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The Fleet of Stars

3.8 out of 5 stars (32)
3.6 on Goodreads
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Book details

  1. Book 4 of 4
    Harvest of Stars
  2. Print length
    416 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Tor Science Fiction
  5. Publication date
    February 15, 1998
  6. Dimensions
    4.75 x 1.25 x 7 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0812545982
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0812545982
  9. See all details
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Book overview

In Fleet of Stars, Poul Anderson brings back the wildly colorful Anson Guthrie, his iconoclastic hero from Harvest of Stars. The staid, somber people of Earth are not only dependent on technology, they are all but ruled by machine intelligence. Suspecting a conspiracy to suppress humankind's last vestiges of freedom, Guthrie begins a dangerous journey across the realm of the comets, the asteroids, and the stars themselves--willing to risk his life to preserve humanity's ability to roam the universe.

Review

“Any new book from Poul Anderson is a cause for rejoicing, and Fleet of Stars in particular deserves celebration. Anderson has produced more milestones in contemporary science fiction and fantasy than any one man is entitled to.” ―Stephen Donaldson

“Fleet of Stars is a grand story that gets bigger and better with every page. Poul Anderson has poured over fifty years of skill and talent into a grandmaster-class story.” ―Larry Bond

About the Author

The bestselling author of such classic novels as Brain Wave and The Boat of a Million Years, Poul Anderson won just about every award the science fiction and fantasy field has to offer. He has won multiple Hugos and Nebulas, the John W. Campbell Award, The Locus Poll Award, the Skylark Award, and the SFWA Grandmaster Award for Lifetime Achievement. His recent books include Harvest of Stars, The Stars are also On Fire, Operation Chaos, Operation Luna, Genesis, Mother of Kings, and Going for Infinity, a collection and retrospective of his life's work. Poul Anderson lived in Orinda, California where he passed away in 2001.

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Poul Anderson
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"Poul Anderson (1926-2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his ""hard"" science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and ""fantasy with rivets,"" he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or ""Wanderer,"" Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle."

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Features & details

Features

  • 1st Tor Books Edition
  • 1st Mass Market Paperback Edition

Product information

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4 stars and above

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
32 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Doug Dandridge
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Anderson's last was one of his best.
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2012
The fourth volume of the Harvest of Stars Series sees Anson Guthrie, intrepid explorer who has led mankind to the stars and formed the Gaia worlds that ensure his immortality, concerned that the computer intelligence that rules the Earth may have something in mind for those... See more
The fourth volume of the Harvest of Stars Series sees Anson Guthrie, intrepid explorer who has led mankind to the stars and formed the Gaia worlds that ensure his immortality, concerned that the computer intelligence that rules the Earth may have something in mind for those who have left. With the help of Lunarian colonists of Alpha Centauri, Guthrie sends a download in an armed ship to the Solar System. During this time a human living on the Moon goes through a career that leads him to wanted to establish a Gaia in the solar system, on Mars. A very well written tale with Anderson's wonderful style, I was very happy to have picked up this book.
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DickStanley
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tedious at times, but worth the read
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2009
Several times in the middle, I got so tired of reading repetitive speeches by the unctuous know-it-all Chuan, that I almost quit. Glad I didn't, as the action finally picked up at the end with startling surprises that made me glad I finished it. I probably wouldn't plow... See more
Several times in the middle, I got so tired of reading repetitive speeches by the unctuous know-it-all Chuan, that I almost quit. Glad I didn't, as the action finally picked up at the end with startling surprises that made me glad I finished it. I probably wouldn't plow through it again, but there are parts, especially in the last hundred pages that I won't forget.
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Rotten Roger
3.0 out of 5 starsVerified Purchase
It is okay
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2023
It drags in places and some of the payoffs are uninteresting.
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A. G Provencal
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth reading it.
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2014
This book has some interesting parts, some good parts and some fun parts. But, the sum of these three does not equal a well written whole. This novel at 405 pages is at least 100 pages TOO long! It has at least two TOO many subplots. If this was the first writing of Poul... See more
This book has some interesting parts, some good parts and some fun parts. But, the sum of these three does not equal a well written whole. This novel at 405 pages is at least 100 pages TOO long! It has at least two TOO many subplots. If this was the first writing of Poul Anderson that I read I would never want to read anything else of his. A good deal of the book is tedious reading. In contrast to this novel some of his short stories and novellas are very good.
The ending is ho-hum at best.
I finished reading this book largely out of a sense of duty. I don't like to start something and not finish it.
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M. Ben-Menachem
1.0 out of 5 stars
nogo
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2001
I have ten other books by Poul Anderson. Every one of them is a "5". This one is simply a failure. It dragggggggs terribly. This is the first book by Anderson that I know of that is badly written. Most Unfortunate.
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jps00@ibm.net
2.0 out of 5 stars
Golden Age SF Dressedup for the 90's and Being Walked Around
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 1997
"Fleet of Stars" is old-style sf dressed-up for the 90's and being walked around. I didn't finish it. In the story Anderson recycles the classic, hero Anson Guthrie from "Harvest of Stars". "Harvest" was not a bad novel. And I could... See more
"Fleet of Stars" is old-style sf dressed-up for the 90's and being walked around. I didn't finish it.
In the story Anderson recycles the classic, hero Anson Guthrie from "Harvest of Stars". "Harvest" was not a bad novel. And I could believe its vision of the future. In "Fleet", hundreds of years have passed. On Earth, an interplanetary sentient computer network exists along side of nano-tech, planetary engineering, and near FTL travel. When two of the characters are given a calculator and told to memorize all the sines from zero to 45 degrees to four decimal places as punishment, I stopped reading. Calculators! Here is an author unclear with the concept. Thinking like that would result in flint chippers being issued as standard equipment with nuclear warheads. That is the problem with "Fleet" everyone thinks and acts like they're in 60's or 70's USA.
Anderson remains technically a good writer, but he is severely dated. Claims to be a "Hard Science Fiction Author" mean he does not write novels with scenes violating the laws of physics. However, societal and technologic change are considerably more volatile then the speed of light. This is a novel by an author who is literally "locked-in" to his formative years. "Fleet" is golden age of sf draped in 90's techie buzzwords. The result is a story not silly enough to be considered a parody.
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Brett O. Bandm@interpac.net
1.0 out of 5 stars
The book sucked
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 1998
I read the entire series and found it mostly boring. I don't think that Anderson actually resovled any of the problems raised from the conflict between the two main groups. The ending was especially disappointing, I wait through the entire book to find out whats going to... See more
I read the entire series and found it mostly boring. I don't think that Anderson actually resovled any of the problems raised from the conflict between the two main groups. The ending was especially disappointing, I wait through the entire book to find out whats going to happenwith some new alien civilization and he has a useless meeting between to characters in order to revive a dead one who ends up doing nothing. The entire last chapter was 'Fenn woke.'.
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