The Ring: Amazon.ca: Books

Tag this product

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

28 Reviews

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.8 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars 1000 years, and it seemed much longer..., Mar 29 2002

By	Donald Williamson "Killroy" (Sylvan Lake, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Baxter is very good with up-to-date science, and if you want a science lecture on stellar dynamics, dark matter or singularities, this is a good textbook for you. But if you want a highly engaging story with developed characters, I'd skip this one. Mr. Baxter's editor must think that characters are just window dressing, in which case the characters in Ring are perfect, because they display all the life signs of a group of mannequins.
Although the science is generally very well used, there are plot inconsistencies which really bothered me. For one thing, this story is supposed to take place in two time frames: 1000 years and five million years. This little detail seems to be ignored when in comes to showing character development and technological development. 1000 years is seemingly enough time for the technology to have improved quite a bit. Five million years should have enabled technological development to answer all the problems faced by the crew of the Great Northern. I have to say that the only reason I finished this book was because I was on vacation and had nothing else to read. It was, I think, about the driest read I've had since the last Rama book.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

2.0 out of 5 stars Sadly, I was disappointed, Jan 31 2002

By	David Owen (Australia) - See all my reviews

I'm not normally driven to write a really critical review, after all it's so easy to say "I hated that novel". Well, someone else probably liked it just as much, so where's the value in that?
But I've read plenty of hard Sci-Fi over the years and I really can't remember a drier or more barren Sci-Fi novel than this one.

This is my first SB novel, and I picked it up solely on the recommendations for SB by Arthur C. Clarke himself. (sorry Arthur)

Hard science can be a wonderful instrument in a novel to hold a reader's attention in the universe being created, but I remember little more from this novel than the internal workings of the Sun.

Other reviewers have alluded to the "textbook" quality of this novel, and I have to agree. I skipped the last 100 pages just to end it all, and read the final 20. I've never done that before.

To be fair to Stephen Baxter, I do have "The Time Ships" on my shelf ready to read, so I reserve judgement.

Seriously though, I never felt real affinity with any of the characters, and the "Sun character" that held so much import in the bulk of the story, was disposed of summarily after the fact.

Look elsewhere. Try "The Mote in God's Eye"

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I ever read, Oct 1 2001

By A Customer

Ring was a fast-paced, interesting book. The science it covers includes immortality, planetary engineering, time travel, stellar evolution, and much, much more! Its plot is believable and leads the main characters through first the solar system in the 40th century, then a Biosphere-like habitat controlled by religious fundimentalists, then traveling through a dying universe with alien technology, and finally... Throughout the book the story was consistantly good. If you liked this book you might also like Vacuum Diagrams by the same author.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 28 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Grim up Galactic North
Alright; the characters are sketchy, the writing is patchy and the pacing is interrupted by long info-dumps. Fine. If you don't like Hard Sf don't read this book. Read more

Published on Jun 12 2001 by Christian Miller

2.0 out of 5 stars more of a textbook than a novel
I don't expect science fiction authors to focus on their characters, but at least make the characters more than a name on the page. Read more

Published on Dec 21 2000 by atom19

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Ideas-Story Arc Needs Work
As some have already stated below, the scope and detail of the science of this book is truly astounding. Read more

Published on Nov 1 2000 by Abagadro

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent SF novel, but a little far fetched.
I found 'Ring' to be a highly enjoyable and well written work of SF. The thing that impresses me the most about Baxter is the attention and care he pays to scientific accuracy... Read more

Published on Aug 20 2000 by Greg