Customer Reviews

Suns End

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

 

 

Although mildly interesting throughout, this decidedly unoriginal book is more a showcase for the author's emotional immaturity than anything else. A man injured in space wakes up 80 years later to discover that he is a super-cyborg; too much like The Six Million Dollar Man and even Superman. He discovers that the Sun is going to render Earth uninhabitable several decades hence and so travels around the solar system with three other people in search of a stupid mystery that may save Earth's people. The story then ends without really resolving anything.

I agree with the previous reviewer. The beginning generated enough interest for me to finish the book mainly by inertia. The author fumbles almost every opportunity at character development and fails to capitalize on the story's set up (cyborg/bionic man), hackneyed as it is. All of this might be bearable if the ending provided even the slightest shred of satisfaction. Instead, it's as if the author reached some magic word-count. The book just ends. It's an intensely dissatisfying close to a generally mediocre book.

First few chapters seemed good, so i read to the end. But the author clearly had no idea where to go with the story. It ends SO abruptly, without resolving anything.

There are some interesting ideas and some interesting scenes. In fact certain chapters would probably function better as stand alone short stories, than as part of a larger whole. I still remember his description of one chapter filled with shifting points of view, when the story is told from the perspective of various forest animals that are all killing each other that I found fascinating at the time. But scenes like that don't fit coherently together, they are just a bunch of random images jumbled together. As a novel, it just never comes together.

Daniel Kitajima was hit by a orbital crane and wakes up 80 years later. It turns out much has changed - mankind has spread out into space, many of them living in space stations called Islands. Most still live on Earth, a Earth that is slowly warming up. It seems that the Sun is getting hotter and hotter. And if nothing is done the solar system, at least the inner planets, only have a few centuries to live.
Daniel comes back as a cyborg - super-power, super-fast, able to see heat and radar and so on.
Besides the details of the future, which seem to be somewhat realistic, well balanced, neither a Paradise nor a Hell, I found Daniel, and the other characters, somewhat childish. In other words, the characters were self-centered, selfish, greedy and therefore very real. Very human.
I also like how the story went slowly from hard sci-fi to soft, fantasy, sci-fi. You have as much trouble believing what is happening almost as much as the main characters. Another sign of a good story - you sometimes find yourself on Daniel's side, feeling he is right to be upset.
As for the ending, yes, it leaves so many questions unanswered, but this is the FIRST of a two book series. The next book, Galaxy's End, continues where this one ends.
Good rainy day book - nothing too complex. Lots of fun ideas.