Fascinating. Reminds me of Asimov or Heinlein
595413
I was gifted this book at no cost in exchange for the following review

At the outset let me say I have been reading science fiction for about 60 years. This reminds me of some books/stories I read long ago. I would best describe this for a juvenile or pre-teen audience, although I enjoyed it very much(child at heart with 68).  The main characters are well defined and developed.  Chapters are short
enough for kids to put down and pick up again at a later time.  Artwork is magnificent! I do not think I have seen anything like it is except from NASA.
Even though I place this as "juvenile" science fiction I will probably buy the rest of the series.  It is too entertaining to not follow.

Keep up the good work!
1816070
Solid science fiction with characters that feel like real people.  Kress is such a good writer and her science here is compelling.  I'm still a little bereft that I've finished the book, as every sentence hums with understated emotion.  Great story, highly recommended.
2902927
Believable Science Fiction and characters.  I think the multilevel political structure that become evident later in the book is fascinating and makes the read even more  compelling.  I purchased the second in the series right away.
4334941
Nice to take a trip back to the source. I'd read some Asimov when I was younger, but it had been a while and I wasn't sure whether I'd connect with him as an adult. I did. I'd also seen the Will Smith movie version of this. Fortunately, I don't actually remember that much of it. I'm glad of that, though. The book clearly has a lot more going on in it than the movie attempted.

I was surprised, at first, by the short story feel of this. But after a while it became clearer that we're being moved forward through time, tracing the effects of the entire imagined history of robotics on humanity. The journey becomes very interesting. I actually enjoyed the stories more as they moved on to the more distant future and became ever more philosophical.

In every story there's a drama, a mystery, a riddle to be solved. The answer is always clever and never quite what I imagined. Asimov hooks you in each time. There's always a menacing threat/fear that somehow the robots have gone bad, but that's never exactly what's happened. In each of these that first rule of robotics holds. It's just that there is some other sort of error in the robot's psychology that causes a new sort of problem, and often inadvertently puts humans in danger - or saves us from ourselves. Very interesting.

And I agree that it's just amazing that this was published in 1950. People barely had tv's back then, and yet Asimov imagined future technologies that largely seem very credible to us. Highly recommended.
4472906
The plot reads like standard space opera.  A spaceship crashes on a pre-technological planet and the survivors encounter the natives, with their unique culture and physiology.  Rescuers are on the way, but must find their way through hostile aliens and a galaxy-wide crisis of staggering import.  Somehow, many pages later, it all works out.

The writing is good, the characters likeable and memorable.  The action varies, alternating tense confrontations and wrenching surprises with restful, character-developing discussions.  The real strengths of this book, however, are the cleverly-conceived big ideas.  Three examples:

Big Idea #1 -- Our galaxy is somehow segregated into "zones of thought."  In the central "unthinking depths," intelligence and technological complexity is limited by the very fabric of space.  In the "Transcend" on the outer edges, whole societies have sublimed beyond our understanding and virtually disappeared.  Except for when they revisit lower realms with devastating results.  Imagine how space travel, technology and our humanity itself would subtly change as we traveled between these zones.

Big Idea #2 -- An alien that has one consciousness distributed across half a dozen or so physical bodies--a pack of wolves with one shared mind.  The pack members communicate with short-range sonar.  Imagine the confusion when two packs mingle together.  Imagine the personality changes when a single member dies or two packs shuffle members.  Imagine an entire culture of these aliens encountering human beings.

Big Idea #3 -- A galaxy-wide internet where an almost-unimaginable variety of alien cultures talk to and about each other.  What information would be shared and how might it be misunderstood?  Who can be believed?  Trusted?  And we thought we had scalability problems!

And there are more fascinating ideas, large and small.  This entertaining and mind-expanding book is strongly recommended.  Without reservation.  Savor it and swallow it.  Then move on to the prequel,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Deepness-in-the-Sky/dp/0812536355/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Deepness in the Sky</a>.
3895590
Very good book if you feel like some science fiction. Feels like a written version of Star Trek. The pace of the book, strangely, accelerates towards the end. Almost like the author 'ran out of pages', but this is a minor flaw.
942283
I read Stranger in the 60's, again in the 70's and once again in 2002.  (I just finished it tonight).  Heinlein's characters always hold one's interest.  He's one of my top three favorite writers of SF.  This is one of his best.  I recommended it to my children.  One of them read it last week and enjoyed it very much.  The book has so much going for it - a human raised by other-worldly beings (so unlike humans it can't be described, in our language, how differest they really are), returning to earth at age twenty-five, the special powers he possesses, the clash of cultures which ensues and liberal doses of sex (left up to the reader's imagination of what great sex is, if you grok).  The way the book flows you just don't want to put it aside until you've finished it.  I grok (understand) most of this book.  I'll probably read it again in five or ten years.
1656318
This book puts Andy Weir in rare company with Michael Crichton and Asimov as a writer who can write a book that is simultaneously compelling without pulling punches on technical details..
I can understand complaints about too much technical detail, but that adds so much to the story. The bureaucracy is a character in itself and the technical details are probably my favorite literary device, because it allows us to see his state of mind throughout the process and really get into his head space.
2247989
"Foundation and Empire," the second in a trilogy of classic science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov, is a must read for historians of science fiction.  For those who like science fiction itself, this volume is also valuable.  Asimov can madden, especially in his early novels, but his imagination is wonderful.  His strength is conceptualizing systems (whether empires or cultures) and he often plays with big ideas.

I first read the trilogy while in college, and was fascinated.  This triggered a long-lasting interest in the fiction of Isaac Asimov (and some of his non-fiction works, as well).

Those familiar with this trilogy know that the key character is psychohistorian Hari Seldon, who believes that one can predict the behavior of large masses of people via mathematical equations and, thus, predict how events will develop in the future.

This book is a bridge between the novel "Foundation" and the third in the series, "Second Foundation." And, of course, later in his career, Asimov returned to the Foundation well--with more interesting and literary results.  Indeed, in one of the great tour de forces in science fiction, he ends up linking two classic series--the robot works and the Foundation series. But I'm getting way ahead of myself.

This novel focuses on two instances--one, the rise of a youthful and talented military leader who goes after the Foundation.  And, just as Hari Seldon's mathematical equations predicted, he failed.  The logic for this is classic Asimov, and is why he was so entertaining to read, even though his characters have little life in these works and even though his writing style is, at best, functional in these works (he improved with time).

Then, there is the case of the Mule, where Seldon's equations failed in prediction.  And that itself is fascinating, as explained in this novel.  Thus, the comparison of the correct prediction and the failed prediction add some real heft to Asimov's tale of the rise of the Foundation as the Empire slowly descends to its end.

For those who have never read Asimov, the Foundation trilogy is a good place to get a sense of his talents, of seeing big pictures. His writing style is not great, but the images of this future that he developed are compelling. I still enjoy going back to the Foundation series, the Robot series, and their fusion as Asimov's vision evolved.
3726584
If you read science fiction and haven't heard of this book yet, I'm not sure where you've been. I only dip an occasional toe into the SF side of SFF but I've been hearing about this book since it came out and started winning awards all over the place. My friend has a copy so I jumped at the chance to read it.

The book follows the starship 'Justice of Torren', an artificial intelligence. The story goes between the past where Justice of Torren was based on a planet, with hundreds of bodies (ancillaries) she controlled simultaneously, each functioning alone and able to function together as one, and the present, where she has been cut down to just one body and is using the name 'Breq'. The past sections paint the events leading up to the betrayal that led to the loss of all her other bodies and eventually the betrayal itself. The present follows Breq as she reaches (she hopes) the end of a twenty year quest for something that will give her vengeance on her betrayers.

The story is in first person from Justice of Torren/Breq's point of view which I think works very well. There were times when it was hard to get my head around how she could be controlling all the bodies at once, performing so many different tasks, having multiple conversations, but generally it was fine. One interesting side-effect of her narrating the story is that because the people who built her have no concept of gender, she refers to everyone as 'she'. Occasionally there are characters who she knows are on their planet male or female but she never actually reveals it in the narration - it's just "I used the correct gender pronoun for the language". I found this interesting but I've heard some people got annoyed with it.

I found the story really interesting, with plenty of 'oh crap now they're really in trouble' moments. It was very interesting to have the story told by an AI (artificial intelligence) and focussed around them and the nature of their ability to choose things, have feelings, express things while still being neutral, a computer built to obey. I'm definitely going to read the rest of the series to find out what happens next.

Overall I'm giving this 8/10.

~Ailsa
[Review originally posted on my book blog, link in my profile.]
3387929
the book has all the makings of a sci-fi , almost if not completely equal to Isaac Asimov
the beginning is like that of a Hollywood movie and the ending is like Alfred Hitchcock..
this book gives rise to many questions which can be answered through a sequel.
At times it's a bit boring but enjoyable nonetheless.
Do Download this and read it at your leisure.
Gripping at the end.
1163317
Like one reviewer noted, this is "a thinker," so maybe not recommended for fans of epic space opera-type sci-fi. I liked it a lot. It reminded me of the works of Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov.
3180516
I loved the current science combined with science fiction. Have been reading a lot about epigenetics lately and it's fascinating. I also enjoyed it's unpredictability. I guess the sex sells although I didn't find it necessary. The romantic aspect would suffice. I'm happy to support independent writers.
710876
A fascinating, mind-bending book. Reminds me of "Decoding the Universe."  May take a little patience to read unless you are into that sort of thing.
791845
Live a thousand+ years thru the eyes of Lazarus Long! Heinleins vision of a future is intriguing and his insights on human nature make me laugh and sigh. Looking forward to reading his other stories
3453848
Although I'm not a science fiction fan, I couldn't put it down! I found the relationship between the inworlders and Outworlders fascinating. At places, the intellectually challenging wording, slowed me down a bit. It may be because it's the author's first book. I'm in the process of reading the second book from the author, "Detonation", and finding the simplified language keeps it flowing and the action moving.
2893465
As a techie, futurist, space nut, whatever label you want to put on my obsessions, I was fascinated with this book. The amount of detail provided for all of the concepts within was glorious, but as other reviewers have said, it can be hard to get through some chunks. I especially loved descriptions of the robots as well as the space slingshots. The concepts described in this book left me inspired, hopeful for the future, which is what made me enjoy it so much. Simply visualizing some of the situations and settings left me, for lack of a better word, excited. The book was quite long though, and it took me a while to get through it. This was the first Stephenson novel I've read all the way through, and I totally get why some people say he can get way too verbose at times. There were occasional sections of 5-10 pages where I thought "man, I wish I could just skip through some of this, but I don't want to miss anything". Sometimes his descriptions of the futuristic imagery in Part 3 are hard to grasp, partially because of the scale, and sometimes because nothing like it exists today, so picturing it requires some real effort. Speaking of Part 3, I thought the narrative was stronger in Parts 1 and 2, and I didn't enjoy Part 3 as much as I was hoping I would, though it certainly had its interesting parts. One of the reviewers here said that the ending was satisfying in that it was an ending -- I felt the same way. I think this book could be at least 100-150 pages shorter, with a nice chunk of that coming out of Part 3.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book; I'd love to read it again, except every time I think about it, I remember how thick it is and think, "Another day."