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shawniebooks's review
3.0
I prefer more in depth characters and found much of my time with this book spent in repetitive technical details and long explanations.
danielv64's review against another edition
5.0
A very good hard science space exploration series, great characters and a great start.
pjonsson's review
5.0
This is one of these series that I started because I really liked other books by the same author or in this case one of the authors, Ryk E. Spoor. Specifically his Grand Central Arena series.
So far I have read the three first books, Boundary, Threshold and Portal and started on the fourth one Castaway Planet. This review is about the first three books which forms the first main story arc of the series. The fourth book is taking place further in the future and appears to be starting a new story arc.
Obviously the books are decent enough since I’ve read three books in the same series and started on the fourth. However “decent” is a huge understatement. These books are really great reading, full stop.
It is not action loaded military science fiction thrillers, although they have their share of suspense, thrills and action but rather a more slower paced mystery and adventure story. A story starting with one person making a discovery that has huge implications and impact for the course of humanity.
The books are very well written. Something I would expect from this author. The story is both plausible and a great adventure story. It takes its time to develop but is never dull and moments of new discoveries, thrills and surprises are sprinkled throughout the story with enough frequency to make you want to continue to read just a bit more.
The main protagonist as well as the characters she later surrounds herself with really likable. Honorable, competent, heroic and everything else you would want in a merry band of good guys. Their interactions are really good whether they are in the process of solving the great mysteries of the universe or just bantering for some comic relief.
There are of course less good guys and really bad guys as well and this is perhaps where my main gripe with the series comes in. The really bad guys are, drumroll, politicians. Unfortunately I am not surprised. Given how utterly useless and detrimental to society most of todays politicians are they are an easy choice as bad guys. Anyway, there’s a fair amount of this useless, annoying and frustrating politics going on. As usual every great thing and great opportunity can be, and usually are, screwed up by that regression of the human race, the Homo Politicus Fuckupicus.
What saves the books 5 star ratings (actually the second book would really only get 4 stars from me since there’s simply too much political asshattery) is that the rest is really great reading and also that the political oxygen wasters are either outmaneuvered or, in the case of the third book, gets their asses handed to them.
I’m quite looking forward to where the authors go with the fourth book in the series. It is set further in the future but in the same universe created by the first three books. However, being at around the half way mark it seems to be a somewhat different story.
So far I have read the three first books, Boundary, Threshold and Portal and started on the fourth one Castaway Planet. This review is about the first three books which forms the first main story arc of the series. The fourth book is taking place further in the future and appears to be starting a new story arc.
Obviously the books are decent enough since I’ve read three books in the same series and started on the fourth. However “decent” is a huge understatement. These books are really great reading, full stop.
It is not action loaded military science fiction thrillers, although they have their share of suspense, thrills and action but rather a more slower paced mystery and adventure story. A story starting with one person making a discovery that has huge implications and impact for the course of humanity.
The books are very well written. Something I would expect from this author. The story is both plausible and a great adventure story. It takes its time to develop but is never dull and moments of new discoveries, thrills and surprises are sprinkled throughout the story with enough frequency to make you want to continue to read just a bit more.
The main protagonist as well as the characters she later surrounds herself with really likable. Honorable, competent, heroic and everything else you would want in a merry band of good guys. Their interactions are really good whether they are in the process of solving the great mysteries of the universe or just bantering for some comic relief.
There are of course less good guys and really bad guys as well and this is perhaps where my main gripe with the series comes in. The really bad guys are, drumroll, politicians. Unfortunately I am not surprised. Given how utterly useless and detrimental to society most of todays politicians are they are an easy choice as bad guys. Anyway, there’s a fair amount of this useless, annoying and frustrating politics going on. As usual every great thing and great opportunity can be, and usually are, screwed up by that regression of the human race, the Homo Politicus Fuckupicus.
What saves the books 5 star ratings (actually the second book would really only get 4 stars from me since there’s simply too much political asshattery) is that the rest is really great reading and also that the political oxygen wasters are either outmaneuvered or, in the case of the third book, gets their asses handed to them.
I’m quite looking forward to where the authors go with the fourth book in the series. It is set further in the future but in the same universe created by the first three books. However, being at around the half way mark it seems to be a somewhat different story.
bethmitcham's review
3.0
Does what it says on the tin! Would not resent reading more. And it was a great excuse for still space movies for our book club.
yonnyan's review
3.0
[b:Boundary|57281|Boundary (Boundary, #1)|Eric Flint|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912969s/57281.jpg|55809] begins with a couple of young people stumbling upon an unusual rock. When the rock is handed over to scientists, a palaeontologist realises that it is a fossil. Through extensive testing and some scandalous theories, it is found that the fossils discovered do not belong to any creatures that existed on Earth. Instead, they are creatures from Mars; literally dinosaurs from deep space! This kicks off one of the most important expeditions humankind has ever embarked on.
One of the best qualities to this book are all the different sorts of sciences mentioned. We have palaeontology, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, linguistics, astrophysics, and more. Each one of them contributes in one way or another to the overarching plot line. Titbits from this corner and that corner are meticulously and fluidly woven together to create a very genuine and believable futuristic setting where humans go to Mars to learn more about what has been discovered. If you are a fan of hard sciences, then you will positively love it in [b:Boundary!|57281|Boundary (Boundary, #1)|Eric Flint|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912969s/57281.jpg|55809] If you are not too familiar with hard sciences, I believe that you will find pleasure in some of it, but not all of it.
The authors do a great job of making a few of the more complex fields accessible to readers who may not have much knowledge or understanding of those respective fields, but that sort of approachability is not a trend that lasts for the entire duration of the book. I love palaeontology, astronomy, and astrophysics, but I am not too great with geology or mineralogy. I also do not have much patience for super technical aspects of engineering (i.e.: this needs to be this specific shape for that specific reason type of stuff), which are approached in a way that expects the readers to automatically be familiar with those subjects. When those portions came up, it made it challenging for me to stay one-hundred-percent focused and I found myself feeling bored. I think if there was a decent segue into them with a brief explanation, then I would have had much more fun.
Another good example of imbalances in the book relate to the main topic of the novel. The fossils are discovered and examined within the first hundred pages, but then we switch gears to a character who is working to build devices for space exploration, utterly unrelated to the fossil’s unearthing. A huge chunk of the book is essentially a narrative of him getting all of this together, probably about two hundred fifty to three hundred pages. He faces plenty of real-life obstacles and nothing is convenient, which I loved. Nonetheless, it is slow, consists of many time jumps without context or mention (as a reader, we learn of these time jumps through character dialogue about ninety percent of the time, or the narrator conveniently drops a sentence very briefly mentioning it), and felt unnecessarily prolonged. The authors took their time listing almost every single detail of how things come together. While I love a good building of atmosphere and I appreciate when a writer can create an environment that touches on every sense, I also believe in too-much information, which sucks all the imagination out of the reading experience. I was being told all these things rather than being able to escape into the world and surroundings.
Eventually everything does fit together through various plot points, and tension is finally introduced, helping the book gain much-needed speed. But we run into the same problems sporadically towards the last third of the novel, where things are supposed to kick-in and really grab the reader but fall horridly short and tedious. It got to the point where the big revelations left me feeling rather apathetic because their execution was so mundane and lacklustre.
Regardless of the dull nature of the writing style, there are a few more qualities that are excellent. Similarly, to the wonderful variety of scientific subjects, there is plenty of diversity in the cast. We have a black male in a prominent leadership position, an intelligent, headstrong woman in another leadership position, scientists who are Indian, Japanese, and of a couple other non-white races. There is romance, but its subtle and lingers in the background as a natural evolution of relationships between adults who spend a lot of time together. While there is quite a bit of casual flirting, there are no graphic sex scenes. I felt this helped keep the focus on the story. I always appreciate it when a book does not add something just for the hell of it. I also found the political intrigue to be quite fascinating.
When I think of ground-breaking discoveries, I rarely contemplate how this affects countries who are vying for the upper-hand politically speaking. There are so many elements that go into why something jaw-dropping should or should not be revealed to the public or shared with foreign powers that the average person never thinks about. The book sheds light on those parts of foreign affairs, especially where space travel and technology are concerned, in a way that is easy to understand, while being methodical and complex. It was superbly written and portrayed and was one of the few parts of the book that had me completely hooked.
Overall, [b:Boundary|57281|Boundary (Boundary, #1)|Eric Flint|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912969s/57281.jpg|55809] is not a bad book by any means. It is most obviously the first instalment in a series, which is what creates a lot of its shortcomings. The book spends more time than necessary to really set up the foundation for events that I suspect will unfold as the series progresses forward. This is not a bad thing at all, but it leaves the novel feeling under-polished and rather incomplete in many ways. The authors are fantastic writers of hard science and political intrigue but need more practise with the art of building tension and suspense and holding back on the overflow of descriptives. I do recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading hard science-fiction, more so if you have an affinity for diverse branches of science, plus people who find political conspiracies to be interesting. However, if you are someone who likes to use your imagination, or if you do not particularly care for slower narratives, go into it with a grain of salt, or avoid it entirely. I will say that I am invested enough in the world and storyline that has been created and I plan on reading more of the Boundary series in the future, but it is definitely not a series I can read back-to-back.
3 fossils outta 5!
One of the best qualities to this book are all the different sorts of sciences mentioned. We have palaeontology, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, linguistics, astrophysics, and more. Each one of them contributes in one way or another to the overarching plot line. Titbits from this corner and that corner are meticulously and fluidly woven together to create a very genuine and believable futuristic setting where humans go to Mars to learn more about what has been discovered. If you are a fan of hard sciences, then you will positively love it in [b:Boundary!|57281|Boundary (Boundary, #1)|Eric Flint|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912969s/57281.jpg|55809] If you are not too familiar with hard sciences, I believe that you will find pleasure in some of it, but not all of it.
The authors do a great job of making a few of the more complex fields accessible to readers who may not have much knowledge or understanding of those respective fields, but that sort of approachability is not a trend that lasts for the entire duration of the book. I love palaeontology, astronomy, and astrophysics, but I am not too great with geology or mineralogy. I also do not have much patience for super technical aspects of engineering (i.e.: this needs to be this specific shape for that specific reason type of stuff), which are approached in a way that expects the readers to automatically be familiar with those subjects. When those portions came up, it made it challenging for me to stay one-hundred-percent focused and I found myself feeling bored. I think if there was a decent segue into them with a brief explanation, then I would have had much more fun.
Another good example of imbalances in the book relate to the main topic of the novel. The fossils are discovered and examined within the first hundred pages, but then we switch gears to a character who is working to build devices for space exploration, utterly unrelated to the fossil’s unearthing. A huge chunk of the book is essentially a narrative of him getting all of this together, probably about two hundred fifty to three hundred pages. He faces plenty of real-life obstacles and nothing is convenient, which I loved. Nonetheless, it is slow, consists of many time jumps without context or mention (as a reader, we learn of these time jumps through character dialogue about ninety percent of the time, or the narrator conveniently drops a sentence very briefly mentioning it), and felt unnecessarily prolonged. The authors took their time listing almost every single detail of how things come together. While I love a good building of atmosphere and I appreciate when a writer can create an environment that touches on every sense, I also believe in too-much information, which sucks all the imagination out of the reading experience. I was being told all these things rather than being able to escape into the world and surroundings.
Eventually everything does fit together through various plot points, and tension is finally introduced, helping the book gain much-needed speed. But we run into the same problems sporadically towards the last third of the novel, where things are supposed to kick-in and really grab the reader but fall horridly short and tedious. It got to the point where the big revelations left me feeling rather apathetic because their execution was so mundane and lacklustre.
Regardless of the dull nature of the writing style, there are a few more qualities that are excellent. Similarly, to the wonderful variety of scientific subjects, there is plenty of diversity in the cast. We have a black male in a prominent leadership position, an intelligent, headstrong woman in another leadership position, scientists who are Indian, Japanese, and of a couple other non-white races. There is romance, but its subtle and lingers in the background as a natural evolution of relationships between adults who spend a lot of time together. While there is quite a bit of casual flirting, there are no graphic sex scenes. I felt this helped keep the focus on the story. I always appreciate it when a book does not add something just for the hell of it. I also found the political intrigue to be quite fascinating.
When I think of ground-breaking discoveries, I rarely contemplate how this affects countries who are vying for the upper-hand politically speaking. There are so many elements that go into why something jaw-dropping should or should not be revealed to the public or shared with foreign powers that the average person never thinks about. The book sheds light on those parts of foreign affairs, especially where space travel and technology are concerned, in a way that is easy to understand, while being methodical and complex. It was superbly written and portrayed and was one of the few parts of the book that had me completely hooked.
Overall, [b:Boundary|57281|Boundary (Boundary, #1)|Eric Flint|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912969s/57281.jpg|55809] is not a bad book by any means. It is most obviously the first instalment in a series, which is what creates a lot of its shortcomings. The book spends more time than necessary to really set up the foundation for events that I suspect will unfold as the series progresses forward. This is not a bad thing at all, but it leaves the novel feeling under-polished and rather incomplete in many ways. The authors are fantastic writers of hard science and political intrigue but need more practise with the art of building tension and suspense and holding back on the overflow of descriptives. I do recommend this to anyone who enjoys reading hard science-fiction, more so if you have an affinity for diverse branches of science, plus people who find political conspiracies to be interesting. However, if you are someone who likes to use your imagination, or if you do not particularly care for slower narratives, go into it with a grain of salt, or avoid it entirely. I will say that I am invested enough in the world and storyline that has been created and I plan on reading more of the Boundary series in the future, but it is definitely not a series I can read back-to-back.
3 fossils outta 5!
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