Harvest of Stars [Mass Market Paperback]

Poul Anderson is far and away my favorite SF author. This novel, while interesting and readable, is not his best work. This book is a maddening mix of brilliant speculation, great characterization, and bloated prose. This novel would have been twice as good if it had been half as long.

The novel is the story of a freedom-loving spacefaring "corporation" (really a nation of sorts) struggling against oppressive earth governments. The relevant characters are brilliantly portrayed as people and as idealists, and/or villains. Unfortunately, the book bogs down and could and should have been much more crisply written. Consequently, the story line seems to ramble towards the end. Frankly, I found the ending unsatisfying and implausible.

Poul Anderson's other works are more imaginative and better written. If you like this book (and there is a fair amount to like) try his Nicholas Van Rijn/Polesotechnic League series, and his many collections of short stories. This are among his best work.

HARVEST OF STARS is divided into two parts. The first takes place within a period of about a month and tells of a future North American government's plot to secure its oppresive regime by reprogramming a copy of downloaded personality of the head of Fireball, a private company that through space exploration has grown until it is a quasi-nation. Kyra Davis, a space pilot, is selected to save the original of the download, get him out of North America, and let him reclaim Fireball away from his warped copy.

The second part is really the best part of the book. It covers a sweeping era of several hundred years of Fireball's colonization of a planet in Alpha Centauri after it has fled the increasingly machine-led goverment of the Solar System. The man vs. machine matter is disquieting and Anderson's treatment of it is certainly thought-provoking.

Poul Anderson's prose, however, is nearly execrable. He frequently uses words that have been left behind in the English language for centuries, "yon," "fain," "how fare you," and puts them into the mouths of people who would plainly not speak that way. This makes for simply unbelievable dialoge.

Another unfortunate matter is Anderson's near-bigotry. The hero of the book, Anderson's model of the well-rounded man, says in one part "I've considered Islam to be one of the human race's bigger mistakes." In another part, Anderson uses "chocolate complexion" to describe the face of an African-American in a racially insensitive way.

HARVEST OF STARS is not a good book for most people. It may be appropriate for youngsters, who will not be driven mad by the sheer silliness of the language but who will still be touched by the book's drama and will not be influenced by the book's Libertarian prostylizing.