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novabird's review against another edition
4.0
“A splendid, brilliant, overwhelming book. I wish I had written it. Best s-f novel I have read in years.” --- Robert Silverberg
It has been awhile since I ventured into the territory of sci-fi. The wait was worth it, as I have inadvertently stumbled on a truly great, hard science fiction writer. As both a physicist and a poet, Benford combines his delivery of the conventions of sci-fi with the prose of lyricism.
"In the Ocean of Night," is the first of five later books in that Galactic Center series. It took him 25 years to write them all. He gives us glimpses of the future from the vantage of the mid-1970s and even got some things right. Although one needs to transfigure some of the technologies used into their contemporary versions.
The only small problem that I had with this book is that I found Nigel’s character was voiced in a British dialogue colloquialism with which I had no reference point. It however did not detract from the overall ease of reading.
This gets a 4.5 from me because of the really good character development as Nigel ages and his philosophical viewpoint changes. The plot is one that transfixes the reader. The detail in hard science is not overly done and is readily managed by the reader.
Other reviewers have outlined the plot. I will just say that at the end I let out an involuntary deep sigh of contentment. A satisfying read for those of the hard sci-fi bend that also like some introspection.
“He stared down at the cinder world that had betrayed his hopes by being so substantial, so deadly.”
“…his sentences paraded out to display a new facet of lock jawed Latinisms, words converging like a pack of erudite wolves to devour some snippet of causation …”
“He had a sudden perception of death: a small thing moving in from the distance, winging slowly in the night air as she slept. Searching the house. Through a window. Into the shadowed bedroom. Silent now. Fluttering. Fluttering into her sagging mouth.”
“Fresnel made a steeple of his hands, his stone rings like gargoyles.”
“The looming presence sat astride the flood of perception and took it all. Before Nigel could apply the filters of his eyes, ears, skin, touch, smell – before all that, the being sponged up this new and strange world, and in the act altered it for Nigel as well.”
Now I want to read the next five books in this series and I hear that the next in line, "Across the Sea of Suns," is even better.
It has been awhile since I ventured into the territory of sci-fi. The wait was worth it, as I have inadvertently stumbled on a truly great, hard science fiction writer. As both a physicist and a poet, Benford combines his delivery of the conventions of sci-fi with the prose of lyricism.
“Perspective defies the innate order. The handiwork of man blinds even this awesome furnace that hangs in the sky.”
"In the Ocean of Night," is the first of five later books in that Galactic Center series. It took him 25 years to write them all. He gives us glimpses of the future from the vantage of the mid-1970s and even got some things right. Although one needs to transfigure some of the technologies used into their contemporary versions.
The only small problem that I had with this book is that I found Nigel’s character was voiced in a British dialogue colloquialism with which I had no reference point. It however did not detract from the overall ease of reading.
This gets a 4.5 from me because of the really good character development as Nigel ages and his philosophical viewpoint changes. The plot is one that transfixes the reader. The detail in hard science is not overly done and is readily managed by the reader.
Other reviewers have outlined the plot. I will just say that at the end I let out an involuntary deep sigh of contentment. A satisfying read for those of the hard sci-fi bend that also like some introspection.
“He stared down at the cinder world that had betrayed his hopes by being so substantial, so deadly.”
“…his sentences paraded out to display a new facet of lock jawed Latinisms, words converging like a pack of erudite wolves to devour some snippet of causation …”
“He had a sudden perception of death: a small thing moving in from the distance, winging slowly in the night air as she slept. Searching the house. Through a window. Into the shadowed bedroom. Silent now. Fluttering. Fluttering into her sagging mouth.”
“Fresnel made a steeple of his hands, his stone rings like gargoyles.”
“The looming presence sat astride the flood of perception and took it all. Before Nigel could apply the filters of his eyes, ears, skin, touch, smell – before all that, the being sponged up this new and strange world, and in the act altered it for Nigel as well.”
Now I want to read the next five books in this series and I hear that the next in line, "Across the Sea of Suns," is even better.
lpstanford's review
The rhetoric got more and more sexist as the book went on. Complete tripe.
grayjay's review against another edition
3.0
A future grounded in reality, Nigel is an astronaut working for NASA in a future where "more efficient economies" are surpassing the US and Brazil is trying to buy American Airlines. A new futuristic religion, called the New Sons, is taking over the old ones and gaining momentum.
Early in his career on a comet speeding toward earth where Nigel has landed to plant a bomb, he discovers a dead alien ship, Earth's first encounter with extra-terrestrial life, making him an important player when a live one arrives in the solar system twenty years later.
On the positive, Benford was ahead of his time, playing with gender expectations, and having the protagonist in a thruple. On the negative, the book was a pretty bad fix-up of seperate stories. The first half was coherent, but the second half felt like a few different stories cobbled together.
**Spoiler** Intelligent life in the universe is mostly represented by machine civilizations that outlived their organic creators. The Visitor travels the universe observing systems and planets and keeping an eye out for organic civilizations, like Earth, that possess the chaos factor that leads to destruction.
Early in his career on a comet speeding toward earth where Nigel has landed to plant a bomb, he discovers a dead alien ship, Earth's first encounter with extra-terrestrial life, making him an important player when a live one arrives in the solar system twenty years later.
On the positive, Benford was ahead of his time, playing with gender expectations, and having the protagonist in a thruple. On the negative, the book was a pretty bad fix-up of seperate stories. The first half was coherent, but the second half felt like a few different stories cobbled together.
**Spoiler** Intelligent life in the universe is mostly represented by machine civilizations that outlived their organic creators. The Visitor travels the universe observing systems and planets and keeping an eye out for organic civilizations, like Earth, that possess the chaos factor that leads to destruction.
jmoses's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting, and I want more of the series, but the last quarter of this was iffy.
rust_and_sunset's review against another edition
2.0
Began a joy, ended a chore.
Mary Sue goes to the moon.
Mary Sue goes to the moon.
infinispace's review
2.0
Full review: http://infinispace.net/2015/03/review-in-the-ocean-of-night-by-gregory-benford/
In the Ocean of Night started out promising, but it's "fixup" novel structure quickly began to crack through the interesting facade. What starts as a mysterious and potentially threatening first contact scenario quickly turns into a political/neo-religious read strewn with the land mines of inconsistent and broken science. For example, the main character has cybernetic implants in his brain that can allow an alien AI take over his body, but he lives in a world that still uses pagers, fax machines, and typewriters. Eventually Benford just walks off a cliff and plummets into a boiling caldera of literary magma when he links (better sit down for this one) bigfoot (yes, THAT bigfoot, sasquatch) to aliens who visited Earth in the past. He even arms them with alien tubes that spew deadly lasers. Bigfoot.."lasers." Cue Dr. Evil voice.
I'm bound and determined to work my way through the Galactic Center series. I attribute the poor quality of this book to its fixup nature (and possible drug use in the 70s) and hope the follow on books are much better, because the overall premise is of interest to me.
In the Ocean of Night started out promising, but it's "fixup" novel structure quickly began to crack through the interesting facade. What starts as a mysterious and potentially threatening first contact scenario quickly turns into a political/neo-religious read strewn with the land mines of inconsistent and broken science. For example, the main character has cybernetic implants in his brain that can allow an alien AI take over his body, but he lives in a world that still uses pagers, fax machines, and typewriters. Eventually Benford just walks off a cliff and plummets into a boiling caldera of literary magma when he links (better sit down for this one) bigfoot (yes, THAT bigfoot, sasquatch) to aliens who visited Earth in the past. He even arms them with alien tubes that spew deadly lasers. Bigfoot.."lasers." Cue Dr. Evil voice.
I'm bound and determined to work my way through the Galactic Center series. I attribute the poor quality of this book to its fixup nature (and possible drug use in the 70s) and hope the follow on books are much better, because the overall premise is of interest to me.
modernviking's review against another edition
1.0
I'd forgotten how bad some sci-fi can be. Throw everything at the wall and don't bother to connect it well. back to the little free library with it!
lyleblosser's review against another edition
2.0
Snippets of goodness mixed in with a metaphysical/semi-spiritual/political collage of words that (for me) added nothing to the book. Picking out the straight prose plot-dense sections resulted in a better experience.
burntnorth's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
maxed's review against another edition
2.0
While there might be a few good ideas here, I generally disliked this book. A lot of dialogues are simply atrocious, "stream-of-consciousness" moments are confusing and hard to read, and the number of times the main character lucks into a major plot advancement break immersion a lot. There is pretty much nothing to offset all that: "alien computers are coming to get us" wasn't a new idea at the time, and been done to death since. The book even throws in the old stupid saw that "computer intelligences are inflexible and can't understand emotions" which was tired even at the time.