Amazon.com Review
Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Boy turns out to be an old man impersonating his own grandson. Girl discovers diabolical plot to sterilize the Third World. Boy erases girl's memory. Intrigue upon intrigue unfolds, involving an army of ninjas, talking sharks with arms, the peculiarities of telegraphy, and a virtual Rex Stout detective who lives in an old Macintosh.
And that's just the setup for this well-developed, whip-smart mystery-thriller-love story from duo Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. But it's hard to imagine going wrong when you team up Niven's technology-loving optimism and legendary chops with Barnes's eclectic résumé (the guy's been everything from a karate columnist for Black Belt magazine to a scriptwriter for The Twilight Zone). Probably their best collaboration yet, Saturn's Race matches the pacing and unpredictability of Ken MacLeod's The Stone Canal while evoking the anything's-possible, shiny sleaziness of a Snow Crash near future.
Our protagonist--the boy-cum-grandfather--works on Xanadu, an OTEC-powered island-city floating just off Sri Lanka, part of a supranational corporate superelite. He's teamed up in a love triangle balanced by the girl who's mind he wiped and his ex-wife, a feisty security officer straight out of Stone Age Java. The population-control plot succeeds ("We can fight their grandchildren for air and water in thirty years, or we can reduce their numbers now"), but who knows what the puppet master behind Xanadu's all-powerful Council is really up to? --Paul Hughes
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The bestselling team of Niven and Barnes (The Legacy of Heorot; Lucifer's Hammer) have produced another compulsively readable, immensely enjoyable near-future yarn. The year is 2020 and the world is run by corporate conglomerates. Beautiful, brilliant Lenore Myles has just completed her master's degree and is poised for an exciting career in biological research. She is celebrating her graduation on the wondrous floating island Xanadu. Wealthy, attractive Chaz Kato, whose foundation was instrumental in paying for Lenore's expensive education, offers her the chance to do cutting-edge research on the island and be his lover. To entice Lenore to break her current contract, Chaz gives her his security clearance, allowing her carte blanche to the island's many technological secrets. During her exploration, Lenore stumbles upon a plot to sterilize the lower classes. Horrified, unsure of who is in on the conspiracy, she flees the island without telling Chaz of her findings. Saturn, an immeasurably powerful virtual creation run by persons unknown, plants false information about Lenore's whereabouts. This data is dutifully reported to Chaz by his ex-wife, Clarice MaibangDformerly an artist from a primitive culture, now a highly placed member of the island's security team. To save Lenore from the murderous Saturn, Chaz must plug into a program designed to create "squaliens"Dsea creatures who have been augmented for greater intelligenceDand, eventually, risk everything to uncover Saturn's identity and the secret that Lenore has now forgotten. Brilliantly weaving high-tech internets, augmentation technologies and social issues into a fast-paced cloak-and-dagger action adventure, this novel effortlessly moves from the depths of the ocean to the heights of VR to create a dazzling, seamless whole. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
