- Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Science Fictio (Jan 13 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0380795167
- ISBN-13: 978-0380795161
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.4 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 23 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,382,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Booklist
This combination of hard science and fantasy should appeal to fans of such writers as Larry Niven and Robert J. Sawyer. The story--a group of interstellar explorers, searching for a new home for humanity, winds up in a place that might be heaven--is well told, and its characters, two families forced to get much closer than they ever intended to, are engaging enough to hold reader interest through the occasional passage where nothing much seems to be happening. The novel's only drawback is the bafflingly excessive and seemingly gratuitous use of profanity. On the other hand, the story itself, a smart exploration of the concept of heaven, is consistently interesting. Readers willing to look past the language will find a rich, intelligent tale well worth reading. David Pitt
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Another wide-ranging, medium-future science fiction yarn from the authors of Alpha Centauri (1997), etc. By the end of the 21st century, nuclear war has wiped out most of the Earth apart from the US; a few brave souls, meanwhile, are exploring the galaxy in hyperspace starships. For a routine scientific mission, fate brings together a quarrelsome and uncomfortable bunch of characters: pilot and compulsive womanizer Wolf O'Malley and his two lovers, housekeeper Honoria Surez and flight engineer Thalia Jansky; Honoria's teenage daughter, the alluring Cory; Thalia's husband, bureaucrat Mark Porringer, and her son Stu McCray. After approaching a UFO, they fall through a star gate and end up among the Pleiades, only to meet the nonorganic alien BeauHun, who report that the universe is rapidly being engulfed by an entity called the Topopolis. Like the BeauHun and many other species, humans can survive only by becoming vermin within the Topopolis. Helpfully, the Beauflun redesign their ship and install the machine-intelligence TrackTrixCom to navigate through the Topopolis. After various adventures (they flee from a RipWrapper but are grabbed by a PacketWight and lose their ship), the group eventually arrivesstill bickering, angry, and resentfulat a vast construct, Galaxios, home to still more aliens and many human types deriving from other probability worlds. All agree to attempt communication with the Topopolis, but to do this they must enter Heaven and confront God. Stunningly imaginative, but with a constant, boorish sexual whine and characters who range from largely unsympathetic to outright nasty: whether metaphor, joke, or misdirected mind-boggler, it sets the teeth on edge. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Thinker,
By Macbeth "Chris" (Flemrock, New Jersey, Estados Unidos) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Light (Mass Market Paperback)
I remember reading this when I was younger, probably around 14. This was a book that started out normal, and then I don't know what happened to it.Initially I thought the book lacked many key elements, and quite frankly if you're going to look at it in a strictly science-fiction / fantasy spotlight, then you're going to miss some of the finer details. A book, is not written to coform to a category, but rather; a category is written to conform to the book. This book is chonicles and exemplifies all of mankind's fallacies. The belief in auto-supremacy, the belief that man is higher than all, etc. The objectifying of women is another one of mankind's shortcomings. Regardless of what anyone says, this book does indeed highlight many, many things that should be of concern for today's society. The people gathered together are truly representative of a microcosm of today's society. Greed, sex, money, drugs, and "nubile" flesh, dominate everything. What it all boils down to is it's all about the sex, but pay attention, you'll learn something about yourself if you think hard enough about it.
4.0 out of 5 stars
They'll eventually get it.....,
By
This review is from: White Light (Paperback)
Most of these reviews focus on the fact that the "book has too much sex". Well, that's kind of the point. The novel is heavily focused on the failures of its characters. Yes, given the backdrop of all this cosmic wonderment - alien species, the end of the universe, black holes - they are still **human** and still very much looking out for number one. This is the major character flaw of the human race, the inability to act selflessly to further the species, something the alien "conquerors" appear to have done rather well in their quest to "engulf" the universe. The ending of the book has some major religious implications, and will possibly confuse anyone not already familiar with Tipler's Omega Point theory. But the entire book can be summed up by this one line, spoken between two characters near the end - "Everything matters, Mr. Wolf. That's why excuses always fail". Yes, the book could have been better, but Barton and Capobianco have always been obsessed with the negative dynamic between any group of characters, the interplay between wants and needs. In reality each and every character in their books, ALL of their books, are looking for redemption and reconciliation. In this book, their characters finally find it.
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book almost had a chance.....,
By Sonterro (Lakeland, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: White Light (Paperback)
It started out slow and a little interesting. Then, it moved into some real action with some believable SF. Then came the profanity and the sexual overtones. I could deal with that, but after about 100 pages it grew old. And to make matters worse, all of a sudden the book moves into totally unbelievable situations and events. I don't mean unbelievable like "Wow that's cool!" I mean it like "There's no way this could happen, that's stupid..." And to top it all off, there was still about 125 pages to go and the story was going downhill fast. It seemed like the writers recognized that the plot was fading and they hadn't developed an ending. So, they apparently decided to throw in a lot more sex scenes more often. The writers should have stuck to SF and not to their sexual fantasies. I finished it (against my better judgement...) Only because I am waiting on a book in a series that I am in the middle of. If I had it, this book would have gone by the wayside very quickly. Anyway, the first third of the book is "ok" to "almost good". After that, you can decide.
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