In the Ocean of Night (Galactic Centre, book 1) by Gregory Benford

[james_davis_nicoll]

In the Ocean of Night (Galactic Centre, book 1) by Gregory Benford

Comments

[scott_sanford]

...the odd lack of a reaction to a 30 MY clean fusion explosion that scours clean a 75-km-wide stretch of Oregon.

To be fair, with a little luck or skill in targeting it's entirely possible to draw a circle 75 kilometers in diameter in eastern Oregon that doesn't cover much of anything important.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Wasco does seem to be isolated.

But I'd think a 30 MT explosion anywhere in the US except NM or Nevada would alarm the masses.

[neowolf2]

There should have been a huge reaction, since we'd now know clear fusion weapons are posssible (current tech says they'd be very hard or impossible to make, at least on a scale like that.)

[melita66]

IIRC I read Great Sky River for a F-SF class. It did not entice me to read more even though I had liked Benford's Timescape.

[dsrtao]

GSR looked like the first book in a series but had no satisfactory anything; the characters were flat, the setting obtuse and the plot a meaningless string of minor events.

I always thought that there ought to have been more interesting things to do with the setting.

[(Anonymous)]

That was a more favourable review than I was expecting. I've read this book as recently as the early 90s, did remember some problematic bits, and was expecting a scathing review.

I might someday reread the set. I recall being less than happy with the final volume, but I usually like books of this kind more on the second read (e.g. "Foundation's Edge").

William Hyde

[refreshninja]

Are you going to review the rest of the series?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Not unless paid. Well, maybe book 2 but the last four were tomes, as I recall.

[tavella]

As I recall, the series got worse as it went on, and it didn't start well. I used to have a huge rant about the many many ways it sucked. It was an amazing combination of racism, misogyny, and bad science.

[philrm]

...despite Australia being a desolate uninhabitable wasteland even less inviting than Canada.

This is possibly my favorite sentence of yours ever.

[beamjockey]

It's good, but I'm still voting for "I needed at least one more contingency plan than I actually had."

[ba_munronoe]

"I really didn't think I'd need a plan E."