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2.0 out of 5 stars
Bland, May 8 2003
After reading other reviews I'm glad I never finished the book. I would have liked it even less. Contrary to what most have said here, I didn't care for the 1st 3rd of the book. While I found the premise interesting, I found the way it was handled uninteresting. I didn't believe the characters or their interactions, nor did I believe the prison.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious But Unconvincing, April 10 2000
Felicitas is a 17-year-old girl imprisoned, for a crime she can't recall having committed, in an automated prison created by aliens on a remote planet. None of the prisoners have seen these aliens for years, except in dreams caused by the implants and the drugs that keep them passive. But the prison's automation, along with the implants, are breaking down, and as the inmates recover from their stupor, they realize they must escape before the food runs out. Eventually Felicitas and a small band of inmates break out of the prison and uncover a plot that stretches through time and space.As solid a premise for a sci-fi novel as this sounds, and as strong as the first third of the book is, the middle third begins to degenerate, and the final third serves to disappoint. Felicitas must travel back in time to 15th century Italy to change history in such a way that a surly Machiavelli will never be compelled to write a treatise called The Prince, which centuries later will be read by a fellow by the name of Reymont, the true protagonist of Outpost, who through his aggression is the reason The New Ones (an alien race) wish to annihilate all of humanity. But to what end she changes history is never fully explored. Surely a change of such magnitude in the timeline must result in a ripple effect that would have been felt for decades and perhaps even centuries. What effect would it have had on Napoleon and his efforts to conquer the world, or on Hitler's desire to create an empire that would last 1,000 years, or on the industrial revolution in England and America, etc., ad infinitum? To change history in the matter Mackay suggests is akin to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Would not traveling back in time to assassinate Reymont's maternal grandmother to be, thereby assuring his mother would never be born, be a more effective, not to mention more believable, means to the end? Mackay is a deft enough writer - his storytelling will keep the reader turning pages - but the characters in Outpost are perhaps a trifle too well defined; the bad guys are definitely bad, and the good guys are good. The protagonist (Felicitas), the lone point of view character, contains no flaws, no frailties, which would have made her a more believable character. Outpost is not a bad book, despite its over elaborate plot, but it could have been far better had Mackay employed the philosophy that sometimes less is better.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Ambitious But Unconvincing, April 7 2000
Felicitas is a 17-year-old girl imprisoned, for a crime shecan't recall having committed, in an automated prison created by aliens on a remote planet. None of the prisoners have seen these aliens for years, except in dreams caused by the implants and the drugs that keep them passive. But the prison's automation, along with the implants, are breaking down, and as the inmates recover from their stupor, they realize they must escape before the food runs out. Eventually Felicitas and a small band of inmates break out of the prison and uncover a plot that stretches through time and space.As solid a premise for a sci-fi novel as this sounds, and as strong as the first third of the book is, the middle third begins to degenerate, and the final third serves to disappoint. To sum up, Felicitas must travel back in time to 15th century Italy to prevent the French from conquering Italy so that a surly Machiavelli will never be compelled to write a treatise called The Prince, which centuries later will be read by a fellow by the name of Reymont, the true protagonist of Outpost, who through his aggression is the reason The New Ones (an alien race) wish to annihilate all of humanity. Felicitas naturally succeeds with her mission, but to what end she changes history is never fully explored, other than Reymont is deprived of the seed from which his cosmic tyranny will grow. When the French failed to conquer Italy, surely there must have been a ripple effect that would have been felt for decades and perhaps even centuries. What effect would it have had on Napoleon and his efforts to conquer the world, or on Hitler's desire to create an empire that would last 1,000 years, or on the industrial revolution in England and America, etc., ad infinitum? To change history in the matter Mackay suggests is akin to killing a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Would not traveling back in time to assassinate Reymont's maternal grandmother to be, thereby assuring his mother would never be born, be a more effective means to the end, and without any of the massive changes to the timeline that preventing the French from conquering Italy is sure to inflict? Mackay is a deft enough writer - his storytelling will keep the reader turning pages - but the characters in Outpost are perhaps a trifle too well defined; the bad guys are definitely bad, and the good guys are good. The protagonist (Felicitas), the lone point of view character, contains no flaws, no frailties, which would have made her a more believable character. Outpost is not a bad book, despite its over elaborate plot, but it could have been far better had Mackay employed the philosophy that sometimes less is better.
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