Sheffield, Charles Books

Resurgence (Heritage Universe)

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Charles Sheffield's Resurgence Ending 3 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book was published in 2003, and Charles Sheffield died in 2002... The book was going great then the ending (last hundred or so pages) didn't add up... I really believe someone else wrote the ending to this book... Someone who didn't know the characters of Hans Rebka & Darya Lang at all...

Point: Hans Rebka gets out of jail and just barely escapes a death sentence and then shows no sexual interest in Darya Lang when he sees her? In fact, he ignores her for 100's pages and makes no attempt to rekindle their relationship (he alludes that he has plans about her, but they drop from existence)... Not exactly behaving like a man from the Phemus Circle & Teufel who has just escaped death now is he...

Point: Darya Lang who prides herself on being an intellectual at the end of the book stoops so low as to use her body to get what she wants instead of her brains & logic... Sorry whoever wrote the ending only Glenna Omar would have done that... Never, never in a million years would Darya Lang think about sleeping her way to anything. Not with Louis (even though she is strangly attracted to him), certainly not Julian Graves, or anyone. But she would want to find out what happened between her & Hans...

And as great as the survival team specialist were, there is no way any of them knows a darn thing about The Builders and Darya wouldn't have to beg to be a part of the expedition to the Sagittarius Arm... She would be a required part of the team... That is logical, and Julian Graves knows logic...

Why the person who wrote the ending of this book would want to dismiss Hans Rebka is also beyond me (unless the person who wrote the ending is looking for a spin off series)... However, they got Louis right, and his band of aliens pretty well fleshed out...

CS knows his characters, he wouldn't have made these mistakes...

Editorial Review:

Hans Rebka, interstellar trouble-shooter, had solved the mystery of the gigantic Artefacts built by a race that vanished millions of years ago, and at the same time had defeated the warlike Zardalu, onetime tyrannical rulers of the galaxy. But that was only a warm-up for the main event. In one arm of the galaxy, something is destroying whole stellar systems. Investigating the wave of stellar destruction, Rebka and his motley crew of humans and aliens discover a battle beginning that may determine the ultimate fate of the galaxy itself. Rebka and company must act quickly. Unfortunately, they are trapped on a planet directly in the path of destruction...

Aftermath

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Weak Characterization Dilutes Strong Plot 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Science fiction writers often base a plot on changing one variable in a set that readers simply accept as universal givens. In AFTERMATH, Charles Sheffield posits our earth that has been hit by gamma rays bursts from an exploding supernova that renders inoperative every microchip in every computer in the world. Considering that his plot begins in 2026 when every stratum of a collective world technology is thoroughly hardwired by ubiquitous microchips, one would think that he would favor hard technological plot developments over character contrivances. The major problem that I saw was not that he elevated character over hard science, but that he placed stereotypical characters in one dimensional situations that are overly dependent on fortuitous circumstance to make them work. Alas, the grinding of coincidence forces Sheffield to draw back Dorothy's Curtain to reveal a breathtaking lack of motivation and interaction that should have been used to connect the ill-defined dramatic dots.

There are three separate storylines, all of which blend suspiciously too well at the end to point the way toward a sequel, which the back page lists as STARFIRE. Here, after the supernova reduces the world's microchips to cinders, three groups slowly merge: a spacecraft of astronauts returns from Mars to find an earth reduced to a pre-twentieth century level of technology; three patients dying of cancer plot to free a Hannibal Lechter type psycho killer who holds the key to their medical salvation; and a Jewish president who, in addition to the problems involved in running a thoroughly smashed United States, also faces a revolution headed by a religious fanatic who commands an army of armed crazies.

As long as Sheffield sticks to the here and now of world wrecking, the plot moves convincingly from tsunamis, to droughts, and to a crumbling microchip-based infrastructure. When he allows his characters to stumble from one contrivance to another, the plot creaks to a series of staccato-like roadblocks. The ending, which points toward a sequel of similar deux ex machinas, implies that the believability quotient and thus the reader interest of AFTERMATH is low and promises more of the same in STARFIRE.

Editorial Review:

In 2026, the Earth faces an unexpected disaster. A supernova in the nearby Alpha Centauri system has apparently wiped out nearly every electronic component on the planet, leaving human civilization paralyzed. Phones don't work, transportation grinds to a halt, and essential services such as medical care are thrown back into the Stone Age. As the world tries to cope with this technological cut-off, a man dying of cancer begins a journey to save his life and that of his fellow patients, a master criminal escapes a sentence of "judiciary sleep," a returning Mars expedition faces what looks like certain death, and U.S. president Saul Steinmetz strives to keep his country from falling apart. Author Charles Sheffield has taken a classic hard-SF concept, applied it to the real world, and created a gripping story of survival. --Craig E. Engler

Transvergence (Heritage Universe)

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Read "Convergent Series" First 4 out of 5 stars.
30 of 30 people found this review helpful.

This series is an excellent series, but the title shifting and confusion that has been done in the reprinting of it is unfortunate. The first two books in the series, "Summertide" and "Divergence" were reprinted as a double book in October 1998 called "Convergent Series". This was an unfortunate choice of name since the fourth book of the series is named "Convergence" and it appears together with the third book of the series "Transcendence" in a double book released in November 1999 named "Transvergence", the book subject to this review.

In Praise of Idiocy 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Transvergence is the the combined edition of the 3rd and 4th books in the Heritage Universe series about a quest to find the "Builders" of a series of mysterious "Artifacts" left behind in our galaxy.

Perhaps the most aggrivating thing about Transvergence (and the "Heritage Universe" series in general) is that it is written with the craftsmanship of an eigth-grader's cribbed book report.

As before, our band of adventurers (some of whom are supposed to be the galaxy's best troubleshooters or super-human intelligences) manage to stumble blindly through a series of adventures, surviving by luck alone. Every character in the book survies to the end only with the help of various deus ex-machina plot devices. ("Hey, who left that ship there? Thanks Builders!")

The book also stretches suspension of disbelief beyond its normal limits as the protagonists - who are often separated by planets or entire solar systems - REPEATEDLY regroup by accident. It's almost as if the seven of them spent the weekend at a cabin together instead of separately running around the galaxy's spiral arm.

Logistical and intelligence problems aside, each of the two sub-books (like their predecessors) offer new explanations for the Artifacts (and the Builders' motivations) which contradict and/or invalidate the explanations given in the previous books. It's somewhat like a dadaist attempt at storytelling, because after the third explanation, you're not sure what to believe.

The worst explanation of them all comes at the end of sub-book #2 ("Convergence") in what is sure to go down as one of the great "WTF?" moments in sci-fi history. Without giving anything away, the book might as well have told us the Artifacts were decorations left over from a Builder office party.

That's not to say all is wrong with this book (even with its clumsy attempts at low-brow humor.) There are some neat ideas for the hard sci-fi buff to chew on, such as macroscopic quantum effects and the multiply-connected spaces inside the artifacts. It's just that all the interesting ideas are hampered by the book's flawed execution.

Editorial Review:

The Zardalu had been the greatest menace in the galaxy until they became extinct. But a Zardalu horde has just awakened from suspended animation, ready and able to resume conquering and destroying. . . .

Between the Strokes of Night

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

from here to eternity - book your seat 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

It's not often that a book can start here and now and finish at the end of the universe, and keep the same characters.

If you want to know how to travel faster than light (and forget all that Star Trek warping nonsense) this is the book. The way to the stars is really shown, this really could happen. Charles Sheffield demonstrates the only way the human race could ever venture beyond the solar system, and with a wealth of belivable and sympathetic characters and plot. For and sci-fi fan this is an absolute must read.

Interesting ideas, but poor execution 2 out of 5 stars.
6 of 21 people found this review helpful.

This is a fairly easy book to read, and the author has a fair following. The ideas that he puts together and his ability to tie together such diverse concepts as he does in this work is beyond question.

People read science fiction for either the ideas or the story or both. For those who read it for the ideas, this will be a book that delivers. For those that are looking for a bit more...

The dialogue tends to be long sermons on particular subjects not delivered through story, and the story itself tends to be fairly predictable save for the spots where new concepts are introduced. For the reader looking for more in terms of reading, this will leave you a bit dry after.

Although the critical acclaim is not that easily ignored, and should not be, do not expect the same kind of fabulous experience that comes of the classics.

Editorial Review:

The author of Sight of Proteus and The Selkie brings a unique brand of sci-fi to this riveting story. To long-established worlds of starfaring humans come the Immortals--beings with strange ties to ancient Earth, who seem to live forever, who can travel light years in a day--and who use their strange powers to control the existence of ordinary mortals. Reissue.

Cold As Ice

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

OK but not great 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book is not bad, but it is far from being among the greats in Science Fiction. The beginning is very disjointed -- many characters are introduced in many different setting and the reader has no idea what's going on or how the characters relate. Its hard to keep them straight. Around the middle of the book, things start to come together and some plot begins to develop. Finally the book comes to a conclusion and the reader thinks "so what". There are aspects of a mystery story, but the mystery, when revealed, is not a big deal -- one wonders why anyone ever tried to keep it secret. The strengths of the book are in the details -- good characterizations and realistic depiction of the "surroundings". However, a weak plot and the rambling, disjointed style make it less than outstanding.

Editorial Review:

Twenty-five years ago there was a great interplanetary war in the Solar System. It was a suicidal spasm in which terrible weapons were created and used; in which nine billion people were killed. The rivalries that led to the war are not gone. And a few of those deadly weapons remain--some still orbiting the sun in the debris of destroyed ships,s some deliberately placed in storage.

Now Cyrus Mobarak, the man who perfected the fusion engine, is determined to bring human settlement to the protected seas of Europa. Opposing him is Hilda Brandt, Europa's administrator. And caught between them are three remarkable young people: Jon Perry, Camille Hamilton, and Wilsa Sheer.

The Mind Pool

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Flawed, often hard to get into, but a must-read 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Charles Sheffield's The Mind Pool is a rework of an older novel, The Nimrod Hunt. Centered around the hunt for a renegade artificial life-form, the novel paints a mixed picture of the future, with humans living in harmony with alien species, genetic engineering rampant and uncontrolled, a divided, violent, and irrelevant Earth, and a militaristic outer system.

This is a difficult book to get into. Initial chapters are tedious and there are a lot of key characters who inter-develop as the the book continues which devolves quickly into a confusing mess. Sheffield's humour barely holds the story together as empathy with the main, distant and too many, characters seems close to impossible, and the reader is expected to take in a little too much, from different technologies to the behaviors of three wildly different species. The book, initially, also seems to live up to its back-cover synopsis, which in science fiction can be a bad thing, especially if the synopsis seems to be written to appeal to John W Campbell.

The novel is saved by a number of factors: Sheffield's humour, naturally, helps. Certain characters become fleshed out and sympathetic. Some time about half way through the novel the pace and understandability of what is going on becomes quicker and easier. And then there's an absolutely beautiful twist concerning the very subject of the novel - and I say beautiful not just to describe the twist itself but the subject matter and the novel at that point, which just turned my opinion of the book on its head.

This is a flawed novel. You should read it anyway.

Editorial Review:

When the Cyborgs, non-living biological constructs, threaten the entire galaxy, it is up to the despised inhabitants of the planet Earth--the humans--to protect the galaxy from them.

Convergent Series

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Tom 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Strong on science, concept, and plot. The name caught me, and the book didn't disappoint. Sheffield bridges the gap between space opera and hard sci-fi with an excellent grasp of drama, humor and "wow".

Good setup, but the ending disappoints 2 out of 5 stars.
6 of 8 people found this review helpful.

(The Ingram reviewer must have read only the first couple pages of the book! The "Paradox" artifact pays essentially no role in the story.)

The hard thing about the "mysterious alien artifacts" theme is that if you've done the setup well the reader is wildly curious about the aliens and what astounding purposes their artifacts must have had, and doing a good ending is extremely challenging. It's hard to make the actual explanation as mind-bending and transcendant as the reader wants it, needs it, to be. The novels in "Convergent Series" are, unfortunately, an example of how the actual explanation of the enigma can disappoint.

Without giving the ending away entirely, it turns out that the aliens are basically pretty dumb. Their entire civilization was traumatized by one of those pseudo-profound questions that first year Philosophy students dissect endlessly in the pub, but that in fact evaporate under serious consideration. Their approach to working on the problem is utterly silly and implausible, and serves mainly as a plot device to get the characters to where they need to be for the next scene.

The book is certainly fodder for airplane reading if you have nothing else to hand. But there are lots better things out there...

Editorial Review:

Out to solve the galaxy's most persistent mystery, Hans Rebka must penetrate the Paradox, an artifact left behind by an ancient and powerful race, unaware that his success could spell trouble for all known life. Original."

Higher Education (Jupiter)

Charles Sheffield, Jerry Pournelle

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A Decent Yarn 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I picked it up because it is a study in dynamic characters. It was referred to in Dynamic Characters by Kress.

It is a teen-coming-of-age story set in the near future. The protagonist is a punk and gets himself thrown out of high school for being entirely too cute. He gets a second chance by signing up with Vanguard Mining- a company that mines asteroids.

The story takes him from raw recruit to a trained and ready apprentice.

Very worth the read 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I've read many of the books Pournelle has authored/co-authored. I've never been disappointed. His non-fiction is also worth reading. His political/social views are not mainstream. And that really aids his creativity. This, like other Pournelle books, is refreshing and creative. This book fits when you just need a good read that challenges new thoughts without struggling to pay attention (I've read too many books that require effort to finish--this isn't one of them).

Editorial Review:

When a misfired practical joke gets him kicked out of school, Rick Luban thinks he has nowhere to go but down. Instead, he gets a second chance--and a whole new life--when he signs up for a career in asteroid mining.

But life in space proves more challenging than Rick expected. Competition is intense and the harsh realties of space allow no room for error. On his way to a brighter future, Rick faces ever more demanding tests, as well as the very real dangers of sabotage and murder.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

An Epic Tale 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Charles Sheffield does a fine job here in this eons spanning tale, to me at least it mostly appears plausible. Here you will read of cryonic suspensions, control of matter at the atomic level, downloading of minds into other vessels of thought, a universe of post-humanity, and many other amazing things, it was page-turning material for me. The primary character is Drake Merlin, his wife died of an untreatable condition and he had her cryonically suspended, willing to do practically anything to bring her back to him, an obsession indeed. He goes through many trials and tribulations along the way, all of this is believable in the hard science fiction tradition. I could relate to the refreshing world-view permeating this novel, no myth filled views here, this is a journey into unimaginable stretches of time, well worth reading. The only real criticism I found in this book is how Sheffield treats the subject of cryonic suspension, he does seem to present many inaccuracies, a minor point here, but I do take one star off for it. For a better description of how cryonics actually works in real life read "The First Immortal" by James Halperin, or "Tech Heaven" by Linda Nagata. These two are very fine novels and not to be missed for the science fiction aficionado.

Editorial Review:

A man from Earth's distant past is humanity's only hope for a future...

Drake Merlin's wife, the love of his life, is dying of a rare, fatal disease for which there is no cure. Not now, in the 21st century. But surely in the future...

For Drake there is only one solution: have Ana's body frozen until she can be cured. And he will go with her into the cryowomb. It is a desperate gamble born of folly, obsession...and love.

Thus begins an epic journey across eons, as Drake is revived again and again, only to find that Ana is beyond help. Millions of years past his first sleep, he learns there is hope for her restoration--at the Omega Point, where the universe collapses, merging past and present. But first he will be awakened to become humanity's unwilling savior. For an alien menace is laying the solar system to waste, and only an anachronism from the days of human barbarism can save an enlightened race....

Dark as Day (Cold As Ice)

Charles Sheffield

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Great War is over and humans have spread across the solar system, but mathematician Alex Ligon's complex computer model has just predicted that humanity is inexplicably doomed within a century. At the same time, scientist Milly Wu has identified what appears to be an extraterrestrial signal, and the idiosyncratic genius Bat searches for weapons from the Great War to add to his collection, finding much more than he bargained for. Their stories and others are intertwined in this tightly plotted and thoroughly engaging follow-up to Sheffield's Cold as Ice.

Nebula Award winner Sheffield distinguishes himself as a writer of intelligence, humor, and a pleasing balance of hard science and interesting, engaging characters. Fans will be particularly delighted to renew their acquaintance with Bat, but readers new to Sheffield's work should take the plunge enthusiastically--this novel easily and gracefully stands alone as a story of people, science, and the puzzles that both can produce. --Roz Genessee