Customer Reviews

Outpost

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

 

 

Felicitas is a 17-year-old girl imprisoned, for a crime shecan't recall having committed, in an automated prison created by aliens on a remote planet. None of the prisoners have seen these aliens for years, except in dreams caused by the implants and the drugs that keep them passive. But the prison's automation, along with the implants, are breaking down, and as the inmates recover from their stupor, they realize they must escape before the food runs out. Eventually Felicitas and a small band of inmates break out of the prison and uncover a plot that stretches through time and space.

As solid a premise for a sci-fi novel as this sounds, and as strong as the first third of the book is, the middle third begins to degenerate, and the final third serves to disappoint. To sum up, Felicitas must travel back in time to 15th century Italy to prevent the French from conquering Italy so that a surly Machiavelli will never be compelled to write a treatise called The Prince, which centuries later will be read by a fellow by the name of Reymont, the true protagonist of Outpost, who through his aggression is the reason The New Ones (an alien race) wish to annihilate all of humanity. Felicitas naturally succeeds with her mission, but to what end she changes history is never fully explored, other than Reymont is deprived of the seed from which his cosmic tyranny will grow. When the French failed to conquer Italy, surely there must have been a ripple effect that would have been felt for decades and perhaps even centuries. What effect would it have had on Napoleon and his efforts to conquer the world, or on Hitler's desire to create an empire that would last 1,000 years, or on the industrial revolution in England and America, etc., ad infinitum?

To change history in the matter Mackay suggests is akin to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Would not traveling back in time to assassinate Reymont's maternal grandmother to be, thereby assuring his mother would never be born, be a more effective means to the end, and without any of the massive changes to the timeline that preventing the French from conquering Italy is sure to inflict?

Mackay is a deft enough writer - his storytelling will keep the reader turning pages - but the characters in Outpost are perhaps a trifle too well defined; the bad guys are definitely bad, and the good guys are good. The protagonist (Felicitas), the lone point of view character, contains no flaws, no frailties, which would have made her a more believable character.

Outpost is not a bad book, despite its over elaborate plot, but it could have been far better had Mackay employed the philosophy that sometimes less is better.

It's been a while since I read a book in one session. I just couldn't leave "Outpost" untill I was done.

The book tells the tale of the great escape from a prison on a distant planet, where the brainwashed inmates' only crime is to be descendents of political prisoners from the past.

A very recommendable book, describing how people react on coming out of deep amnesia. The book also deals with as different issues as time- travel and what future impact Machiavelli's "The Prince" might have.

This is a pretty good read. It's probably easiest to describe this as a science fiction prison escape story, but that doesn't quite do it justice.

The main plot revolves around seventeen year old Felicitas as she slowly becomes consciously aware of her situation- trapped in a prison, kept captive by inscrutable alien robot guards and strange machines. The setting is pretty interesting, and it takes a while to really figure out what the heck is going on.

The characters in this book are not very deep, including the protagonist. This may be because of their circumstances, but many of the secondary characters seem sort of bland.

The main plot is very strange and somewhat convoluted, and I don't want to spoil it by giving away to much, but aliens and time travel are involved.

Still, I liked this book. It sort of reminded me of the TV show Lost in some ways. It's not the greatest thing I've ever read, but it was enjoyable enough that I stayed up late to finish it.

Initial premise sounded good: humans trapped inside of a high-tech alien prison, who are at war with other aliens. The secret to victory lays in the Italian Renaissance.

Strange... I had to read it. First off, the prison isn't as 'high-tech' as described on the dustcover- the security consists of chain-driven robots. As hokey as it sounds, the first quarter of the book is actually really interesting as the prison's defenses degrade to the point where the humans can plan an escape. They create factions, design blueprints and the plot thickens. If more of the story took place in the prison, it would have been much more interesting. It had lots of potential. Then they escaped, as expected and some of the story goes downhill. And I must say that I hate telepathy unbacked by any science in sci-fi. With a tool like telepathy, anything is possible without any backing... it's a weak inclusion to any book without a science backbone. But really, it was an enjoyable book to follow the characters (good and bad) to the end and to see what the Italian Renaissance had to do with anything!

Where to begin (and keep this review concise)?

I just read this book again, for the second time, after several years of its sitting on the shelf. From the other reviews you can get a good idea of the plot.

Frankly it is a fun book to read. There is good character development; you identify with the protagonist and care about what happens to her. I also stayed curious throughout the book about the various storyline fragments. The author tosses them out in seemingly disparate ways. You anticipate that eventually the pieces will come together and you will make sense of it all, which indeed happens by the end of the book.

This is SF-Lite. Easy summer reading or airport escapism. It's your typical time-travelesque (altered timeline) story, temporal paradoxes and all. Humans are on the verge of extinction because of the evil doings of other beings that can travel through time and change our history. It gives the term "Machiavellian" a whole new twist.

Things get tied-up just a little too conveniently at the very end, though. Felicitas, our heroine, rights the wrongs by traveling to the past herself and fixing things.

The Italians get to rout the French (with Felicitas's surreptitious help) in the 15th & 16th centuries. Time paradoxes and other loose ends magically take care of themselves (HAH!). All is done with the hope that humanity will breath a collective sigh of relief when the future properly reknits. Does it? You'll have to read the book.

Despite this shallowness, it has its clever moments and is a pleasant and entertaining investment of one's time. Buy the paperback.

One thing in favor of this book is it was different than most other books I've read. While I was reading it, the writing was compelling enough that I was interested & didn't want to quit reading. But when I wasn't reading, it wasn't a book I thought about or looked forward to reading. And I haven't given the story another thought since I finished reading it a few weeks ago. So it's not bad, enjoyable while you're reading it, but nothing lasting.

Felicitas is a 17-year-old girl imprisoned, for a crime she can't recall having committed, in an automated prison created by aliens on a remote planet. None of the prisoners have seen these aliens for years, except in dreams caused by the implants and the drugs that keep them passive. But the prison's automation, along with the implants, are breaking down, and as the inmates recover from their stupor, they realize they must escape before the food runs out. Eventually Felicitas and a small band of inmates break out of the prison and uncover a plot that stretches through time and space.

As solid a premise for a sci-fi novel as this sounds, and as strong as the first third of the book is, the middle third begins to degenerate, and the final third serves to disappoint. Felicitas must travel back in time to 15th century Italy to change history in such a way that a surly Machiavelli will never be compelled to write a treatise called The Prince, which centuries later will be read by a fellow by the name of Reymont, the true protagonist of Outpost, who through his aggression is the reason The New Ones (an alien race) wish to annihilate all of humanity. But to what end she changes history is never fully explored. Surely a change of such magnitude in the timeline must result in a ripple effect that would have been felt for decades and perhaps even centuries. What effect would it have had on Napoleon and his efforts to conquer the world, or on Hitler's desire to create an empire that would last 1,000 years, or on the industrial revolution in England and America, etc., ad infinitum?

To change history in the matter Mackay suggests is akin to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Would not traveling back in time to assassinate Reymont's maternal grandmother to be, thereby assuring his mother would never be born, be a more effective, not to mention more believable, means to the end?

Mackay is a deft enough writer - his storytelling will keep the reader turning pages - but the characters in Outpost are perhaps a trifle too well defined; the bad guys are definitely bad, and the good guys are good. The protagonist (Felicitas), the lone point of view character, contains no flaws, no frailties, which would have made her a more believable character.

Outpost is not a bad book, despite its over elaborate plot, but it could have been far better had Mackay employed the philosophy that sometimes less is better.

I read the whole thing in one sitting. It was definitely a page turner. The way Mackay set up the mystery of the spooky automated prison was aboslutely wonderful. But the story degenerate somewhere in the middle. The human interactions are kinda unconvincing. The plot link to Machivellie is strenous at best and the way he resolved it wasn't a satisfying climax.

Imagine the perfect prison. It would be completely automated, all of the prisoners would be docile, and it would be on an uninhabited planet. This is exactly where Felicitas, a 17-year-old girl, finds herself one day. She, "wakes up," with no memories of actually committing a crime, and no memories of her childhood. She soon finds that other prisoners are waking up, and that some have been awake for quite awhile. Her prison is breaking down. The equipment which was meant to guard the prisoners and keep them docile is failing. Many of the prisoners who are awake now, are planning on escape. Felicitas is a key to their escape because of certain things she knows. Unfortunately she can't remember those things. Outpost is a very good book. It does have some weak points, but for Scott Mackay's first science fiction novel it is a stellar performance.

Outpost is one of the strangest books I've read in a while. Not that this is a bad thing. At first, it's not like Sci Fi at all, in fact I can't really compare it to anything. You don't find out what's really going on until the last portion of the book. But that aside, Outpost is a great book. You might wanna wait for papaerback though.