Customer Reviews

The Sails of Tau Ceti

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

 

 

Humanity is delighted when it discovers an artifact heading towards Earth from Tau Ceti, especially since that star recently became a nova rather unexpectedly. They are thrilled when they realize that the artifact is a ship carrying refugees. Some are xenophobic but most are eager to get their hands on some first class alien technology. An expedition is dispatched to meet the ship and all goes well...almost too well.

The aliens seem to know a lot about humanity. In fact, their knowledge seems uncanny and even frightening at times as they try to mimic their hosts. One person, though, learns the reason for this. They are not a simple group of refugees. They have much bigger plans and the survival of humanity depends upon treason and deception.

This is a well written and crafted story for most of its extent. The end is a bit draggy but it is worth reading.

What a pleasant surprise this book was! From the beginning I found the plot incredibly intriguing and the writing style engrossing. Less than halfway through the book one is confronted with a moral delimma I hope we never have to face as humans. In fact, it's one of the most unique and difficult choices imaginable. How it's resolved, as this remarkable story unfolds, is fascinating. Needless to say, I loved this book and recommend it highly.

I was reluctant to buy a book that had little to no dissenting voices, 4-5 star reviews, including a Top 500 reviewer. Sounded fishy. But...having good cashflow right now I went for it and, to my surprise, it /is/ good.
Others (along with the blurb) have done a good job of explaining the initial plot details, and the core of the mystery. Read their reviews for that.
So how's the novel, you might ask?
The characterisation was realistic, from motivations to personality to discourse. Unlike Robert L. Forward's Rocheworld (which I just read), these characters actualy think and talk in a realistic fashion, and McCollum does nothing silly and amateurish with the way he types, such as exclamation points every other utherance, or capitalized words in someone's speech.
The science exposition is adequately limited for our enjoyment, and what of it there is - to my knowledge - appears accurate, from space radiation exposure, light-sail dynamics, relativistic physics, to orbital mechanics.
The book has minimal esthetic appeal for collectors (low-budget small press), but a relatively good job has been done on editing nonetheless. At least, many other novels make you bleed from the eyes at the number of errors.
Final word: worth the read, but not impressive, hence 1 star less. I can only vouch for the editing and physical appearance of the Sci Fi-Arizona edition, not the older Del Rey one.

A good novel built around an interesting plot in which a plot twist is revealed early but hold up throughout the novel.

Unwanted visitors that seem fascinating, then morph into something repulsive. You notice this book really gets you going emotionally. You imagine yourself in the situation this story so well describes and wonder how you would handle it. Very engrossing on many levels. I also think the author did one of the best jobs I have seen fleshing out female characters in the way females really react, and the same for male characters.

The ending is quite satisfactory and needed to reach a climax. Not at all your typical shoot'em up first encounter with first contact of an alien people. Yet set up so you think it will become just that at any moment. Even convinces you of how difficult it might be for any aliens to interface with humans without some sort of unavoidable conflict that will end badly.

I have been a bit amorphous on the details because I don't want to give away too much. It would be a shame to spoil such a finely done piece of writing.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a great combination of real science and a fictional story. It really grabbed my interest and I thoroughly enjoyed the read.