Jun

18

Posted by : atcampbell | On : June 18, 2002

Eternity’s End by Jeffrey Carver

Eleven people attended this meeting at the home of Jeff Hurst and Judy Strange. Our topic of discussion was Eternity’s End, a futuristic space opera by Jeffrey Carver. The book tells the story of Renwald Legroeder, a star rigger whose ship is captured by space pirates. The crew is forced into slavery, but Legroeder eventually escapes. When he returns to his home planet, he discovers that he has been accused of collaborating with the space pirates. To clear his name, Legroeder must lead a daring mission to infiltrate a space pirate base. Eight people at the meeting had started the book, and six had finished it.

Several of us thought this book was a tremendous amount of fun. We enjoyed reading a fast-paced SF adventure novel. It follows an old-fashioned tradition established by Doc Smith and Jack Williamson, but with a more modern writing style and more three-dimensional characters. The plot was a suspenseful and fun

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Jun

04

Posted by : atcampbell | On : June 4, 2002

Mars Crossing by Geoffrey A. Landis

This meeting was held at the home of Charles and Willie Siros. Twelve people attended, and one submitted comments by email. Our topic was Mars Crossing, the first novel by Geoffrey Landis. Landis is a real-life space scientist and a prolific author of short SF. Mars Crossing tells the story of the third manned mission to Mars in the year 2028. The first two missions, sent by Brazil and the USA, had been spectacularly unsuccessful, failing to return a single crewmember back to Earth. The purpose of the third mission is to use up the rest of the rapidly diminishing budget for manned exploration and to try to demonstrate that it is possible for people to visit Mars and return home. Almost immediately after landing, the crew discovers an unfixable problem with the return vehicle. In a desperate plan, they travel to the sites of previous expeditions and try to salvage enough supplies and parts to get at least some of them home. During the course of the journey, extensive flashback sequences show how each astronaut came to be on the mission. All of us had started the book, but two did not finish it.

It was fun to read a hard SF novel written by a real scientist. The science in the book was well thought out and believable, and from the author’s background we

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