A love story disguised as sci-fi
588656
This movie took me away from the first moment I saw it, deeply moving it makes you think for yourself instead of just agreeing with other people or
going along with the in crowd.
The love story aspects will move you to tears I love a good love story, and everytime I see this movie on cable i have to watch it. I Love This Movie !
2805010
`Bicentennial Man' is a Sci-Fi comedy that turns into a Sci-Fi romance and then shoots for deep philosophical drama on death and dying.  It overreaches its capabilities and can't pull it all together.  It seems that  the more human Andrew became, the worse the film got.
This is based on  Isaac Asimov's short story about a robot named Andrew (Robin Williams)  whose flawed programming makes him obsessed with becoming human.  It shows  his relationship with four generations of the Martin family and his various  upgrades toward humanhood.  The first part of the film is engaging and  droll.  Williams is at his best when he is doing offbeat comedy, and this  segment had a warm kind of comedy that was enchanting.
By the time the  film progressed to the romance between Andrew and Portia, it had used up  its charm.  It became contrived and implausible.  Williams is beyond his  talents as a romantic lead and all the romantic scenes were forced and  awkward.  As the film moved towards the ending, Andrew wasn't the only  thing getting moribund.  The entire film began to decay.
Director Chris  Columbus did some excellent work in the area of makeup.  The robot costumes  and the aging makeup was wonderfully done.  Unfortunately, much was lacking  in the costumes and sets as the decades went by.  As time passed, nothing  seemed to change as regards dress and sets.  We are led to believe that 200  years hence, everything will look pretty much the way it looks today.  Think of the difference between dress in 1800 and today.  Shouldn't we  expect changes of similar magnitude over the next 200 years?  Apparently  not in Columbus' mind.  The only indications that it wasn't the 20th  century were a couple of futuristic blue screen city backdrops and that's  about it.  Very unimaginative.
Sam Neill was marvelous as the Martin  patriarch.  He gave the father wisdom, character and a strong guiding hand.  Embeth Davidtz was lovely but a little tentative at times as Portia.  She  was stronger as Little Miss, which required more warmth than dynamism.  Williams was very good at the start, but as the water got deeper, he  floundered.  He needs to stay with wacky comedy roles and stop pretending  he is a dramatic/romantic lead.  Oliver Platt was great fun as the eccentic  inventor who develops Andrew's upgrades.
There was a lot to enjoy about  this film. It was delightfully warm and schmaltzy even though it did  outlive its allure by the end. If you are the sentimental type, you will  probably enjoy it. If you are expecting side splitting comedy or good  Sci-Fi, forget it. I rate it a 7/10.
364178
This is more literary than science fictional. The titular machine is a thinly disguised literary device that manages to get the job done.  If you prefer hard science fiction, it will likely appeal to you. I finished reading it mostly because I wanted to see what would happen. It took a long time for the action to start, and once it did it did not go very far. I did find the narrator to be somewhat sympathetic at first, but less so as the story progressed.

The lack of punctuation to set apart dialogue was an interesting choice. I thought it was a formatting error at first, but apparently it is a deliberate feature.

In short, it's not so much an SF story as a character study wrapped in SF tropes. Depression, loss, and not much sunshine here.
2738820
A beautiful love story that uses science fiction to both complicate and strengthen the bond of Clare and Henry.  It does not focus on the details of time travel, but instead uses this to tell a love story that stands the test of time and and the boundaries of age.

Henry has a genetic defect that causes him to time-travel.  There is no predictability to where he might go or how long he will be gone. Clare is Henry's future wife, and she has known him her entire life.  The book begins when she first meets Henry in 'real' life, but then in a few pages, begins where it should, at the beginning: Clare is a little girl and Henry is man who has time-traveled to her backyard.

Pay close attention to the year and the characters' age at the beginning of each chapter.  Although a bit tricky at first, it will greatly help you follow the story line.  This was probably the only frustrating part of the book, but it is easily overcome with a little focus. The story isn't the same if you don't spend the time understanding where Henry is in "time" and how that relates to the rest of the characters.

This felt like a good mystery, revealing clues to the couple's path, but not giving away the ending.  I enjoyed unraveling the story chapter by chapter, and seeing the evolution in the characters as they aged and gained experience. Both Henry and Clare face unique challenges and their interactions both in the present and with a time traveling Henry are interesting, to say the least.
3876369
This is a difficult book to categorize. Is it science fiction or is it YA romance?

I read the first chapter or so on my kindle a couple of months back and was blown away. It started off with terrific drama and high-concept science fiction. The ebook price was high at the time, so I waited a while and read some other things first. Eventually I grabbed a cheap copy of the hardcover.

I think the book wanted to give us a creepy feeling. I think we were supposed to feel that the story was dystopian, claustrophobic, as if we didn't know which way was up. In this regard, it didn't work for me. It all felt very light and fluffy. Even the "villain" of the story, Eldest, seemed more like a cranky old man who made some childish choices than anyone actually evil. There was no hard edge to any of the characters. There was no tension. There was little suspense. So much of the science felt too pat.

There were mysteries. There were meant to be a few surprises, but I found most of them very predictable.

As a romance, I don't think anyone would be satisfied by this story. While the author is happy to describe dozens of characters having sex around them, our couple seem to only be interested in each other in the most airy and intellectual of ways. There was no real passion, except for the moment when he first saw her and admired her red hair. After that, I would say the relationship resembled something more brotherly/sisterly than passionate. I found the protagonist's feelings of disgust at the sex going on around her fitting since she seemed so airy herself.

Most of the chapters were very short. 3-4 pages. This means that in paperback this book is really fluffed up. I would be curious to know the word count since there is roughly a page of blank space between every chapter. There are 81 chapters in 398 pages. That means about a quarter of every copy of this book is blank. (So much for the trees!) I felt like it prevented me from getting more deeply into the story and, yeah, it felt a little too cutesy as we kept going back and forth between the two characters every few seconds.

I really don't like the title. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that by naming her book after a Beatles' song it puts it in the shadow of a work of art which it can never live up to. It's a cliche and it's a borrowed phrase.

And after all of that, I DID enjoy the story. I think the book had some problems. It lacked passion. The author never seemed to make up her mind what genre she was in. But all the same, I read it quickly and with curiosity. The protagonist was likeable. It was easy enough to put oneself in her position. If there's a sequel, I do want to read it.

Next time, I'd like to see the author put more blood and heart into the story, but I will be there to read it.
433941
Sci-fi and historical fiction: an unlikely pairing who's only match would be the subjects of this wonderful so-much-more-than-romance novel.
1585665
Immediately after reading the blurb on the back, I realized that the idea has some inherent limitation, and it would take a lot of doing to pull it off. I decided to go ahead and read the book, and see if Kevin J Anderson's reputation as a good writer would hold up.  The book does have it share of action and highlights that makes it worth the time spent reading it, but I'm not sure if it was worth the money.
As far as science-fiction goes, most of the science that Anderson uses to explain the technology in the book is solid, but somewhat shallow.  There is a lack of depth in the biological description of the alien body: the details Anderson uses consists primarily of very elementary biological terms.  Furthermore, this book lacks a strong underlying meaning or message that can be found in great sci-fi.  In this respect, it comes off as little more than a sci-fi thriller filled with some fancy terms.  I am not even sure if the science (especially the physics aspect) or the logic for that matter is very sound.
In my opinion, the characters are paper-thin and rely on mostly character sterotypes to carry them through.  I could not relate to the characters and did not feel emotionally attached to them when something happened to them.  Anderson choose to place his character description in the weirdest place, often inserting them in the middle of an action scene.  His characterization also lack subtlety; he tells the reader what the characters are like rather than revealing them within the plot or dialougle.
Speaking of dialouge, the lines exchanged between character are often corny and used at utterly inappropriate times.  Failed attempts at humor punctuating scenes seem out of place and make the characters (especially the Mote's crew) seem like they aren't  facing grave danger.
Summing it up, the novel does what it sets out to do (excite the reader with lots of action) relatively well without doing much more.  For me, much of the plot was predictable so the book didn't intrigue me as much as it could have, but I did enjoy the end.  The nanotechnology twist breathe additonal life into the novel, but it was excessive towards the end (how smart can those nanocritters be with microscopic brains?). I think this book would be a lot better as a movie especially with special effects.  The abundance of action, plot, characters, and lack of deeper meaning makes it like the movie, Armaggadeon.
You will probably enjoy this this book if you liked Armaggadeon, but I am somewhat of a sci-fi purist which explains the negative tone of my review.  It's a also good book if you're bored or need something to fill time on a long trip (like me).
2552769
Enjoyable romance set in the future, where the more affluent people live in cloud cities above the oceans. The love story was touching, but I would have liked the author to give more details of the sci fi world she created.
4245439
I'm reviewing a sci-fi book by Catrina Taylor. It is the first in the Xarrok series. The book follows Kayla, a girl with psionic powers who begins life as a slave, then joins the military. As she rises through the ranks, she experiences the horrors of war and finds the love of her life.

I wanted to like this book, I really did. The characters, for the most part, are distinct; and the prejudice of having psionic powers (telepathy, pyrokinesis, etc.) is nice. The plot is rich and moves from one thing to the next; sometimes it's hard to catch your breath. Catrina Taylor has built an interesting universe that you want to explore more.

And you don't explore it. There is almost no detail in the book and that is its biggest flaw. Almost no character, place, or object descriptions are given. We have no idea what a Ven or a Xentonian look like. It look several chapters to learn that Catrina was not misspelling hearts; I thought she meant `heart' until I found out much later that Kayla has two hearts. Most of the action takes place aboard ships, but no description is given. Are they sleek and smooth like technology in Star Trek, or rough with knobs and buttons like Star Wars? We don't really know.

And this lack of detail extends to the storytelling. The Dentonians and Xenonians don't like each other but we are never told why. Kayla and her love Yatrell are on the opposite sides of a war, but we never learn what the war is about. The book is all about telling us, and not showing us. Without details and backstory I felt lost, just moving from one scene to the next.

Another problem were scenes in which we jumped from one character's head or POV to another, sometimes in the same paragraph. This was especially true when Kayla and Yatrell would speak to each other telepathically. We would start with Kayla, sitting in her bed looking out the window. She would project her thoughts to Yatrell, then we would switch to his location as he is sitting at his desk reading ship reports. This sudden character jumping was jarring and took me out of the story.

It is clear Catrina Taylor has built a universe. The detail she spent on the wedding scene was very good and gave me a strong sense of the culture and the importance of the items used, and everything world building should be. Sadly, this wasn't applied to the rest of the book and it hurt because of it.

In closing, this book had a lot of potential to be epic, but the lack of detail, the "telling not showing" style of writing really hurts it.
3506789
I enjoyed this sci-fi story.  There's a slow moving romance story in it but nothing graphic.  The interactions between the characters were believable and I look forward to the next effort by this author.
1903215
Disclaimer: the author sent me this book in exchange for an honest review

"Home World" is an exotic story filled with futuristic techno-marvels, a little fantasy, and a lot of the age-old human foibles that a hundred thousand years of evolution and a few centuries post-Enlightenment just haven't weeded out of us.

Letticia, daughter and sister, is one of the Van Burens who rule the new earth (which is in a state of dystopia when the story opens) and all the earth's various "satellite" planets which house humanity. The human race has been genetically engineered into various species with differing skills and dialects. Letticia is not the protagonist, but she stands out for the intriguing way she's plugged her mind into a computer grid, some kind of MindScape, MindNet, and she manages to be omniscient, omnipresent and (she's hoping) omnipotent. Trouble is, she can't be omnipotent when her brother wears the Ring that makes him heir to the kingdom, ruler of Earth.

The story opens with Jezekia flying over the ruins of Hawaii, his former home, but he dreads the landing. He doesn't want The Ring and all the responsibilities that go with it. He doesn't want to face his mother and all her duties for him, nor his sister, who has set an assassin after him. The "Pretty Boy" hired to pose as Jezekiah stepping off that plane might face a hail of bullets. Or not. Jezekiah poses as a commoner. Does it work? Let's just say nothing goes according to plan, in life, or in fiction.

The most intriguing prospect for Letticia is not ruling the world, but hearing out her brother on his insane idea of striking a truce with earth's ruling class, the Lupans, by marrying off Letticia to their leader, Strongarm. The marriage would offer her safety, which could come in handy at a time when Lettitia's own mother is plotting her execution. Jezekiah urges her to consider the Lupan, whom Lettitica sneeringly dismisses as a dog (put Luna, moon, dog, and man together, and what do you get?)  -"One of the deadliest warriors for your own personal protection...A man who will belong to you and you alone, heart and soul, always and forever," Jezekiah promise. A man "who'll love you, not for your title or not what you can do for him."

Letticia should listen to her brother.

To avoid plot spoilers, I'll say as little as possible about Mother. Oh, and the Hawaiian assassin girl. She's sure to turn up in a sequel. There has to be a sequel. The final scene is much too poignant otherwise.

In all, this is an engaging story. A little wordy for my liking, with more dialect spelled out than I care to read. At times the dialogue struck me as a little last-century (Letticia's in particular). She came across as a spoiled brat, and didn't impress me as sounding as intelligent as she really is if she could plug into MindNet the way she did.

I believe another round of trimming and tightening would help. Still, a lot happens to a lot of interesting people, and this is a novel fans of several different genres can appreciate.
3388191
This book, a Sci-Fi entry is ultimately a love story and about relationships between men and women.  A young minister who was redeemed by a broken young woman is given the great opportunity to travel to another planet to evangelize a group of aliens called Oasians.  He arrives there to find that these people are reclusive, have no hope and accept and seem to understand his message more that he does in their own limited way.  He immerses himself in teaching the Gospel to the Oasians while back on earth his wife is struggling.  Struggling with a world crumbling around her: natural disasters, crime, death and destruction.  (Interesting that while the two of them were together none of this was noticed or mentioned). She tries to communicate this to her husband, but he self-involved in the "mission" let's her know in no uncertain terms he has no time for her.  The rift begins.  She eventually lets him know she's pregnant, and even that doesn't seem to break the barrier that distance has created.  Ultimately what gets his attention is the torture and killing of their cat Joshua and his wife Bea's break.  Her statement". Don't come back here, there is no God" is the sentinel moment in the book.  Face earth or face heaven?  Distance is the test for relationship, and Peter has failed Bea miserably.  Though he's not been unfaithful, he's essentially ended the relationship.  I think distance is the greatest test in relationships.  It is in the daily "grind" that we become who we are as people and as people in shared actions which become shared memories.  These the process of divergence began the moment Peter was accepted into the USIC space program.  Different experiences......divergence......ultimately relationship fracture.
1005629
I have to start this review with the confession that I very, very, rarely read science fiction.  This may influence my evaluation of this book.

Set in A. D. 2785, "The Hypothetical Human" is a novel about a clone, AGB-14, who finds himself in an endless maze from which he escapes in his search for meaning in life.  He finds himself in a universe of meaningless interplanetary life, mind reading technology, a diminished and hunted human race, hourly serial love affairs, all fueled by drugs and virtual reality, futuristic bread and circuses.  It is a universe in which shear boredom drives multitudes to end eternal youth by suicide.

The writing is unimaginative and disjointed.  It contains a series of interactions, interviews and observations, many in sections, or chapters, of less than one page, with little flow toward a conclusion.  I was many times tempted to stop reading but preserved to the end in the hopes that somewhere along the line it would all be tied together in a way that would inspire reflection on our own situation and trends.  An attempt is made in the concluding three of twenty-one parts, but with limited success.  Perhaps someone more attracted to science fiction would appreciate this more than did I but I would suspect that they are used to better.

I did receive a free copy of this book for review.
2237774
This story starts (and continues) with a really interesting premise: that scientists tinkering with one concept end up accidentally discovering one that seems to turn the laws of physics on their head, and creates an opening for persons with evil intentions to use the accidental discovery to their advantage, and shuffle the existing power structures on Earth. Both of those ideas are compelling. But instead of building THAT story line, the authors choose to focus on the small and petty base impulses, grudges, and emotional traumas of a few individual characters, which turns what could have been some really good sci-fi into a really slow, boring soap opera.
1849492
a love story? well kind of. to me, a book about romance makes me say yuck, for lack of better terminology. this book did have romance, but the genius of Murakami made it anything bu t. Mystery, philosophical, riveting, sombre, page-turning. This story is of Sumire, a college drop out whom lives to write. she is misplaced in the world, a beatnik of sorts who dances to her own rhythm. the  main character, a teacher, loves her and they are best friends. Sumire meets an enigmatic elderly woman whom she falls in love with. i don't think Sumire is homosexual, it just happened that she fell in love....witn a woman. they escape together to a secluded greek island. Sumire discovers secrets behind the enigmatic woman. murakami spins a supernatural element into the tale, reminiscient of his book dance,dance,dance. Sumire acts weird one night and dissapears. the teacher is summoned to trace what steps she didn't leave trace of.
3269331
I got this book as part of a bundle, and started in without knowing anything the author, or the fact that it is from 30+ years ago.  I can only imagine that many of the good reviews here relate more to seeing the book in that context, but reading this simply as an SF novel in 2016, it is hard to recommend.

I gather that Shiner would come to be associated with the Cyberpunk sub-genre, but there is little of that here; rather there is a straightforward  melodrama with the trappings of ships-and-suits SF.  The writing style borders on noir but the level of internal angst undercuts the hard-boiled approach. There are a lot of movie influences here; in retrospect the influence of Blade Runner and Outland is clear, as well as the most overt possible channeling of Joseph Campbell's theories on the Hero's Journey and father-son relationships (all the rage after Star Wars).  The female characters are differentiated mainly by hair color; several of these are involved in a silly set of implausible and awkwardly-written sexual trysts that seem to exist only to drive home the link to the mythological archetypes.  The world-building is actually excellent but the story placed on this framework is rather clumsy and preposterous.

Moving into SPOILERS territory:

So we have an antimatter generator (in one portable circuit board!) AND a stargate developed by the mutant-genius children and grandchildren of the original colonists; this double MacGuffin is used to both drive the story and set up a sequel (was there ever one?  If not Reese's story sure ends with a whimper).  We have the aforementioned love triangles and daddy issues, persecuted by people who are supposed to be coming off of a months-long space journey that they barely survived.  Decades after a Mars base has been established, we have people picking up corded phones and reading green text on black computer screens (apparently Shiner's crystal ball only looked at the geopolitical realm).  We have inscrutable Japanese crewmates and droll Russian agents escalating the action (fair enough of an extrapolation for the '80s) and a megalomaniac leader who, in a matter of hours, comes up with a counter-threat straight out of a Dan Brown book.  Finally, and most insanely, we have a GUN FIGHT (with Colt revolvers, no less) between FULLY HARD-SUITED characters on the SURFACE OF MARS.  Those must be some amazingly thin gloves. This makes it sound like more fun that it actually is, really, since it's all handled in such a self-serious and ponderous way.

This is a reasonable diversion and perhaps interesting if you are following the author's career, but not something I'd go out of my way to obtain.
1965055
Ru, super stud alpha alien , is from a dead planet, his race is also almost extinct. He is also in a race against time, because he must find his one true mate within a few months or die on his 30th birthday. He never thought he would find his true mate in a human woman, Lis, who was left to die on a poisonous planet.
This book is a love story between a beaten down, orphan woman from the futuristic "wastelands" of Ohio. She has learned to fend for herself and trust no one . Then she is taken by  aliens and then dumped on the poisonous planet when she isn't what the wanted. It is never explained why they didn't want her. 
Ru comes to the planet to steal some computer info because that is his profession. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap . He finds Lis almost starved on the inhospitable planet and its lustat first sight. YEHAW! Ride em bareback, cowgirl!