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Title: Centauri Dawn (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Book 1) by Michael Ely, Robert Simpson ISBN: 0671040774 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 28 November, 2000 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.91
Rating: 3
Summary: more twilight
Comment: I stumbled across this book by accident browsing on one of my favorite bookstores. I have played the game "Alpha Centauri" and enjoyed the complexity and the depth of it and was excited at the prospect of a novel based on its premise and its characters
Any book based on a video game is bound to have some difficulties but the sheer scope of 'Alpha Centauri" should have provided a fertile groundwork for a book many times the size of this novel. Mr. Ely manages to shrink the setting and the situation is size and scope rather than expand it.
Colonists on the spaceship Unity have fled a dying earth to establish a life on Chiron, a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. After enduring forty years of interstellar travel they arrive at their destination but before landfall the ship falls to infighting and possible sabotage. The Unity's seven escape pods having landed well apart from each other across the uncharted new planet, and seven infant societies are formed around each of their charismatic leaders and social ideals.
The seven factions are:
Gaia's Stepdaughters a faction of environmentalists
The Human Hive a police state based on atheistic communism.
Morgan Industries a society based on industrialization and free market ideals.
The Lord's Believers a religious society opposed to science and materialism.
Peacekeepers a collection of bureaucrats.
The Spartans military oriented survivalists.
The University of Planet a faction of scientists and researchers
Missing is the book is the construction of the colonies and the interplay between factions. I believe Mr. Ely missed a great opportunity to explore the view of this new world from the average citizen of these factions. Say for example not every one was correctly sorted into the differing faction pods when the colonies were first established, how does a sentimentally minded scientist cope with living with the fanatical Believers?
The book is largely about the conflict between the Peacekeepers faction and the Spartans. Here the Peacekeepers were painted too much to be the good guys to be believable and the Spartans seem to be there simply to provide a face to the enemy. The Spartans became more of a characterization of our current societies fear of militias and terrorists then a possible society. Rather than a society where the strong lead and prosper Mr. Ely paints a society of sociopaths who kill any they view as weak.
Missing entirely is any sense of wonder tat the landscape of Chiron or its native flora and fauna. Also missing is the sense that the book is taking place in the future. True lasar guns are tossed around but there is no sense that this is taking place far away from what we daily experience.
While I did enjoy reading this book I do not feel compelled in any way to seek out the next two books in the trilogy.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Best Book Based on a Video Game Ever
Comment: And winning the narrow catagory of "Best Book Based on a Video Game" is . . . Centauri Dawn!
If you enjoy playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, this book will expand the game a little bit for you, and develops some of the neat story-elements in the game. If you don't play SMAC, you might still enjoy the books, and then you can have the added bonus of buying the games and reliving some of the story elements.
For those not familiar with the game, it (and the book) take place on a habitable planet on Alpha Centauri. An interstellar colony ship arrives, only to learn that the developing war on Earth has apparently cut off all contact with Earth. Seven archetypical leaders (a scientist, a merchant, an environmentalist, etc.) start factions on the new planet, and risk repeating Earth's destruction.
If you enjoy this book, then I have two more recommendations for you. First, try Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars, by Kim Staley Robinson. Those books explore very similar themes, from a little bit more of a "hard sf" perspective. Second, if you haven't read it yet, try the Iliad, by Homer. Most of the second half of Centauri Dawn is a retelling of the story of Achilles, Patrokolus, and Hector, and it's fun to trace the two stories together.
Rating: 5
Summary: fantastic series
Comment: I'm a latecomer to the series, but becuase of that I got to read them all at once. As video game books go, they are fantastic. I was expecting flat characters and cliche's, but got an ambitious book with characters' lives set against a brutal war.
It's the mixing of individuals with big events that made this first book a compelling read. If I had to pick a fault it's that the writing is kind of rough around the edges at time, but this doesn't get in the way of the fast-paced story. And it is fast-paced...more action than sci-fi.
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Title: Dragon Sun by Michael Ely ISBN: 0671040782 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 28 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Twilight of the Mind by Michael Ely ISBN: 0671040790 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Prima's Official Strategy Guide by Chris McCubbin, David Ladyman, Sid Meier ISBN: 0761515844 Publisher: Prima Publishing Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title:Alpha Centauri (Jewel Case) ASIN: B00005AG0S Publisher: Electronic Arts Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $9.99 |
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Title: StarCraft #2: Shadow of the Xel'Naga by Gabriel Mesta ISBN: 0671041495 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 26 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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