Zorac (zorac) wrote,
Zorac
zorac

Review and Meta-Review

Review: James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear is another interesting piece of science fiction, although this one is more social since than some of his other work. The premise has a colony at Alpha Centauri which was established by a robot probe with cloned colonists and their robot carers. The main story takes place some 40-50 years later with a society very different from ours - technology provides pretty much everything at minimal cost, so there's no need for money or a concept of material wealth, plus many other differences for a society which has evolved from scratch without the baggage of the past. The conflict comes with a colony ship from Earth whose leaders expect to come in and smoothly take over only to find there's no government to take over etc. Plenty of interesting ideas and well executed.

Meta-Review: I just love the double act of reviewer quotes from two giants of the genre on the back cover:
'Arthur C. Clarke move over' - Isaac Asimov
'Much though it hurts me to say so, Isaac, you are right. Welcome, Jim Hogan, to the hardcore science fiction club' - Arthur C. Clarke
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  • 2 comments

I know nothing

addedentry

November 7 2002, 01:53:21 UTC 18 years ago

The author's comment on amazon.co.uk is pretty amusing too.

Iain M. Banks' Culture novels consider the macrosocial consequences of abolishing scarcity, don't they? (I haven't read any so hesitate to comment.)

Re: I know nothing

zorac

November 7 2002, 02:39:38 UTC 18 years ago

"How I brought down the Soviet Union" - excellent ;-)

The Culture does indeed have some of the same themes (albeit on a galaxy-spanning scale), although I can't remember the details (it's a while since I've read them).