Saturday, January 19, 2008

Semi-Review of Heaven by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen

Another busy Saturday means another old RASFW post dragged out for a semblance of daily content. (For good or ill, I'm almost out of these.) This one was originally posted 2/13/04 on rec.arts.sf.written, in reply to a general request for information about the book:

Well, I'm selling it in the SFBC, so my opinion is probably biased. (So I'll try not to get into opinion.) Despite the title and cover, it really is a science fiction novel.

It has Neanderthals in spaceships and an interesting alien race with very different forms for the two genders. I've heard that it's related to Wheelers, but I couldn't tell from reading it -- it's set in the medium-far future, so it could be the same timeline (but it certainly didn't seem to have to be).

I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't love it -- it's probably best for readers who really like SF and want lots of ideas thrown at them. (Which is why I think the title and cover are unfortunate.) The antagonists are somewhat reminiscent of the evil Catholic church from Dan Simmons's "Hyperion" books.

I think those are all relatively factual things, so I'll leave it at that.

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