Greg Bear keeps getting mentioned on "excited to read" lists from all over the science fiction universe, and I keep giving him a chance to impress me. He never has.
"Hull Zero Three" is the story of a generation-ship going haywire. But it's told from the perspective of one of the confused individuals on board, and the narrative thus echos that confusion. Mostly, what we have is a set of adventurers going through a sequence of odd battles, with a "what has gone wrong?" mystery buried underneath.
It feels very much like the old TSR space RPG called "Metamorphosis Alpha", from way back in the late 70s...
I never felt like I cared about any of these characters; many of them were non-human to begin with, so any kind of sympathy was hard to feel. And any kind of plot that evolves by moving from place to place with little reason leaves me frustrated.
I was not impressed.
2 of 5 stars.
"Hull Zero Three" is the story of a generation-ship going haywire. But it's told from the perspective of one of the confused individuals on board, and the narrative thus echos that confusion. Mostly, what we have is a set of adventurers going through a sequence of odd battles, with a "what has gone wrong?" mystery buried underneath.
It feels very much like the old TSR space RPG called "Metamorphosis Alpha", from way back in the late 70s...
I never felt like I cared about any of these characters; many of them were non-human to begin with, so any kind of sympathy was hard to feel. And any kind of plot that evolves by moving from place to place with little reason leaves me frustrated.
I was not impressed.
2 of 5 stars.
Interesting take on a tried-and-true plot formula. See Heinlein, "Orphans of the Sky" (aka "Universe" and "Common Sense" from 1941) and Aldiss, "Starship" (1958) -- and no doubt, a hundred others, including TV movies. If the number of characters becomes confusing, make a list of their names. A three-out-of-five F&SF novel, worth the time to read once.
This Greg Bear tale is told through the sometimes exhaustion-bleared, and sometimes shocked wide-open, eyes of one dude who is woken up to a very nasty shock. Earth was in desperate straights and put together a very fancy, very large ship to send humanity out to a very, very distant star system. The ship had everything that could possibly be needed for such a long voyage, with every horrible scenario thought about and planned for. So they thought.
This was an odd book. On one hand, keeping the reader as ignorant as the main character really made me feel the dudes vexation at the whole situation. However, I am not sure I enjoyed being vexed and in the dark for roughly 7 of the 9 hours of the book. Still, I finished it because I wanted answers and the last 2 hours of the book were pretty good because things were coming together and there was this sense of danger and clarity and hope all at the same time. Most of our characters dont have names until near the end of the book.
Dan John Miller was a good choice for this book. He had a steady voice for the main dude and his little girl voices were well done too. There were two characters later in the book with deep voices; I especially liked Millers portrayal of these two characters, with his growly voice for one. Sometimes his job was tough as some of the characters had twins; Miller tackled this well by adding lassitude or anxiety to one twin but not the other, which made it easy to keep track of who was talking.
This was an odd book. On one hand, keeping the reader as ignorant as the main character really made me feel the dudes vexation at the whole situation. However, I am not sure I enjoyed being vexed and in the dark for roughly 7 of the 9 hours of the book. Still, I finished it because I wanted answers and the last 2 hours of the book were pretty good because things were coming together and there was this sense of danger and clarity and hope all at the same time. Most of our characters dont have names until near the end of the book.
Dan John Miller was a good choice for this book. He had a steady voice for the main dude and his little girl voices were well done too. There were two characters later in the book with deep voices; I especially liked Millers portrayal of these two characters, with his growly voice for one. Sometimes his job was tough as some of the characters had twins; Miller tackled this well by adding lassitude or anxiety to one twin but not the other, which made it easy to keep track of who was talking.
