parents and get BORING as hell... The author definately needs to FOCUS!!!

I definitely think this book is a skip or at least a library rental. Definitely don't pay full price get it from the $0.01 list.

When the author makes the mistake of describing an impact on the moon as if it happened in an atmosphere you know you have a loser. That was the first chapter. I took a look at chapter 2 on the off chance there might be something there. There wasn't. The publisher, ROC, needs better editors and proofreaders.

I really enjoyed this book. It takes a premise not unlike the classic Dr. Seuss story "Horton Hears a Who" (not the style of course, just the concept of the microworld not being recognized by the macroworld) and applies it to humanity. The aliens in this book are so unlike us that we barely register as a life form to them--refreshingly different from the run of the mill sci-fi. The cover artist made the moon towers to be similar to the ones in 2001: A Space Odyssey,perhaps to evoke the tone of that book. To me, this book gives the same tone, but in a very different way. Some of the characterization was a bit cardboard, but that really didn't bother me. Conceptually, the book was fascinating, and for me it was a real page turner.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I am afraid it will be my last. The concept is eminently interesting: an alien civilization accidentally wiping out humanity as indifferently as we would wipe out an ant hill, but the implementation is just plain bad. The characters are laughably 2 dimensional (saintly scientist, check, gung ho military guy, check, cliched fellow scientist love interest, check), the prose is godawful, and there is only the barest depth to the actual story or message. Its like something from bad 50's kids pulp scifi, but I couldnt recommend this for kids either because of the choppy writing style (maybe it was machine translated from French?) There are some interesting cosmological theories buried in there, but its not worth digging out. I heartily recommend instead Blindsight by Peter Watts if you are looking for something in the "unknowable alien" vein thats both readable and includes some fascinating science.