Customer Reviews

Probability Sun

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

 

 

I've read just about everything I can that Nancy Kress has written, which naturally included her Beggars series. She doesn't normally take on subjects like this one (and it's predecessor Probability Moon), but she excels.

Like most women authors, she brings to life a side of relationships that men often do not understand, but she is not too heavy handed. And as most good stories are, this one is a tale about human nature. But the scientific theory and the primitive setting are very well done.

She sticks close to the latest in physics and I was very impressed.

I'd say that anyone that likes hard-science fiction, and particularly if you like Greg Egan's work, you'll find Probability Sun an engaging tale.

...Any good SF reader knows Nancy Kress, and knows her writing style well. In Probability Sun, she does not reach the pinnacle of her success (though Moon is pretty close), but she nonetheless writes a decent novel. Particularly interesting are her complex characters, for which she is well known throughout her Beggars in Spain series; (*minor spoilers follow*) you find yourself agreeing with Capelo's desire to murder the Faller, you find yourself sort of surprised at the backbone of Kaufmann, and the dwellers of World continue to hold your interest throughout the book. Not to mention the science, which is great as usual for Kress (whose husband helped out just a bit, according to the author's note =)

So, for real SF readers, the review is in: great characters, interesting science (though nothing spectacular), good plot. Pick it up, and pray Space comes out in paperback soon ... =)

The foundation of this Hugo and Nebula Award winner's latest series is an interstellar war with the mysterious Fallers, a civilization so alien there has never been any communication other than killing. Both sides use a little-understood series of space tunnels left by a vanished race.

The first in the series, "Probability Moon" introduced World, a planet of empaths whose "shared reality" makes lying impossible. While a team of anthropologists established relations with the Worlders, a military team studied the planet's artificial moon, another of the vanished race's artifacts, which they hoped would turn the tide in the war. The story ended in disaster, with the humans declared "unreal" and the moon destroyed.

The sequel, "Probability Sun," neatly telescopes the earlier story as humans prepare for a new mission to study a second artifact hidden in World's sacred caves. The mission includes two characters from the first book, blunt, straightforward geologist Dieter Gruber and his thoughtful wife, xenobiologist Ann Sikorski as well as brilliant, eccentric physicist Tom Capelo, gene-engineered empath Marbet Grant and Major Lyle Kaufman, the mission's reluctant leader, a mild, politic man who doesn't recognize his own strengths.

While the scientists swarm over the artifact and re-establish relations with (and studies of) the Worlders, including Enli, whose previous experience gives her more insight into humans than she wants, the military secretly uses Marbet Grant to study the first Faller ever captured alive.

The character-driven action moves between the ship and the planet, the alien enemy and the enigmatic artifact, military ambitions and scientific goals, building to choices that may destroy Worlder civilization, tip the balance of the war or end the universe as we know it. Kress' story is well organized and well written and her characters multi-dimensional. The story is an engaging blend of military and psychological strategy, speculative science, moral dilemmas and suspense. The ending provides satisfying closure while leaving the door open for a third book.

The book is one of three written by Nancy Kress in a series about interstellar space travel and alien encounters.
The book had a lot of tough scientific terms and facts to try to wrap your head around but the character development and the story line more than made up for struggling through the technical wording. I bought Probability Moon (the first in the series) years ago and loved it. However, when I bought it it was out of print (I love trolling through used book stores). I bought the third book in the series (Probability Space) at another used book store, and then had to wait to find the second book. It was absolutely driving me mad waiting, so I finally bought Probability Sun from Amazon. I enjoyed the series so much that I read through them both in one week.
If you love true hard sci-fi and if you love a good alien yarn then this series is for you. Don't miss out on it!

After having read some of Nancy Kress's short fiction as well as Beggars in Spain and Probability Moon, I was expecting substantially more from this novel than I found. What made Probability Moon an interesting read was the unique alien culture it depicted. The characters may have been two dimensional and her interpretation of modern physics jumbled, but the anthropology of a society in which all ideas and opinions are arrived at by a biologically imperative consensus made up for that.

In Probability Sun we see little of the World culture and more garbled science and scientists. The characterization of the scientists is gratingly two-dimensional. Capelo is one of the most unsympathetic characters I have come across in a good while. In fact, all of the characters appear so narrow and crudely drawn that it is hard to sympathize with their opinions or outlooks because they seem so bizarre and unsupported. The science itself consists of garbled explanations of modern physics. Kress freely spews quantum mechanics buzz words almost totally divorced from any actual understanding of the ideas. The science presented here reads more like name-dropping, she uses the right words but one is highly skeptical as to whether or not she really knows what they mean or would even recognize them in a crowd.

I read this book because I was interested in learning what would happen to the inhabitants of World when the humans returned to meddle further in their culture. Unfortunately, this sequel is overall so garbled and thin that even finding out the answers to questions left over from Probability Moon couldn't make it worth the read.

The actual idea behind the book is pretty good and is very interesting. The problem is that characters lack certain personality and the just have one or two emotions, also the science parts maybe quite confusing for some (especially me because i'm from Mexico) but still you'll probably be able to understand the most part. You'll probably like this book but it's not an action book and progresses kind of slow in some parts but still it's quite a fun book because of the theories and things like the shared reality.

Another thing is that you should probably read Probablity Moon before but it isn't a necesity to understand this book ( I read this one before not realising it was a triology)

The human race is losing a war against the 'Fallen' a mysterious race who kills rather than communicating. Now the Fallen have discovered a shield that protects them from anything the humans can throw at them. If they don't do something, the human race is doomed.

In PROBABILITY SUN, a small group of scientists and soldiers travel to a fascinating world of 'shared reality' to uncover an artifact that just might have something to do with the interstellar travel that humans have discovered but don't understand, and just might have something to do with the Fallen shield.

The same mission, for no particular reason, also carries the only Fallen ever captured alive.

I loved author Nancy Kress's depiction of 'The World' and the shared reality system that makes it work. The physics that run through the 'probability' aspect of her work are also interesting.

I found the military situation that two such critical missions (saving the human race and communicating with the only captured member of the attacking species) would be conducted by such a small group of scientists (only one of which had any communication with the Fallen). An even bigger problem was with the characters. Tom Capelo is flat, his emotions ranging from rage to a sort of maudlin love for his children. Colonel Kaufman, more or less the protagonist, doesn't really seem to arc much. He does what he has to, but the reader never sees the change or what it means to him.

PROBABILITY SUN is interesting and well written, but it won't stick with you the way Kress intended, nor the way it almost achieved.

A couple of centuries into the future, the Fallers are defeating the Earthlings in an interstellar war. Time seems to be running out for the Terrans as nothing works against their unbeatable foes.

Desperate, the Terrans return to World, a place whose sentient inhabitants Worlders kicked humans off planet due to different "realities" (see PROBABILITY MOON). The human crew consists of scientists and military, but the two groups have different agendas when it comes to the artifact they plan to study on World. The soldiers plan to use the machine without testing it in a last chance effort to defeat the seemingly infallible Fallers. However, the scientists worry that activating this gizmo from a long defunct advanced race could lead to a universal doomsday. Even before they can study the machine, the Earthlings must find a means of obtaining the help of the empathic Worlders who probably will boot the Terrans off planet again.

PROBABILITY SUN is the usual great science fiction novel expected by genre fans of Nancy Kress. The story line is fast-paced, loaded with action, and contains strong characterizations including the alien races. World seems like a real world and the future remains bleak for humanity, but not quite as dark as PROBABILITY MOON that is if the Worlders cooperate, and the artifact can be activated and controlled. Ms. Kress continues to provide some of the best the genre has to offer when the emphasis is on the science as much if not more so as the fiction.

Harriet Klausner