Moving Mars
The three interminable weeks I spent reading Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky didn't do anything to discourage me from reading sci-fi.
I'm now reading Greg Bear's Moving Mars, and it's pretty damn good so far, despite the fact that the first 100 pages, or 1/5 of the book, have done little else but follow a college girl's awkward attempts at establishing, then rejecting, her first love.
But Bear's style this go around is tight and evocative, and he weaves in details about Mars circa 2170 so naturally that it helps to keep the story interesting.
Bear has always had an eye for scientific detail, and everything from communications (signals take seven to 44 minutes to travel to Earth, depending on the planets' positions) to areology (like geology, except applied to Mars, the Roman equivalent of Ares, the Greek god of war) seems eminently plausible.
I've had mixed results with Bear's stuff in the past. The incredible The Forge of God was my introduction to him. Slant was good but forgettable, and I never bothered to finish Anvil of Stars. Moving Mars might make me pick that up again, though.
I'm now reading Greg Bear's Moving Mars, and it's pretty damn good so far, despite the fact that the first 100 pages, or 1/5 of the book, have done little else but follow a college girl's awkward attempts at establishing, then rejecting, her first love.
But Bear's style this go around is tight and evocative, and he weaves in details about Mars circa 2170 so naturally that it helps to keep the story interesting.
Bear has always had an eye for scientific detail, and everything from communications (signals take seven to 44 minutes to travel to Earth, depending on the planets' positions) to areology (like geology, except applied to Mars, the Roman equivalent of Ares, the Greek god of war) seems eminently plausible.
I've had mixed results with Bear's stuff in the past. The incredible The Forge of God was my introduction to him. Slant was good but forgettable, and I never bothered to finish Anvil of Stars. Moving Mars might make me pick that up again, though.
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