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IRIS
  

IRIS (Mass Market Paperback)

by William Barton (Author)
1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

It is 2097, and mankind has developed Comnet, "the ultimate networking system," which plugs human minds into existing information processing and retrieval networks. Lured by utopian impulses, which are shaped by the peculiar intimacy afforded by Comnet, 10 misfits on their way to a settlement on Neptune's moon Triton veer off to colonize one of the moons of Iris, a newly discovered planet beyond Pluto. There they experiment with new forms of relationships and with the direct and unmediated sharing of memories, but struggle with sexual jealousy, fear and love. Just as the story is about to grind to a dead halt with their trite discovery that humans are humans wherever they live, they find an alien spacecraft frozen into the heart of another of Iris's moons. Barton ( Hunting on Kunderer ) and first-time author Capobianco's speculations about technology are of far greater interest than the banal psychological and sociological insights proffered at every turn by their self-conscious, prolix exiles.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Determined to be the first humans to explore the gas giant Iris, the adventure-seeking crew of the spaceship Deepstar face unexpected challenges on the surface of Iris's most hospitable moon. Unsympathetic characters and gratuitous sex mar an otherwise well-narrated sf adventure. For large sf collections only.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (11)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
1.8 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
1.0 out of 5 stars I should get my money back, Mar 15 2002
By "lwdowning" (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: IRIS (Hardcover)
One hundred and twenty-four pages was all I could stomach. I'd feel better if I hadn't paid an inflated price in the airport. Sophomoric at best, this exercise in peurile rambling is not worth the paper on which it is printed.
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1.0 out of 5 stars A stinking souffle of sci-fi's worst., Mar 4 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: IRIS (Hardcover)
Staggeringly, unmitigably awful.
Traditional science fiction used to present the notion that humanity would carefully select only its very best for that initial encounter with an alien civilization. Recent stories have left the selection up to chance, (Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama" sequels actually postulated a sampling of people dominated by criminals.) but "Iris" leaves first contact up to the most pathetic assortment of head cases, psychos, deviants, perverts, sadists, masochists, schizophrenics, co-dependents, and just plain neurotics that Earth (and the Moon!) could rustle up!
This shipload of losers rockets off into space, seeking to...
find themselves...
or find out who they are...
or gather their feelings...
or learn how to relate...
or heal...
or grieve...
or get in touch with their inner beingness and personism...
or some such nonsense!
No kidding. Every plot twist comes in a blizzard of "issues," and is followed by a period when the characters decide "to move on!"
Here they are, orbiting a hostile rogue planet on the outskirts of the solar system, and en masse they plunge into a computerized virtual reality world to escape from, well, real reality!
The very first few disgusting lines of the very first page of the first chapter are a valuable flag for the unmitigable avalanche of literary sewage to come.
One woman actually freezes to death because her shipmates are too busy with life and death survival concerns to rescue her, as she expects them to, from her own narcissistic stunt out on the subzero surface of an airless asteroid.
Whew! Fortunately, the only aliens they all find are a long dormant shipload of resentful biomechanoids, rebellious robots and ambiguously unfriendly computer programs.
With ambassadors like this to the cosmos, the human race would be lucky not to get blown to oblivion just so the universe could be rid of our whining!
Be sure to miss this one!
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1.0 out of 5 stars Don't start here..., July 3 2001
By "nwc18" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Iris (Paperback)
I tried, I really did. I'd read and loved all of Barton's 90's solo work, had found White Light subpar but still worthwhile, but I just couldn't finish this--I did manage to slog through nearly two-hundred pages in ten days, but I usualy read a few books over that kind of stretch. I can handle slower-paced novels, denser pieces, but this is simply too heavy-handed stylistically, with too little reward for the reader. After 100 pages, nothing has actually happened--oh yeah, the characters thought about sex alot--no plot advancement had occured, nothing meaningful had been exposed... It just went on and on with little point. And there were what felt like a dozen interchangeable characters. At 200, things were much the same, and I still couldn't tell any of the characters apart.

Too big, too complex, too slowly paced, poorly characterised... As an aspiring writer, I hate to slag a work like this, but please, stay away. Barton is a highly talented and important author, and he is largely ignored (this book, his first of note, may have something to do with that). Grab one of his solo efforts; Acts of Conscience and When We Were Real are still in print, and are two of his best.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS IS A GREAT BOOK!
Iris is a challenging and complex and RICHLY REWARDING read. The characters are truly unique--and some are quite unsavory--and the science and speculations that surround their... Read more
Published on Dec 10 2000

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed Again
This was the second Barton & Capobianco book I've read, and it is also definately the last. The first I read was "Alpha Centauri," and it seemd to have so much... Read more
Published on Jun 27 2000 by Erik Edler

1.0 out of 5 stars Iris Is A Hideous Mess
This is arguably the worst science fiction novel I've ever read. The characters are so wholly unsympathetic and cold that I found the few redeeming qualities of the hard science... Read more
Published on Feb 14 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars This is EXCELLENT hard science fiction! Epic and complex.
This huge novel goes right onto my top ten list. It is full of tons of richly developed ideas, including an awesome alien life form as well as a fascinating means of human-alien... Read more
Published on Dec 11 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars I kept reading 'cause the hoped the characters would die
IRIS is perhaps the worst book I've ever finished (I had to complete it for a review). What totally killed it for me were the characters -- I've read books with unsympathetic... Read more
Published on Oct 27 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars Very poor editing, easy to put down.
The story was barely good enough for me to want to even know how it came out. There was a lot of superfluous stuff that I just plain skipped over. Read more
Published on Oct 26 1999

2.0 out of 5 stars Big Words, Big Sex, Little of Interest
OK -- I'm only 100 pages into this book and wanted to checksome reviews. BINGO!

Here we go again with SF writers trying toswitch to the romance genre.... Read more

Published on Oct 20 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars IRIS is Awful
I'm an avid SF fan and even had the patience to suffer through these authors' earlier work, Alpha Centauri. I had no such stamina for this book. Read more
Published on Oct 7 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars Cast of Seinfeld turns 'bi,' unfunny and moves to space
Unlikely cast of self absorbed, directionless characters relocate to space in order to contemplate their meaningless existences. Read more
Published on Sep 21 1999

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a Good Read
I'm a hardcore SF fan the authors seem too interested in the physical lives of there characters. I like the premise of the novel but I wouldn't recommend this book.
Published on Sep 18 1999

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