Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good story hampered by literary pitfalls, September 6, 2004
I saw this at the bookstore and it looked interesting. In fact, it was interesting but not exactly what I had in mind. I enjoy books that use Science Fiction as a backdrop for a story about the human condition or romantic relationships, i.e. Fires of God, Hercules Text, Contact. The trouble is that the hero is never authentic nor are the situations that profound. Someone said it best when they noted the whole thing appears to be a draft of a novel.
As always, I note that even 350 years in the future, people still go on job interviews, have physical computers, and that strangely all the current historical sites (Congress, monuments, White House, etc) are still standing and intact. The reason for the alien attack is finally disclosed but I had LOTS of trouble with the boarding and exploration of the vessel. I mean, the descriptions were so esoteric and unclear that I could barely follow them on their journey.
I would have preferred two novels - one with alien contact, the other about the personal/political situation. Combining both in the same story only lessened the intensity of each. One sees the idea of a budding Martian-Earth romance between the scientists but for some reason this is side-tracked and we meet the snippy ex-wife. In fact, there are way too many characters for so short a book. I have railed against authors who introduced a myriad of folks, assign them a small task and forgettable dialogue before they sink into oblivion.
The ending was exactly what you guessed half way into the story. Everyone is healed, peace breaks out, true love conquers all. There is nothing bad with this (I am a romantic, at heart) but when you offer a pat conclusion, the preceding action must be sufficiently invigorating to withstand the mundaneness. In this case it was not.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Almost there, April 3, 2004
This writer is a great ideas man, but his delivery does not do justice to those ideas.Having read Orbis, I had decided that Scott MacKay had great potential and resolved to give him another try. Omnifix is an improvement over Orbis. The plot twists and turns with the reader unable to get a step ahead of the writer. His characterisations are deep enough without sacrificing the fast pace of the novel. Actually, it was that fast pace that kept me reading after I realised that he had written another average novel with once again a great beginning and concept. This writer's problem lies with the way he handles prose. Reading this book you get the feeling that in a sense it is a draft, a relatively polished one but still a draft. Some parts needed expanding; some other ones editing. For example, why do we spend so much time reading about the martian trek, and yet there is little focus on the way he feels while his limbs disintegrate? Why do we end up knowing the causes behind nanogen 16 but not 17? I am not trying trash this book. This book has a lot of merit, but there are some missing ingredients: better prose, an ending that matches the grandiosity of the concept instead of an ending that falls slightly off the mark. Scott MacKay once he fixes a whole bunch of small deficiencies that unfortunately do add up to his detriment will be an author to be remembered as a master of the genre.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, scientifically not profound, rushed at the end, April 19, 2004
The synopsis on the backside of the book looked interesting and promising and reminded me a bit of Ship of Fools (Richard Russo) in regards to the unknown alien species: "Ten years have passed since an unknown alien species invaded Earth. Hundreds of unmanned alien weapons platforms armed with deadly nanogens were unleashed throughout the solar system...a new weapon platform enters the solar system and is heading towards Earth". When reading the synopsis of this book, someone might expect a story mostly concerned with this new alien weapon platform. My expectation was certainly headed in that direction. However, as it turned out, the weapon platform was just a small piece in the puzzle and the actual story was much broader and went beyond a simple stop-and-destroy-mission. A vicious conspiracy manifested itself and entered the story at unexpected stages, enriched the overall plot and created a good level of suspense. For a moment, I was a bit disappointed when the actual stop-and-destroy-mission suddenly ended and the main character Alex returned to earth. The book lost a bit of its momentum at that stage but quickly got back on track and rewarded the reader with a superb, almost emotional phase, when the protagonist faced problems only known to nanogen 16 and 17 infected people. In general, the characters are amazingly crafted and go far beyond the average sci-fi character development. I wouldn?t say this doesn?t come at any cost, because the scientific part of the story is somewhat not comprehensive and sophisticated enough. For example, at one stage in the story, cloning comes into the picture and is used to move a human being into a new body, including memories, feelings, experience, and even the personality. This whole process is very simplified and only talks about downloading someone?s existence onto a hard drive and uploading it into the new body?s brain. Fundamental questions, such as are we human beings only a combination of our experience/memory, therefore we can create clones of ourselves and therefore we reach immortality? The author uses this concept without looking at least into the hypothetical issues and details of cloning and mentality transfers. He simply ignores the fact that he created the concept of immortal humans with this cloning solution! Do not get a wrong idea about the story; it is definitely not a stupid cloning type of sci-fi plot! The last thing which I found disturbing is the almost prompt ending. Mackay rushes towards the end and tries to cover too many facts in not enough pages. He could have easily expanded the book by another 100 pages without creating any bored second at all. In summary, I loved the story, the rich characters and the fast pace of events happening. It is for sure one of the better sci-fi books I have read over the last couple of years!
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