Farside
by Ben Bova
science fiction
copyright 2013
read in January 2018
rated 7/10: well worth reading
Chapter one, the heroine doesn't like that a character talks down to her. Two pages later the author talks down to the reader. Ah well. Science fiction is now near enough to mainstream that you can't expect every reader to be a science nerd.
Mind you, one of the science factoids which was carefully explained by one character to another -- so that the reader would understand it -- well, I though I knew what it meant but I was wrong. So I *could* say, Just as well the author explained that term. Except that my complete misunderstanding would not have affected my understanding of the book. If we needed to know that the heroine was a science nerd -- she could have explained a term with more relevance to the book.
The rest of the book is quite enjoyable: old style science fiction, adventure with "science" as an essential part of the plot.
It's "hard" science fiction, with the science as real as is currently known. How can I tell? Because I've read it all before... The setting -- a moon colony -- is much the same as for Artemis but set a few years earlier in the development of the base on the moon. (Farside was written first, by several years, but I doubt that it's a matter of plagiarism. Just referencing the same textbooks. I hope.)
Which makes me think:
The Farside characters are overdrawn. Some good, some bad. Yet nearly every character is sympathetic, I can understand why they are as they are. In Artemis there was barely a likable character. The heroine, in particular -- was a creep.
So, having read a second book set in a base on the moon, having had a chance to compare (in my memory) the two books -- I'm going to change my ratings. This book is seven, Artemis is down from seven to six.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"You're only young once but you can stay immature forever" … per Ginger Meggs
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