Customer Reviews

The Practice Effect

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Gee, not every SF book has to be a deep exploration of the limits of the genre. Sometimes you just like to kick back and enjoy yourself. This is exactly what this book is, and it's a great read, fast and fun at the same time, while still throwing up some interesting concepts. David Brin normally is an acquired taste, his Uplift books are some of the best SF books around but then they to be heavy on the plot, stories seem to drag on for years (I think only recently he got around to resolving some stuff from the first trilogy) and he can be a bit wordy. Not here though. Granted the ideas aren't as mindblowing as elsewhere but you know what, who cares? The basis here is that an Earth scientist is sent to another world and trapped there for a bit. The world seems backwards and forwards at the same time, there is caveman technology sitting alongside highly advanced stuff, among other mysteries. The scientist (Dennis) has to try and figure out what the heck is going on before he gets killed, especially since a Baron is trying to take over everything. Sounds like fun, right? Dennis' solutions to get out of problems, especially once he figures out how everything works, are great, and Brin seems to delight in this world, putting a decent amount of detail into it. He uses a SF explantion at the end that makes a tiny bit of sense but by then it really won't matter. There's all sorts of good stuff here, from ingenuity to danger to suspense to action to a bit of romance as well. Even if this isn't the most innovative stuff it's well written and brisk and . . . fun. That's all I can say. It's a fun little book that is more memorable than some of Brin's other work simply because of that. And you can't go wrong like that.

Once every so often, SF authors escape their genre and write something on a lark that turns out to be really special. That's the case with The Practice Effect. While I've generally found Brin a bit tedious (overlong, overplotted, overwordy), I loved The Practice Effect the first time I read it and enjoyed it at least as much when rereading it years later. It reads like Harry Harrison's best, or (most aptly) like The Flying Sorcerors. The hero is a technologically adept person, thrown into a less technological environment, who learns to combine his modern-day savvy with the peculiarities of his new environs to his considerable advantage. And, of course, to the delight of his readers.

The gimmick in "The Practice Effect" is too entertaining to give up in a review, but you'll enjoy every minute of seeing it exploited. It's a short book (I wouldn't mind more of these, actually) but one you'll want to read and re-read every word of.

I rate books by the bathroom. A good book is one I find myself taking into the bathroom without conscious thought, and the exceptional book causes me to forget to the bathroom even exists. The pinnacle is the book which so enraptures that I forget to eat, somewhat negating my normal rating system.

Only novels by David Brin and Robert Heinlein have had that ultimate effect on me.

If your only exposure to David Brin is Startide Rising or the Uplift War and you're expecting the same overwhelming immersion into a foreign land, you'll be disappointed. Practice Effect is the first novel Brin wrote, although not the first published, and it is "only" a good read. It has the same heroic themes common in his latter works, but without the polish. The result is inevitably, and unfairly, disappointing to someone familiar with his later works.

On the other hand it may be a good introduction to Heroic SF, especially for juveniles. There's still the same action on a grand scale, "ordinary joes" changing the course of nations, friendly familiars (a bit more explicitly than the Tymbrini computers hidden in Tom and Gillian's quarters), and the smugly superior facing their own petards a-hoisting, but the heros and devils are clear from the start and the point of view doesn't jump among the many players.

Finally, as a would-be author I've found it useful to compare the writing in Practice Effect, Sundiver, and Startide Rising, in that order. They form a dramatic demonstration of how a writer matures. If you want to learn how to write books like Startide Rising or the Uplift War, start by learning how to write books like Practice Effect and then refine your skills from "merely" very good to Hugo- and Nebula-award winning.

If you are a physicist (like this reader), you will be rolling on the floor laughing. If not, you will simply find the book very, very funny. Brin sneaks in everything, from parodies of Star Wars to bad Latin puns. So it falls in the standard hero-goes-to-strange-country-and-makes-good, complete with Helpful Sidekick and Beautiful Damsel. So what? Brin obviously had great fun writing this one. I had fun reading it. Hope you do too.

I've read everything Brin has published. He weaves a very real and believable story, usually based upon real science, or real theory.This book was obviously a departure into fantasy. I found The Practic Effect to be a fun light-hearted Sci-Fi fantasy. It was interesting to explore the notion of, "What if physics and natures laws worked differently, somewhere else?" It was, of course, written very well, in Brin's cinematic style.

David Brin's earlier work have the show the same beginning skill as his newer novels. Here once again, he masterfully creates a world for his characters and he delivers this world to you in a way that makes the reading easy.

This novel centers around a physicist caught in the middle of office politics in the university he works in. This is not so much the basis of the story but the setting that the story begins with. At the university this physicist has created a device that enables you to explore other worlds on a different plane of existance. However, some minor problems with the use of this device ensue and the initial inventor of this device, who has been brushed aside due to these politics, has been asked once again to help with it.

Totally unarmed with previous information he is thrust into one of these anomaly worlds with only the idea that the physics in control of this world may be somewhat different. What a beginning!

As the main character Dennis Neul explores this world you understand his observations as all from earth would. However, pulling together his various theories based on Earth rules, don't add up and he is forced to adjust his earlier assumptions.

There is a complication that extends his visit and he is thrust in the middle of some hostilities that are currently dominating this world. He interacts with the locals and begins to understand more of the local customs and rules of physics.

This book is classic Brin. His well thought-out science that is so easily portrayed to the reader is a joy.

You will thoroughly enjoy this book.

For me, this book is the best kind of science fiction -- the kind where the author has taken a physical law and changed it, asking himself "What if. . . .". In this case, the physical law he changes is my least favorite, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which in our universe basically means that adding energy to a system causes it to lose order. That's why knives get dull when you chop too much, and your car breaks down when you drive too much.

Of course, you can't go around changing basic laws like that without explanation. In this case, it's the old experiment-which-punches-through-to-another-universe. But in this new universe, the Second Law is reversed in some cases -- imagine if your knives got sharper the more you used them, or if your car gradually morphed into a Lamborghini on that cross-country trip. . . .

But the author has done more than simply imagine the physical consequences -- he's moved into the social realm as well. If driving made your car into a Lamborghini, wouldn't you hire someone to drive it all the time if you could? But at the same time, would you pay for research and engineering to make a better car if all you had to do was drive yours to improve it? And that's the sticking point; human society in this new universe is technically backward, feudal, and slave-based.

Our hero has to do something about that. . . .

The premise of this book is an interesting one. Unfortunately, Brin's writing talents at the time weren't what they are now. Basically, the writing is trite and juvenile. Looking at the copyright dates of his books, it looks like "The Practice Effect" is either his third or his fourth novel. The first novel was "Sundiver" (1980). The second was "Startide Rising" (1983). Then in 1984, he wrote (apparently) both this book and "The Uplift War." From a technical perspective (i.e., the style of the writing), it's hard to believe that he wrote this book right in the middle of his Uplift War saga. The writing style is far closer to that in his 1980 "Sundiver" (and "Sundiver" is FAR better than this book) than it is to his 1984 "The Uplift War." My guess is that he wrote this well before the rest, had it lying on a shelf, and just pushed it out to capitalize on his popularity.

Just for the sake of a comparison to his later works, and because the concept is so interesting, I do recommend people read it. Just don't expect too much out of it.

I found this book to be very entertaining, for half of the book. The first half of the book kept me very entertained. Finding a new world, and explaining it, and how it exists was very good, as were the characters. The second half of the book became irritating to me. Every thing could be fixed with the practice effect, regardless that it was something that rarely had ever happened before in the world that the story takes place in. It became a nice easy way to get the characters out of trouble, and was relied on too much. Was the story entertaining none the less...Yes. I could look past those things I have mentioned, I just did not rate the book very high because of it. I am not going to give the plot away, but several of the characters kept the book amusing. I like to read a story and smile every now and then at cute things that put humor into a book even though a tale is being told, and for that I applaud the author. The book left me with several funny images that still run through my head.

Most SF contains one or more "What if"s. Brin has chosen one of the toughest---"What if I change some of the basic physical laws of nature?" From that simple premise, he manages to spin an interesting yarn, that's well thought out, and quite entertaining; it is certainly one of the more humorous novels I've read this year.

My only complaint is that the ending seems somewhat rushed; it seems as if Brin knew where he wanted to go, and cut out a scene or two along the way to get there. Other than that, though, it was highly enjoyable.