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A review by colossal
Binary System by Eric Brown
1.0
I've had [b:Helix|173701|Helix|Eric Brown|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348237914s/173701.jpg|167781] on my to-read list for a while, but not having any experience with the author I kept putting it off. Then a friend recently proposed reading this two-novella release and I thought it would be an ideal introduction to the author.
Delia is a doctor on board an starship when it undergoes a catastrophic accident during a jump maneuver. Delia finds herself the only survivor of the Amsterdam and stuck on an alien planet with three different intelligent alien species, one of whom is implacably hostile.
If I was being charitable I'd describe it as old-fashioned. Less charitably, it's a poorly thought out, poorly constructed light adventure SF novel that lacks character development, believable aliens, believable ecology and basically any reason to recommend it to anyone. It's mercifully short.
There are three alien races on this world, one of which has origins elsewhere. None of them are particularly alien except in terms of morphology, with actual human cultures on Earth having more alien view-points than any of these. They all share a sensorium with humans as well as a conceptual framework of the world as a whole. The only barrier to communication is a very simple language translation accomplished by AI analysis.
And that's all without getting to the ecology of a 9-year winter 1-year summer cycle and the impact of that on the biomass that we see here.
I think we were beyond this sort of silliness in the science fiction field decades ago. Very disappointing.
Delia is a doctor on board an starship when it undergoes a catastrophic accident during a jump maneuver. Delia finds herself the only survivor of the Amsterdam and stuck on an alien planet with three different intelligent alien species, one of whom is implacably hostile.
If I was being charitable I'd describe it as old-fashioned. Less charitably, it's a poorly thought out, poorly constructed light adventure SF novel that lacks character development, believable aliens, believable ecology and basically any reason to recommend it to anyone. It's mercifully short.
There are three alien races on this world, one of which has origins elsewhere. None of them are particularly alien except in terms of morphology, with actual human cultures on Earth having more alien view-points than any of these. They all share a sensorium with humans as well as a conceptual framework of the world as a whole. The only barrier to communication is a very simple language translation accomplished by AI analysis.
And that's all without getting to the ecology of a 9-year winter 1-year summer cycle and the impact of that on the biomass that we see here.
I think we were beyond this sort of silliness in the science fiction field decades ago. Very disappointing.