Customer Reviews

Slow Freight

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The writing is good and the ideas are interesting... but as the other reviewer mentions it all bogs down into a weird obsession with sex. Not one but many of the characters make critical decisions based on whether or not they would have to go a few days or weeks without getting laid. It's really kind of weird.

That said, over the years I occasionally re-read this book and in fact this review was while I checked to see if there was a kindle version :)

Humanity has overcome most of the bigger obstacles to intersteller travel by developing a powerful propulsion system and a system of gates that transports matter over an infinite distance. The gates are linked one to one so the only thing holding mankind back from exploring the galaxy is transporting the gates throughout space. On the initial journey humans accedentally run into an alien ship and damage it, puting in motion a chain of events that may destroy the Earth. All in all it seems like a lot of interesting ideas. Unfortunitly interesting ideas, on their own, do not make a good book. Busby, the author, buries his gems in a flood of verbous writing and shallow sexuality. I would estimate that 40% of the book is made up of uninteresting stories of the various chacater's sexual past. Even when the story shift view-points to the aliens, a great deal of that section is taken up by lengthy description of their sexual habits. None of this is interesting. A good basic story is so sidetracked by the writer's obsession on sex that the book just isn't worth the time you put into it. This is the first time I've read a book and actually thought "were was the editor?". A terrible 310 page book may have been condensed down to a pretty good and focused 150 pages.