6/28/07
The past week or so I've read two books which were polar opposites of each other.

In brief, Phytosphere by Scott Mackay was a tale pitting two scientist brothers against each other. One being the golden boy who can do no wrong and the other one being a recovering alcoholic. An alien invasion is at the heart of the tale. Can you guess who wins?

Summarizing The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson is simple. The immortal captain of a generation ship is on a mission to encounter alien life. He will not turn the ship around until the mission is complete and has no issues with endangering the ship and crew. The main character of the tale suffers amnesia at the start of the story and rediscovers himself over the course of the novel.

The Dark Beyond the Stars is my favorite of the two.

I went to Barnes & Noble and saw Phytosphere in the science fiction section. The review caught my eye over at a science fiction site and I figured it was worth a shot. The aforementioned drunken brother scientist is on the moon, a haven for potheads and showgirls, while the golden boy Nobel-prize winning brother is back on Earth. Bicephalic aliens who constantly beat humans at chess are at an impasse with the Terran governments over immigrating to our world. Why is chess used as a watermark for intelligence? I dunno. That was pretty much my only problem with the tale because there are many more games which are more complex and challenging than chess.

Earth is plunged into darkness by the aliens who use their homebrewed air plankton to blot out the sun. Over the course of several months (!) all plant life dies out and humans are struggling to avoid starvation. This was the only part of the story that I didn't like because I don't want to read about a mom and her kids fighting the evil southern sheriff and getting mixed up in general craziness. I figure it was supposed to be 'human interest' rather than the novel being entirely about scientists and food riots.

Turns out that the drunken brother has half of the solution from the beginning of the story. Golden boy makes several attempts to poke holes through the phytosphere but they always heal up and plunge the world into darkness once more.

Anyway the puzzle is solved, the Earth is saved, invading aliens die and the ewoks dance. At least it wasn't Dies the Fire, eh? Now I don't want to damn it with faint praise but at the end of the story I was left thinking that someone put Mackay up to the challenge to write an alternate version of Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

The member of the generation ship Astron takes a nasty fall, nearly dies and awakens in the sick bay remembering nothing about his life. His crewmates take the time to reacquaint him with the ship and the rest of the crew.

The Astron has been on a mission to find alien life for the past two thousand years. With the passage of time the crew has greatly diminished in size, vast sections of the ship have been closed off and everything is falling apart from age.

At the helm is the immortal captain who will not turn the ship around until the mission is complete. Hundreds of planets have been explored and every one has been sterile. If the world they're approaching, Aquinas II, is sterile then The Captain will do something which will endanger everyone. He has an idea that beyond a vast gulf known as the dark there's a tight cluster of stars which are certain to have life.

The amnesiac crew member, Sparrow, slowly recalls his life and realizes that he's been behind past mutiny attempts or a participant in those events. No one believes The Captain, no one believes there is any life in the universe which profoundly affects them. All the new generation crew members hold life to be very dear because of its rarity and now there's doubt whether there may be anything still living on their homeworld.

Mr. Robinson has created some good three dimensional characters, weaves a good yarn and the ending surprised me. Of course if maribou would ever read it, she'd probably say "Oh it was sooo obvious. Also I have a degree in biology!"

Sadly my review sucks because I don't want to be spoily, for once, and I'm tired and my heart isn't into it.