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writing_for_a_fall's review
I vaguely remember reading this book when I was a teenager. I was very fascinated by the "teleportation" system and what it implied. But that's also about all I remember from it! I had to google for ages before finding the book again. I guess I'll have to re-read it.
arbieroo's review
2.0
There was much to appreciate here, but I didn't appreciate this book much.
Aliens that aren't just humans in disguise, some discussion of the psychological impact of a technology that replicates you over interstellar distances and a Mysterious Giant Object which gets more weird the more you learn about it are all good but it's all swamped by irritating problems of characterisation and plotting. The book isn't really a novel; it's a novella which subsequently got a serial of short story sequels, so the pacing is all over the place and you're left at the end with very little explained and a sense of things stopping rather than being resolved. The is a further volume which I assume clarifies matters but I'm not going to go out of my way to find it.
The characters are largely one dimensional and there is no female protagonist for the first half. The one female character up to this point exists solely to give out "hero" someone to pine for in her absence. Then once we get a proper female protagonist she is over the violent death of her husband and fancying a local tribesman in a matter of two days...
It's a shame the execution is so poor because there's a good story buried in here trying to claw it's way to the surface.
Aliens that aren't just humans in disguise, some discussion of the psychological impact of a technology that replicates you over interstellar distances and a Mysterious Giant Object which gets more weird the more you learn about it are all good but it's all swamped by irritating problems of characterisation and plotting. The book isn't really a novel; it's a novella which subsequently got a serial of short story sequels, so the pacing is all over the place and you're left at the end with very little explained and a sense of things stopping rather than being resolved. The is a further volume which I assume clarifies matters but I'm not going to go out of my way to find it.
The characters are largely one dimensional and there is no female protagonist for the first half. The one female character up to this point exists solely to give out "hero" someone to pine for in her absence. Then once we get a proper female protagonist she is over the violent death of her husband and fancying a local tribesman in a matter of two days...
It's a shame the execution is so poor because there's a good story buried in here trying to claw it's way to the surface.
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