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The Killing Star
The opening chapter of an incredible adventure includes the destruction of Earth by ten thousand relativistic bombs launched by an alien race in a science fiction thriller and follows the desperate struggles of the remnants of humankind to survive in a hostile universe.
Hardcover
First published April 1, 1995
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3345 people want to read
About the author
Charles Pellegrino
26 books169 followersCharles Pellegrino is a scientist working in paleobiology, astronomy, and various other areas; a designer for projects including rockets and nuclear devices (non-military propulsion systems), composite construction materials, and magnetically levitated transportation systems; and a writer. He has been affiliated with Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand National Observatory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY; taught at institutions including Hofstra University and Adelphi University Center for Creative Arts; a member of Princeton Space Studies Institute. Cradle of Aviation Museum, space flight consultant; Challenger Center, founding member. After sailing with Robert Ballard to the Galapagos Rift in the immediate aftermath of the discovery of the Titanic (in 1985), Pellegrino expanded from the field of paleontology “into the shallows of archaeological time.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
October 22, 2019
Rule 1. Aliens will believe their survival is more important than our survival.
Rule 2. Wimps don't become top dogs.
Rule 3. Aliens will assume that the first two rules apply to us as well.
Rule 2. Wimps don't become top dogs.
Rule 3. Aliens will assume that the first two rules apply to us as well.
June 4, 2012
I read this book a long time ago in high school, and for whatever reason, it's resonated with me more than some 95% of all other novels I've ever read. I find myself referring to it a lot in philosophical discussions (not that anyone else has ever heard of it), and even just thinking about it a lot.
I think it's the cold, brutal, hard logic of the aliens that really draws me in. It's so coldly rational and inescapable, and a welcome counter-point to most of the rest of science fiction. It's also, unfortunately, more likely than I think we give credit to.
I think it's the cold, brutal, hard logic of the aliens that really draws me in. It's so coldly rational and inescapable, and a welcome counter-point to most of the rest of science fiction. It's also, unfortunately, more likely than I think we give credit to.
October 27, 2023
Originally recommended to me by a friend in 2022 this one took a long time for me to get around to reading and I absolutely loved it.
This book is like Moby-Dick, where you're either going to be swept up in the creative asides and tangents and see all these different ideas and perspectives as this amazing quilt of concepts explaining the main themes of the novel? Or you don't.
I did.
I think Pellegrino and Zebrowski knocked this out of the park and there's a reason people keep returning to this story. It's hand's down one of the most terrifying alien attack novels ever written. The grief in the aftermath is so dense, it's bone-cracking. I thought the finale was just brilliant. Very short, very strong. Exceptional science fiction. Fun concepts regarding cloning and religion and cultural changes in the aftermath of the apocalypse. The only part I didn't like was the talk the guy had with his AI mom on the Titanic.
Other than that? Excellent work. 9/10
This book is like Moby-Dick, where you're either going to be swept up in the creative asides and tangents and see all these different ideas and perspectives as this amazing quilt of concepts explaining the main themes of the novel? Or you don't.
I did.
I think Pellegrino and Zebrowski knocked this out of the park and there's a reason people keep returning to this story. It's hand's down one of the most terrifying alien attack novels ever written. The grief in the aftermath is so dense, it's bone-cracking. I thought the finale was just brilliant. Very short, very strong. Exceptional science fiction. Fun concepts regarding cloning and religion and cultural changes in the aftermath of the apocalypse. The only part I didn't like was the talk the guy had with his AI mom on the Titanic.
Other than that? Excellent work. 9/10
February 25, 2020
Twenty-five (25) year old, collection of Humans Are Survivors stories set in the aftermath of an Absolute Xenophobic Alien genocidal strike on a Colonized Solar System.
My dead tree format version was a modest 340-pages. It had a 1995 US copyright.
Charles Pellegrino is an American author of science fiction and non-fiction as wells as a screenwriter. He’s written five (5) science fiction novels and more than ten (10) non-fiction books. The last novel of his I read was Flying to Valhalla, which I remember liking.
George Zebrowski is an American author and editor of science fiction. He’s written more than twenty (20) science fiction novels. This is the first novel I’ve read by him.
A technically more advanced, race of uncontacted, xenophobic, aliens perform a genocidal first-strike on a future humanity which has colonized the solar system and begun interstellar exploration. The stories of five (5) separate groups scattered across the solar system surviving the strike and it's subsequent 'mop up' were chronicled. The book was best thought of as related short stories stemming from a common event and sharing world building. Some of the stories were better than others. There were also some inconsistency between the stories. At the time written, the science and world building were technically rigorous. (This was a hard-ish science fiction space opera.) For example, it’s an early use of the Interstellar Weapon trope in science fiction. None of the stories was particularly hopeful. This left me to believe a sequel was planned. However, one was never written.
Parts of the book were really good. For example, the Extinction Event was meticulously planned and described. I suspect I liked the stories that were largely written by Zebrowski, versus Pellegrino. For example, the ‘last couple’ on Earth story was primarily Pellegrino’s based on the Titanic theme; an event he specializes in. Word usage was complex. I also thought that in places the narrative to be too pedantic. In particular, the long polemics on religion and Intellectual Property were of no interest to me. 'Name Dropping' on quotes by obscure real-world personalities was also annoying. (The authors had aphorisms for every situation.) There were also slight differences in the world building of the stories. For example, the alien star ships were too inexplicably different between the 'Hide in the Sun' and 'Last Couple' stories. This led me to think the author's organization of the book included a tacit agreement for them to 'go their own way'?
It’s best to look at this book as five (5) interleaved short stories with separate sets of characters and each with a separate narrative and plot. None of the stories end well for the survivors. I frankly thought all the stories to have been flawed in one way or another. The stories were:
• The Last Couple on Earth get captured (Titanic theme)
• Best and Brightest Hide in the Sun
• Asteroid Belt: Ceres Gets pwned
• Outer Solar System: Scientific party escapes into Neptune’s atmosphere
• Outer Solar System: Space station escapes Saturn’s orbit for Oort Cloud
My favorite was the story of a comet re-fashioned into a spaceship by a dissident sect, which seeks to hide from the alien ‘mop-up’ by orbiting within the sun. However, even this story ended badly for the survivors.
World building in the book was quiet good, considering its 25-years old. The authors were using the best space science available to them. In particular, a lot of the space operatic scenes in the outer solar system pre-date Cassini and the other probes of the outer solar system from the last two (2) decades. The story's astronomy and planetary science holds up fairly well. The astronavigation, and space science were also excellent, and would have been advanced for the time of writing. In addition, there were several, early examples of science fiction literary devices which have since achieved trope status. For example, anti-matter spaceship propulsion, weaponized nanotech, and cloning through DNA scavenging.
I’d like to think of this book as an anthology on science fiction survival short stories written by two (2) authors. (As a novel, it would be crap.) The book felt like a sequel was planned. It was never written. So, it ended feeling unfinished. The stories were not hopeful for humanity. At best in a couple of the stories, the survivors don’t die, but have an uncertain future. Annalee Newitz's, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember was brought to mind reading this. In addition, in several stories there was a too obvious doctrinaire attitude that should have been edited out. In terms of the plotting for the genocide of humanity and the world building, the story was quite good. I can’t recommend this book for easy and uplifting reading. However, it was of historical interest in terms of its early use of the tropes that developed later.
My dead tree format version was a modest 340-pages. It had a 1995 US copyright.
Charles Pellegrino is an American author of science fiction and non-fiction as wells as a screenwriter. He’s written five (5) science fiction novels and more than ten (10) non-fiction books. The last novel of his I read was Flying to Valhalla, which I remember liking.
George Zebrowski is an American author and editor of science fiction. He’s written more than twenty (20) science fiction novels. This is the first novel I’ve read by him.
A technically more advanced, race of uncontacted, xenophobic, aliens perform a genocidal first-strike on a future humanity which has colonized the solar system and begun interstellar exploration. The stories of five (5) separate groups scattered across the solar system surviving the strike and it's subsequent 'mop up' were chronicled. The book was best thought of as related short stories stemming from a common event and sharing world building. Some of the stories were better than others. There were also some inconsistency between the stories. At the time written, the science and world building were technically rigorous. (This was a hard-ish science fiction space opera.) For example, it’s an early use of the Interstellar Weapon trope in science fiction. None of the stories was particularly hopeful. This left me to believe a sequel was planned. However, one was never written.
Parts of the book were really good. For example, the Extinction Event was meticulously planned and described. I suspect I liked the stories that were largely written by Zebrowski, versus Pellegrino. For example, the ‘last couple’ on Earth story was primarily Pellegrino’s based on the Titanic theme; an event he specializes in. Word usage was complex. I also thought that in places the narrative to be too pedantic. In particular, the long polemics on religion and Intellectual Property were of no interest to me. 'Name Dropping' on quotes by obscure real-world personalities was also annoying. (The authors had aphorisms for every situation.) There were also slight differences in the world building of the stories. For example, the alien star ships were too inexplicably different between the 'Hide in the Sun' and 'Last Couple' stories. This led me to think the author's organization of the book included a tacit agreement for them to 'go their own way'?
It’s best to look at this book as five (5) interleaved short stories with separate sets of characters and each with a separate narrative and plot. None of the stories end well for the survivors. I frankly thought all the stories to have been flawed in one way or another. The stories were:
• The Last Couple on Earth get captured (Titanic theme)
• Best and Brightest Hide in the Sun
• Asteroid Belt: Ceres Gets pwned
• Outer Solar System: Scientific party escapes into Neptune’s atmosphere
• Outer Solar System: Space station escapes Saturn’s orbit for Oort Cloud
My favorite was the story of a comet re-fashioned into a spaceship by a dissident sect, which seeks to hide from the alien ‘mop-up’ by orbiting within the sun. However, even this story ended badly for the survivors.
World building in the book was quiet good, considering its 25-years old. The authors were using the best space science available to them. In particular, a lot of the space operatic scenes in the outer solar system pre-date Cassini and the other probes of the outer solar system from the last two (2) decades. The story's astronomy and planetary science holds up fairly well. The astronavigation, and space science were also excellent, and would have been advanced for the time of writing. In addition, there were several, early examples of science fiction literary devices which have since achieved trope status. For example, anti-matter spaceship propulsion, weaponized nanotech, and cloning through DNA scavenging.
I’d like to think of this book as an anthology on science fiction survival short stories written by two (2) authors. (As a novel, it would be crap.) The book felt like a sequel was planned. It was never written. So, it ended feeling unfinished. The stories were not hopeful for humanity. At best in a couple of the stories, the survivors don’t die, but have an uncertain future. Annalee Newitz's, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember was brought to mind reading this. In addition, in several stories there was a too obvious doctrinaire attitude that should have been edited out. In terms of the plotting for the genocide of humanity and the world building, the story was quite good. I can’t recommend this book for easy and uplifting reading. However, it was of historical interest in terms of its early use of the tropes that developed later.
June 19, 2012
This book was absolutely terrifying when I first read it, not in the way a horror story is terrifying, but because of the reason the Earth is attacked. Are you an avid science fiction reader, secure in your conception of mankind's strengths and how mature intelligent races behave? This book will rip those notions to shreds.
January 9, 2019
Review originally posted on Let's Get Off This Rock Already (https://letsgetoffthisrockalready.com...)
Here we will explore how not to write a science fiction novel.
Now, I really wanted to like The Killing Star. Pellegrino and Zebrowski’s novel is beloved in some sci-fi circles, and I can see why: their vision of the galaxy is a brutal place, where any civilization becomes an existential threat the moment it develops interstellar rockets, and the only logical action is to exterminate the other species before it does the same to you. It stands out especially because it’s a far cry from Roddenberry’s Star Trek utopia, yet it’s also cold and passionless unlike, say, Warhammer 40,000. This novel in fact had a considerable influence on my own science fiction—in eighth grade I read the interesting parts of it by way of the indispensable Atomic Rockets, laying the foundations for a grim and gritty setting that I’m still working on all these years later. So when I stumbled across a copy at my local bookstore, I was eager to read a work I’d previously seen mere excerpts of.
Man, did it disappoint. You see that wonderful cover up there, with aggressively angled text and alien missiles diving into the Solar System, all beneath a blurb proclaiming “conceptual ferocity” as if this were some hard-SF tiger fight? It has far more verve and dynamism than you’ll find in the novel itself. Sure, The Killing Star presents an original and frightening thesis, but that core of borderline cosmic horror is drowned out by… well, the rest.
The story begins with the swift obliteration of Earth and most other inhabited planets in the Solar System. Alien rockets show up out of nowhere, zipping along at ninety-two percent of the speed of light, and impact with orders of magnitude more energy than today’s nuclear arsenals put together. Only a few survive. There are two people in the submarine Alvin, exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, and there are a few scattered clusters of humanity, on Ceres, the Saturnian rings, and the heart of a comet. All of them resort to inventive and usually ridiculous means of staying alive, as the aliens’ second wave hunts them down and the future of the human species hangs in the balance.
But we hear about the Titanic, too. A lot about the Titanic—the actual honest-to-God ocean liner that sank in 1912. Not only does a plot thread follow the aforementioned Alvin crew, one of whom spends pages and pages in a useless VR recreation of the Titanic disaster, other characters in unrelated circumstances also bring it up, completely out of nowhere. Pellegrino and Zebrowski have some strange fixation, I swear. Because of it I ended up skimming a good third of the book.
The Killing Star also features cloned dinosaurs straight out of Jurassic Park, because I guess that’s cool. I could have forgiven that particular stupidity if it were an isolated thing, but no, this novel is filled to the brim with poorly thought-out ideas: there’s clones of Jesus and the Buddha sharing a space station together, and there are magic bombs that can convert energy into matter, and I haven’t even gotten to the part where they fly a comet spacecraft into the sun and shield it using those stupid magic bombs…
The characters are almost universally dull and interchangeable, removing what could have been a saving grace. At several points, when the POV shifted, I’d catch myself thinking, “Please, not these tedious people again!” The emotional impact of losing Earth and virtually all loved ones is discussed, but it’s not really conveyed. In fact, during the first few chapters, the aftermath of the attack is downplayed, with everyone seeming oddly calm about it.
This novel only works at all because of the strength of its premise: relativistic travel is a nigh-unstoppable weapon and other civilizations will try to kill us before they let us deploy it. The concept is tidily explained towards the middle of the book, where the plot screeches to a halt, and Pellegrino and Zabrowski self-aggrandizingly portray sci-fi authors as the only people who saw the alien attack coming. Did I mind them stopping the plot to deliver what was essentially an essay? No, because the author tract was much more interesting than the outlandish plotlines smothering it all around.
Oh, well. The Killing Star wasn’t too much of a waste of time, since it was a quick read, it had some strong ideas, and the prose was elegant enough despite the failures in plot and characterization. I would recommend this for people who really want to read about relativistic warfare, and nobody else.
Rating: 4/10.
Here we will explore how not to write a science fiction novel.
Now, I really wanted to like The Killing Star. Pellegrino and Zebrowski’s novel is beloved in some sci-fi circles, and I can see why: their vision of the galaxy is a brutal place, where any civilization becomes an existential threat the moment it develops interstellar rockets, and the only logical action is to exterminate the other species before it does the same to you. It stands out especially because it’s a far cry from Roddenberry’s Star Trek utopia, yet it’s also cold and passionless unlike, say, Warhammer 40,000. This novel in fact had a considerable influence on my own science fiction—in eighth grade I read the interesting parts of it by way of the indispensable Atomic Rockets, laying the foundations for a grim and gritty setting that I’m still working on all these years later. So when I stumbled across a copy at my local bookstore, I was eager to read a work I’d previously seen mere excerpts of.
Man, did it disappoint. You see that wonderful cover up there, with aggressively angled text and alien missiles diving into the Solar System, all beneath a blurb proclaiming “conceptual ferocity” as if this were some hard-SF tiger fight? It has far more verve and dynamism than you’ll find in the novel itself. Sure, The Killing Star presents an original and frightening thesis, but that core of borderline cosmic horror is drowned out by… well, the rest.
The story begins with the swift obliteration of Earth and most other inhabited planets in the Solar System. Alien rockets show up out of nowhere, zipping along at ninety-two percent of the speed of light, and impact with orders of magnitude more energy than today’s nuclear arsenals put together. Only a few survive. There are two people in the submarine Alvin, exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, and there are a few scattered clusters of humanity, on Ceres, the Saturnian rings, and the heart of a comet. All of them resort to inventive and usually ridiculous means of staying alive, as the aliens’ second wave hunts them down and the future of the human species hangs in the balance.
But we hear about the Titanic, too. A lot about the Titanic—the actual honest-to-God ocean liner that sank in 1912. Not only does a plot thread follow the aforementioned Alvin crew, one of whom spends pages and pages in a useless VR recreation of the Titanic disaster, other characters in unrelated circumstances also bring it up, completely out of nowhere. Pellegrino and Zebrowski have some strange fixation, I swear. Because of it I ended up skimming a good third of the book.
The Killing Star also features cloned dinosaurs straight out of Jurassic Park, because I guess that’s cool. I could have forgiven that particular stupidity if it were an isolated thing, but no, this novel is filled to the brim with poorly thought-out ideas: there’s clones of Jesus and the Buddha sharing a space station together, and there are magic bombs that can convert energy into matter, and I haven’t even gotten to the part where they fly a comet spacecraft into the sun and shield it using those stupid magic bombs…
The characters are almost universally dull and interchangeable, removing what could have been a saving grace. At several points, when the POV shifted, I’d catch myself thinking, “Please, not these tedious people again!” The emotional impact of losing Earth and virtually all loved ones is discussed, but it’s not really conveyed. In fact, during the first few chapters, the aftermath of the attack is downplayed, with everyone seeming oddly calm about it.
This novel only works at all because of the strength of its premise: relativistic travel is a nigh-unstoppable weapon and other civilizations will try to kill us before they let us deploy it. The concept is tidily explained towards the middle of the book, where the plot screeches to a halt, and Pellegrino and Zabrowski self-aggrandizingly portray sci-fi authors as the only people who saw the alien attack coming. Did I mind them stopping the plot to deliver what was essentially an essay? No, because the author tract was much more interesting than the outlandish plotlines smothering it all around.
Oh, well. The Killing Star wasn’t too much of a waste of time, since it was a quick read, it had some strong ideas, and the prose was elegant enough despite the failures in plot and characterization. I would recommend this for people who really want to read about relativistic warfare, and nobody else.
Rating: 4/10.
October 22, 2019
From my 1996 booklog: Locus Best of 95 award. A/A+, relativity bombs, grim book.
I thought I'd written something, but apparently not. Coauthor was George Zebrowski.
Aha, here's Gerald Jonas' writeup for the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/bo...
"In painstaking detail, the authors describe the annihilation of virtually all life on Earth by weapons expressly designed to "cleanse" human beings from the universe. The aliens responsible for this unprovoked attack do not think of themselves as monsters. They are not interested in stealing our land or our resources. Having deciphered the television broadcasts we have so rashly been transmitting to the stars for the last 50 years, they feel it only prudent to destroy us before we have a chance to destroy them. With an objectivity that gives new meaning to the phrase sub specie aeternitatis, the authors present the aliens' view as a perfectly reasonable act of pre-emptive defense.
If you imagine that this scenario makes for a grim tale, you are right. . . . "
I thought I'd written something, but apparently not. Coauthor was George Zebrowski.
Aha, here's Gerald Jonas' writeup for the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/14/bo...
"In painstaking detail, the authors describe the annihilation of virtually all life on Earth by weapons expressly designed to "cleanse" human beings from the universe. The aliens responsible for this unprovoked attack do not think of themselves as monsters. They are not interested in stealing our land or our resources. Having deciphered the television broadcasts we have so rashly been transmitting to the stars for the last 50 years, they feel it only prudent to destroy us before we have a chance to destroy them. With an objectivity that gives new meaning to the phrase sub specie aeternitatis, the authors present the aliens' view as a perfectly reasonable act of pre-emptive defense.
If you imagine that this scenario makes for a grim tale, you are right. . . . "
July 7, 2011
A bleak and thought provoking novel. Basically it challenges all those who believe that being advanced instantly translates to being gentle, kind and civilized. The book takes aim at several well known advocates of this philopsophy. Carl Saganis singled out for the bulk of the criticism. There is also a rather amusing twist when the reason for the aliens exterminating Humanity is finally explained. You'll never look at Star Trek and the song "We Are The World" the same way after you read this book.One man's hero is another man's mortal threat and we shouldn't be so arrogant as to believe that we are the only species in the entire galaxy that is belligerent and destructive.
Intelligent, good hard science, dystopian, and a well written political/social commentary all rolled into one. Long out of print, but worth the search.
Intelligent, good hard science, dystopian, and a well written political/social commentary all rolled into one. Long out of print, but worth the search.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 30, 2016
In my opinion, not much of a novel. Rather, it's a vehicle for examining various hard science and philosophical concepts about extraterrestrial life and our universe.
What there was of character development was a start, but since the story jumped back and forth between various factions I was sometimes confused about which group we were currently dealing with.
What there was of character development was a start, but since the story jumped back and forth between various factions I was sometimes confused about which group we were currently dealing with.
July 6, 2024
The same hammer that breaks glass can also forge steel.
Godlessness is the first step to innocence.
Godlessness is the first step to innocence.
July 7, 2016
While perhaps not the worst wanna-be-science fiction I've ever read (this distinction is held by WWW trilogy), it is definitely in top 10.
Perhaps I started with wrong expectations - my friend tried to sell this to me as hard SF, which this book is most definitely not. But I am not a person to hold onto my expectations for long, so was this book good, I'd just change my perspective.
The problem is, this book WANTS to be hard SF and fails miserably. The authors put a lot of effort into describing and calculating many mechanism which appear throughout the story, only to pop up magically "anti bombs" which convert all energy in the blast radius into matter. Like... what? Seriously? Thats HARD SCIENCE exactly HOW? E=mc2, which has been done to death and over again, is really not enough to satisfy this. Funny enough, the authors never care to tell WHERE is that mass going to, in what form, they just focus on visions of energy sucked out of everything in the vicinity. And let's not start on the entropy considerations...
Thats the most glaring example, but there are others. Don't get me started on biology...
Okay, so it wants to be hard SF, but fails. It still could be a compelling, interesting story. Unfortunately it's not. The only characters which are remotely interesting either accomplish nothing and die (Cerans) or accomplish nothing and become captured (the Titanic survey duo). Emphasis on remotely, because their stories are stroked in painfully few brushes. Now, being a fan of Japanesee culture, I have nothing against minimalism, I do not advocate that Baroque is the definition of perfection. But there is difference between minimalism of form which non the less conveys deep and complex stories by hints, and precise ommisions and can be characterised as elegant versus minimalism of a lazy brute who just doesn't care to simulate the minds of his characters very well.
The thing could still be salvageable with the adversary, which in abscence of interesting protagonists, could be the center of the story. Soooo the alien race which annihilates humans in one swift strike is a race of octopi. The way the authors tell us that gives me felling that they thought it's an original idea. Well, i am sorry, it is not. It wasn't in the 90' when the book was written and is now even less so.
Plot twist! They are paranoid, short-sighted (in a mental sense), blind, sociopathic octopi from ice world which were enslaved by robots that they built themselves! Woooow, really. Much creativity. Such depth. Very hard SF.
I fail to comprehend how can you build a race which is describable in single sentence, call yourself an SF author, and still be able to look in the mirror in the morning. The "a single person is too complex to be described in single sentence" is a motif which has been done to death and over again, and then more so in every possible storytelling media. A single person, much less an entire RACE.
The only instance where such oversimplification worked was Star Control I and II, but that was only because those games were intentionally comedic. They were a satire.
And then a clone of Jesus turns into warrior-leader of vengefull remnants of humanity. That really could be funny if it was a comedy. Unfortunately the book tries to be deep and thought-provoking.
I find it ironic that in few places in the book authors put a lot of effort to demean the contemporary culture in general and (for some reason) Star Trek in particular. Well sorry, with all it's numerous flaws Star Trek does a lot, lot better job at everything they tried to do in this book.
Dont read, use Your time in a better way - perhaps with a good math book. Learn math, start experimenting with General Relativity, develop a warp drive or something...
Perhaps I started with wrong expectations - my friend tried to sell this to me as hard SF, which this book is most definitely not. But I am not a person to hold onto my expectations for long, so was this book good, I'd just change my perspective.
The problem is, this book WANTS to be hard SF and fails miserably. The authors put a lot of effort into describing and calculating many mechanism which appear throughout the story, only to pop up magically "anti bombs" which convert all energy in the blast radius into matter. Like... what? Seriously? Thats HARD SCIENCE exactly HOW? E=mc2, which has been done to death and over again, is really not enough to satisfy this. Funny enough, the authors never care to tell WHERE is that mass going to, in what form, they just focus on visions of energy sucked out of everything in the vicinity. And let's not start on the entropy considerations...
Thats the most glaring example, but there are others. Don't get me started on biology...
Okay, so it wants to be hard SF, but fails. It still could be a compelling, interesting story. Unfortunately it's not. The only characters which are remotely interesting either accomplish nothing and die (Cerans) or accomplish nothing and become captured (the Titanic survey duo). Emphasis on remotely, because their stories are stroked in painfully few brushes. Now, being a fan of Japanesee culture, I have nothing against minimalism, I do not advocate that Baroque is the definition of perfection. But there is difference between minimalism of form which non the less conveys deep and complex stories by hints, and precise ommisions and can be characterised as elegant versus minimalism of a lazy brute who just doesn't care to simulate the minds of his characters very well.
The thing could still be salvageable with the adversary, which in abscence of interesting protagonists, could be the center of the story. Soooo the alien race which annihilates humans in one swift strike is a race of octopi. The way the authors tell us that gives me felling that they thought it's an original idea. Well, i am sorry, it is not. It wasn't in the 90' when the book was written and is now even less so.
Plot twist! They are paranoid, short-sighted (in a mental sense), blind, sociopathic octopi from ice world which were enslaved by robots that they built themselves! Woooow, really. Much creativity. Such depth. Very hard SF.
I fail to comprehend how can you build a race which is describable in single sentence, call yourself an SF author, and still be able to look in the mirror in the morning. The "a single person is too complex to be described in single sentence" is a motif which has been done to death and over again, and then more so in every possible storytelling media. A single person, much less an entire RACE.
The only instance where such oversimplification worked was Star Control I and II, but that was only because those games were intentionally comedic. They were a satire.
And then a clone of Jesus turns into warrior-leader of vengefull remnants of humanity. That really could be funny if it was a comedy. Unfortunately the book tries to be deep and thought-provoking.
I find it ironic that in few places in the book authors put a lot of effort to demean the contemporary culture in general and (for some reason) Star Trek in particular. Well sorry, with all it's numerous flaws Star Trek does a lot, lot better job at everything they tried to do in this book.
Dont read, use Your time in a better way - perhaps with a good math book. Learn math, start experimenting with General Relativity, develop a warp drive or something...
November 14, 2019
First of all, this book is a total nerdgasm of scientific and technical ideas taken to their logical conclusions -- especially as related to space and to life and its possible distribution in the cosmos. One interesting speculation is that earthlike planets may not in fact be the most likely places to generate life.
It also has some stuff (less convincing IMHO) on social, religious, and psychological ideas in relation to the future of the human race and even life itself.
Finally and most importantly, this book explores a very chilling answer to the the Fermi paradox.
The story itself is kind of disjointed but a lot of the ideas are mind-blowing. Solid four stars.
It also has some stuff (less convincing IMHO) on social, religious, and psychological ideas in relation to the future of the human race and even life itself.
Finally and most importantly, this book explores a very chilling answer to the the Fermi paradox.
The story itself is kind of disjointed but a lot of the ideas are mind-blowing. Solid four stars.
September 25, 2019
Reads more like a mishmash of scientific ideas and philosophical theories than a novel. It certainly has some groundbreaking concepts but that isn’t enough to make for a particularly successful novel. Character development is seriously lacking and by the last third of the book I just wanted resolution and closure and pretty much ceased caring about the scattered remnants of the human race. Also, i found the premise that the action takes place in days or hours on an interplanetary scale to be unrealistic, even if relativistic speeds are possible. Months, years, or even decades would have to pass in many of the chapters but it is written as though it is all occurring in real time. On a related note, the side plot about the Titanic is wedged into the story and really served no purpose, but at the same time did have some of the only non-flat characterizations in the novel. Also, the correspondence between some of the characters from the 1980s was obviously an attempt at information dumping and felt like gratuitous name dropping at times. To me, ultimately, the book was filled with just far too many unrelated and disconnected threads, with flat characters and textbook-like exposition. Love the “Dark Forest” theory this book introduces and the idea they relativistic bombing would be too fast and too inevitable to have advance warning or to survive, but it’s just not a very compelling novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2020
Maybe I've just been missing true hard science fiction, but the grimness which makes the (*not a spoiler*) destruction of Earth in the first view pages of the novel suggests at first that there is nowhere for the novel/narration to go: I was quite wrong.
Using some hard truths of biochemistry, robotics, and physics, Pellegrino and Zebrowski still find room for history, theology, and hope if only . . .
"If only." There is one of the most important roles ethically speaking for the best writers: understanding our responsibility for our present and future.
"The Killing Star" has plenty of turns and unexpected moments, resolutions and untied strings. But mostly it uses not "grimness" but hard facts to reveal some pathways of real caution in our "innocent" arts and ambitions . . . and hope, too.
*Sidebar: Find everything Pellegrino has put his pen to for more like this. He is hardly without controversy and he has often been wrong, but when you forward 20,000 speculations of the future and miss the mark on about 100, read the other 99.5%.
Using some hard truths of biochemistry, robotics, and physics, Pellegrino and Zebrowski still find room for history, theology, and hope if only . . .
"If only." There is one of the most important roles ethically speaking for the best writers: understanding our responsibility for our present and future.
"The Killing Star" has plenty of turns and unexpected moments, resolutions and untied strings. But mostly it uses not "grimness" but hard facts to reveal some pathways of real caution in our "innocent" arts and ambitions . . . and hope, too.
*Sidebar: Find everything Pellegrino has put his pen to for more like this. He is hardly without controversy and he has often been wrong, but when you forward 20,000 speculations of the future and miss the mark on about 100, read the other 99.5%.
November 10, 2018
Not exactly a sequel to Pellegrino's "Flying to Valhalla", but it could be on a very close timeline - there are many common elements, although the story is quite different. For having been written 24 years ago, it still holds up remarkably well, and the inexorable logic is just as chilling. There are a couple of weak spots, but overall enough action, good science, and intriguing concepts to earn its stars.
April 11, 2017
Lots of cool ideas but ultimately, it's sort of an amateur venture.
September 6, 2024
I really liked this book, though I'm not sure it's for everyone. Like the books of Arthur C. Clarke and Cixin Liu, it's mostly a book about big ideas and the majesty of the cosmos. Oh - and destroying the Earth, which happens right at the get-go so that's not a spoiler. The book follows several different parties as they deal with being the last humans left alive, trying to understand what's happened, and exploring different ways to move ahead. The book's primary theme is about the Dark Forest answer to the Fermi Paradox... an idea that later inspired Cixin to create his hugely successful Three-Body trilogy.
This is a book for hardcore SF geeks who love to wrestle with big ideas. It's not a character-driven action/adventure drama. So if you LOVED 2001, but view Star Trek as mindless popcorn, you'll probably dig this read. Most of all it felt like a long lost Clarke book to me.
This is a book for hardcore SF geeks who love to wrestle with big ideas. It's not a character-driven action/adventure drama. So if you LOVED 2001, but view Star Trek as mindless popcorn, you'll probably dig this read. Most of all it felt like a long lost Clarke book to me.
March 12, 2025
A good read, but a little uneven. People have pointed to this as a possible inspiration for the Dark Forest trilogy, but I think the theme is a generic attempt to answer Fermi’s paradox and the really innovative stuff in Three-Body Problem is completely missing here. On the other hand, I think this book was clearly an attempt to update “War of the Worlds” and contains a number of clear references to Wells’ masterpiece.
3.5 stars.
3.5 stars.
October 17, 2022
This book was fine. I seem to have a fascination with sci-fi series where Earth is destroyed. Although, I will say that when the book introduced clone Jesus and clone Buddha, it kinda lost me. Some fun sci-fi ideas mixed in with some weird ones.
September 16, 2022
Going to repost my review from printsf:
This is a book I read about on atomic rockets with quite a frightening premise regarding aliens:
1. THEIR SURVIVAL WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SURVIVAL.
If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.
2. WIMPS DON'T BECOME TOP DOGS.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.
3. THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.
It’s a simple premise that may revolt most of us once the consequences are thought trough, but the more time I spent thinking about it the more likely it seems, as the rules seem to transcend species. And it’s hard to imagine species evolving without self-preserving traits which entail violence. Atomic rockets discusses this premise much more in-depth here ( note that the killing star is mentioned a few times before the section that actually discusses it, it’s 4th result with CTRL-F): http://www.projectrho.com/public_html...
Fortunately the book has a lot more going for it than that. I was really pleasantly surprised with the amount of diverse topics. It’s a real idea book, with everything presented worked out in an interesting and clever manner. This may bother some people as it does seem like the authors love certain ideas so much they crammed several book in to one. I’m personally not bothered as they do seem to fit. Certain ones provide the characters a place to be, others explain human society up to the point of its demise, and others explain why some really unexpected characters end up in the book and why they end up there and survive the initial onslaught.
Cloning is a big thing in the book, and ties in cleverly with the story. An unexpectedly pleasant part deals with an earlier catastrophe humans had to deal with before their demise. I don’t want to spoil the nature but reading it was like watching a science documentary where some very unanticipated yet logical in hindsight things happen. The route certain things take are rarely direct and straightforward in this book yet they seem all the more real for that.
Obviously the book deals with the nature of our antagonist and there once again the authors present an interesting hypothesis about alien life. The book is mostly concerned with survivors of the initial apocalypse, survivors in very diverse situations that really makes each story a treat to read. Each one is also used to present clever weapons, clever tactics, and to show off our solar systems.
The only negative I have is the fact that some survivors do not face much of a challenge, it’s clear who the authors intended to survive. I would put this book next to Dragon’s Egg in terms of who it would appeal to, maybe also blindsight as well. If learning stuff gives you pleasure, and the science in sci-fi attracts you give this book a try.
This is a book I read about on atomic rockets with quite a frightening premise regarding aliens:
1. THEIR SURVIVAL WILL BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR SURVIVAL.
If an alien species has to choose between them and us, they won't choose us. It is difficult to imagine a contrary case; species don't survive by being self-sacrificing.
2. WIMPS DON'T BECOME TOP DOGS.
No species makes it to the top by being passive. The species in charge of any given planet will be highly intelligent, alert, aggressive, and ruthless when necessary.
3. THEY WILL ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.
It’s a simple premise that may revolt most of us once the consequences are thought trough, but the more time I spent thinking about it the more likely it seems, as the rules seem to transcend species. And it’s hard to imagine species evolving without self-preserving traits which entail violence. Atomic rockets discusses this premise much more in-depth here ( note that the killing star is mentioned a few times before the section that actually discusses it, it’s 4th result with CTRL-F): http://www.projectrho.com/public_html...
Fortunately the book has a lot more going for it than that. I was really pleasantly surprised with the amount of diverse topics. It’s a real idea book, with everything presented worked out in an interesting and clever manner. This may bother some people as it does seem like the authors love certain ideas so much they crammed several book in to one. I’m personally not bothered as they do seem to fit. Certain ones provide the characters a place to be, others explain human society up to the point of its demise, and others explain why some really unexpected characters end up in the book and why they end up there and survive the initial onslaught.
Cloning is a big thing in the book, and ties in cleverly with the story. An unexpectedly pleasant part deals with an earlier catastrophe humans had to deal with before their demise. I don’t want to spoil the nature but reading it was like watching a science documentary where some very unanticipated yet logical in hindsight things happen. The route certain things take are rarely direct and straightforward in this book yet they seem all the more real for that.
Obviously the book deals with the nature of our antagonist and there once again the authors present an interesting hypothesis about alien life. The book is mostly concerned with survivors of the initial apocalypse, survivors in very diverse situations that really makes each story a treat to read. Each one is also used to present clever weapons, clever tactics, and to show off our solar systems.
The only negative I have is the fact that some survivors do not face much of a challenge, it’s clear who the authors intended to survive. I would put this book next to Dragon’s Egg in terms of who it would appeal to, maybe also blindsight as well. If learning stuff gives you pleasure, and the science in sci-fi attracts you give this book a try.
March 2, 2021
Okay, lets begin shall we?
This is a fantastic book in itself, very scientifically accurate in the most part (though some theories are less respected like the mentioned within big crunch) and dark. I'd argue this is a variant of sci-fi grimdark with how dark it goes.
But I'm not a fan. At all.
So let's begin with my issues with this book.
The premise at the start seems intelligent in itself, it is putting forwards the argument that our human conceit in the idea that all life will be of a similar kind, type and thought to ours out in the universe, that our reckless use of different forms of broadcast media are transmitted out into the galaxy and are then picked up by alien races that see us as a potential threat.
Now a single Race - the Species of None as they are titled - see Humanity's early "Relativistic rocketry"(fancy speak for near light speed travel) and calculate based on several things that we are a threat, they then send out their own rockets and have them attack all signs of Human life on the planet and in the solar system.
There are survivors within Sol and several threads start up, the pair of survivors on Earth, a set of survivors in the region of the sun, those in deep space, those in Neptune, those in Saturn and those in Ceres and throughout the course of the book we see the development of several different forms of cultures within these, some end up destroying themselves like the Neptunians, some are destroyed by accidental mistakes as in Ceres and some decide to destroy things as those in the Sun.
The problems start appearing when we get to the survivors of Earth are found by the aliens and taken aboard their own vessel as a form of trophy or exhibit for what Humanity was and the arguments start about the reasons why they did this.
Apparently when we sent out We Are The World in 1985, we were declaring to the universe that we were a united an single-minded people.
Couple that with the "destructive" viewpoint of how Star Trek The Next Generation shows how Humanity was in their fantasy, these aliens saw that we would choose to destroy others.
In real-world views it is an attempt at explaining the Fermi Paradox, that the arguments presented by people like Carl Sagan show that just because a species develops intelligence doesn't mean it develops understanding of others. And if Pellegrino and Zebrowski had left it at that, I'd likely be far more understanding of the book, but they don't.
See they went into detail on the development of different forms of advanced technology in the over 100 years from the publishing of the book to the date of the book. We have had massive plagues that wiped out all avian life, we developed cloning tech to recreate said avian life that is immune to the plague that killed all birds, we then developed a love of recreating dead species and had an entire section that showed miniature dinosaurs that have the intelligence of dogs and cats and with that, the dangers of doing such a thing as tampering with genetics you aren't 100% understanding of.
And with that they stepped into something squicky, the cloning of and recreation of Jesus and the Buddha, the lengths they went to try and build up the characters in this to eventually be used as an alagory of "us vs them" is frankly disgusting and I'm neither Buddhist or Christian, I just find that tacky in turning Jesus into a warmonger and the Buddha into a saint, it smacks of thumbing your nose at religion and is what Trad Atheists have done for years now.
But with this all going on, they brought up the argument of morality and empathy, that a species that lives as warriors and killers all the time aren't going to be able to pass beyond the barbarism stage of development to reach the stars. That is a good argument, I can think of several reasons why it would work and how it would work quicker than on earth, but the writers choose to ignore it here for the vaguery use which smacks of laziness to me.
Then there's the questions that are left unanswered for no reason other than the authors chose a poor receptacle for the aliens of the Species of None. See they're invertebrates or the closest thing we can understand to them, they have a similar look to crabs and octopi. And to be clear I can get a species developing intelligence to our level and above that aren't Vertibates like we are, I would be fascinated in reading or hearing things from such a species life.
But the authors chose something rather asinine in their idea for the planet that these aliens came from. See they are a water based life and we learn they don't have eyes as we know them, we know they have some form of visualisation means as the description of Humans when they're first introduced shows they can see through us - and that was amazing btw, I REALLY liked that part - but they lived on a planet with a top layer of ice on the surface of the water.
Now this is where the stretch comes in. We are expected to accept that a species of invertebrates developed intelligence to the use of tools, then sought out the barrier between them and somewhere else, broke through said barrier and accessed the world above, then developed technology to shape and fold metal, to develop chemical engines, combustion to the level of nukes and eventually relativistic rocketry.
All without them changing their evolution to better work both within water and on land, because I don't know if you're aware of this but electricity doesn't fare well within water. And everything from creating fire to shape metal crudely to create a housing that you can live on the surface of a planet on to the generation of energy on the level of breaking the pull of a planet's gravity is never going to fare well within a water based species.
And to skirt around this, the Alien uses the "I don't if you'll escape and find other Humans and inform them of us, so no dice" argument. It doesn't work like that.
There's massive flaws in the logic of the arguments presented across this.
A species that developed as a uber hunter style life form would not have the empathy of one like ourselves, but in said development, they would not see a species that is just heading towards said dangers as a threat to be eliminated. They would hunt and track and be ready the instant they think we're ready to kill them, a sort of eternal sword of Damocles over our heads if you will.
A set of hunters and warriors would not seek to preserve life in any means whatsoever, they would see for their own genetic purity above all others and seek destruction of everything that was not them without fail. (I hate to say it but Star Trek Voyagers Scorpion gave better examples of this)
And a species that believes there is even a 1% chance of a remnant of the civilisations they target surviving an attack by said relativistic rocketry would more than likely target something in the system to create a danger. Perhaps using advanced methods of energy collection or disruption to change the parameters of the Sun and the Gas Giants into something that would become toxic and damaging to carbon-based life in such high statistics that it wipes them out quickly and efficiently without need for such dramatic states.
Then there's the final part that was utterly glossed over without a thought. The idea that the aliens we see are just slaves to the Artificial Intelligences that are running their ships and that we don't even know if the aliens created them or are slaves to them from their species being overrun generations ago.
It ultimately leaves this book as a massive mess with giant leaps in rationale and logic across the board that make sense only when you force the issue.
I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't a fan of hard science and having serious topics of theoretical science given a - badly done - dramatic twist. Won't be reading this again...
This is a fantastic book in itself, very scientifically accurate in the most part (though some theories are less respected like the mentioned within big crunch) and dark. I'd argue this is a variant of sci-fi grimdark with how dark it goes.
But I'm not a fan. At all.
So let's begin with my issues with this book.
The premise at the start seems intelligent in itself, it is putting forwards the argument that our human conceit in the idea that all life will be of a similar kind, type and thought to ours out in the universe, that our reckless use of different forms of broadcast media are transmitted out into the galaxy and are then picked up by alien races that see us as a potential threat.
Now a single Race - the Species of None as they are titled - see Humanity's early "Relativistic rocketry"(fancy speak for near light speed travel) and calculate based on several things that we are a threat, they then send out their own rockets and have them attack all signs of Human life on the planet and in the solar system.
There are survivors within Sol and several threads start up, the pair of survivors on Earth, a set of survivors in the region of the sun, those in deep space, those in Neptune, those in Saturn and those in Ceres and throughout the course of the book we see the development of several different forms of cultures within these, some end up destroying themselves like the Neptunians, some are destroyed by accidental mistakes as in Ceres and some decide to destroy things as those in the Sun.
The problems start appearing when we get to the survivors of Earth are found by the aliens and taken aboard their own vessel as a form of trophy or exhibit for what Humanity was and the arguments start about the reasons why they did this.
Apparently when we sent out We Are The World in 1985, we were declaring to the universe that we were a united an single-minded people.
Couple that with the "destructive" viewpoint of how Star Trek The Next Generation shows how Humanity was in their fantasy, these aliens saw that we would choose to destroy others.
In real-world views it is an attempt at explaining the Fermi Paradox, that the arguments presented by people like Carl Sagan show that just because a species develops intelligence doesn't mean it develops understanding of others. And if Pellegrino and Zebrowski had left it at that, I'd likely be far more understanding of the book, but they don't.
See they went into detail on the development of different forms of advanced technology in the over 100 years from the publishing of the book to the date of the book. We have had massive plagues that wiped out all avian life, we developed cloning tech to recreate said avian life that is immune to the plague that killed all birds, we then developed a love of recreating dead species and had an entire section that showed miniature dinosaurs that have the intelligence of dogs and cats and with that, the dangers of doing such a thing as tampering with genetics you aren't 100% understanding of.
And with that they stepped into something squicky, the cloning of and recreation of Jesus and the Buddha, the lengths they went to try and build up the characters in this to eventually be used as an alagory of "us vs them" is frankly disgusting and I'm neither Buddhist or Christian, I just find that tacky in turning Jesus into a warmonger and the Buddha into a saint, it smacks of thumbing your nose at religion and is what Trad Atheists have done for years now.
But with this all going on, they brought up the argument of morality and empathy, that a species that lives as warriors and killers all the time aren't going to be able to pass beyond the barbarism stage of development to reach the stars. That is a good argument, I can think of several reasons why it would work and how it would work quicker than on earth, but the writers choose to ignore it here for the vaguery use which smacks of laziness to me.
Then there's the questions that are left unanswered for no reason other than the authors chose a poor receptacle for the aliens of the Species of None. See they're invertebrates or the closest thing we can understand to them, they have a similar look to crabs and octopi. And to be clear I can get a species developing intelligence to our level and above that aren't Vertibates like we are, I would be fascinated in reading or hearing things from such a species life.
But the authors chose something rather asinine in their idea for the planet that these aliens came from. See they are a water based life and we learn they don't have eyes as we know them, we know they have some form of visualisation means as the description of Humans when they're first introduced shows they can see through us - and that was amazing btw, I REALLY liked that part - but they lived on a planet with a top layer of ice on the surface of the water.
Now this is where the stretch comes in. We are expected to accept that a species of invertebrates developed intelligence to the use of tools, then sought out the barrier between them and somewhere else, broke through said barrier and accessed the world above, then developed technology to shape and fold metal, to develop chemical engines, combustion to the level of nukes and eventually relativistic rocketry.
All without them changing their evolution to better work both within water and on land, because I don't know if you're aware of this but electricity doesn't fare well within water. And everything from creating fire to shape metal crudely to create a housing that you can live on the surface of a planet on to the generation of energy on the level of breaking the pull of a planet's gravity is never going to fare well within a water based species.
And to skirt around this, the Alien uses the "I don't if you'll escape and find other Humans and inform them of us, so no dice" argument. It doesn't work like that.
There's massive flaws in the logic of the arguments presented across this.
A species that developed as a uber hunter style life form would not have the empathy of one like ourselves, but in said development, they would not see a species that is just heading towards said dangers as a threat to be eliminated. They would hunt and track and be ready the instant they think we're ready to kill them, a sort of eternal sword of Damocles over our heads if you will.
A set of hunters and warriors would not seek to preserve life in any means whatsoever, they would see for their own genetic purity above all others and seek destruction of everything that was not them without fail. (I hate to say it but Star Trek Voyagers Scorpion gave better examples of this)
And a species that believes there is even a 1% chance of a remnant of the civilisations they target surviving an attack by said relativistic rocketry would more than likely target something in the system to create a danger. Perhaps using advanced methods of energy collection or disruption to change the parameters of the Sun and the Gas Giants into something that would become toxic and damaging to carbon-based life in such high statistics that it wipes them out quickly and efficiently without need for such dramatic states.
Then there's the final part that was utterly glossed over without a thought. The idea that the aliens we see are just slaves to the Artificial Intelligences that are running their ships and that we don't even know if the aliens created them or are slaves to them from their species being overrun generations ago.
It ultimately leaves this book as a massive mess with giant leaps in rationale and logic across the board that make sense only when you force the issue.
I don't recommend it to anyone who isn't a fan of hard science and having serious topics of theoretical science given a - badly done - dramatic twist. Won't be reading this again...
December 31, 2021
Interesting (and hard to find) work of pessimistic science fiction from the 90s that deals with the Dark Forest theory of intergalactic relations. Less refined than the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, but a definite must read for anyone interested in the Fermi paradox.
“Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th Street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.
It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds.
Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body.
How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!"
What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.
There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.
There is no policeman.
There is no way out.
And the night never ends.”
“Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th Street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.
It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds.
Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distance shriek or blunder across a body.
How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!"
What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.
There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.
There is no policeman.
There is no way out.
And the night never ends.”
November 30, 2021
Pretty grim look into the hypothetical chance of annihilation with contact with alien species. Probably says more if you agree with the overall message of paranoia and Darwinism underlined in this book than any of the characters or the weird Titanic motifs.
November 30, 2020
Amazing premise - intelligent life has an incentive to eliminate other intelligent beings before they become threats. A galactic "first strike" principle.
Some good writing and this great premise is weighed down by some very boring characters, other less plausible ideas, and an unhealthy amount of time spent talking about the Titanic.
Good
- Great premise.
Bad
- Weird idolization of other science fiction writers. In this story they become titans of science and predict the coming alien apocalypse and design just about all the scientific breakthroughs after 1990.
- Weird fascination with the Titanic (one of the authors wrote a whole book on it). Almost totally irreverent to the rest of the story, but a lot of time spent on it.
- The protagonist here is “Humanity”, so there aren’t any characters to really get invested in.
Don’t really recommend this to anyone other than hardcore sci-fi fans.
Some good writing and this great premise is weighed down by some very boring characters, other less plausible ideas, and an unhealthy amount of time spent talking about the Titanic.
Good
- Great premise.
Bad
- Weird idolization of other science fiction writers. In this story they become titans of science and predict the coming alien apocalypse and design just about all the scientific breakthroughs after 1990.
- Weird fascination with the Titanic (one of the authors wrote a whole book on it). Almost totally irreverent to the rest of the story, but a lot of time spent on it.
- The protagonist here is “Humanity”, so there aren’t any characters to really get invested in.
Don’t really recommend this to anyone other than hardcore sci-fi fans.
March 22, 2022
The Killing Star was interesting as an apparent precursor to The Three Body Problem. I'm not sure where the "dark forest" concept originated, but I'd be surprised if this book didn't influence Liu Cixin, at least indirectly somehow.
The main issue I had with the book was how it bounced around between similar characters in very similar situations without giving the reader much to get their bearings. Everyone is in a small enclosed vehicle/ship/base using the author's 1995 idea of an iPad to take readings on what was going on outside. The setting similarities were clearly intentional in some cases, but it usually just led to confusion about who I was reading about and what dangerous situation these particular characters were in.
The main issue I had with the book was how it bounced around between similar characters in very similar situations without giving the reader much to get their bearings. Everyone is in a small enclosed vehicle/ship/base using the author's 1995 idea of an iPad to take readings on what was going on outside. The setting similarities were clearly intentional in some cases, but it usually just led to confusion about who I was reading about and what dangerous situation these particular characters were in.
October 21, 2017
This would have to qualify as one of the most depressing novels ever, as it involves . A lot of the scenarios with future spaceflight developments are now outdated, and the writing itself certainly is not great literature, but it is still a compelling and morbidly fascinating read nonetheless (though I am still hopeful that a real alien first contact would not be so brutal). The authors do seem to have an odd obsession with the Titanic!
May 10, 2025
Very interesting, very inventive, very fun, but...
Occasionally the author's insufferable arrogance bleeds through too much, and the proselytizing just ruins the story. Between those moments a 4.5 star story squeezes through with a 4. Laced with technological mind candy...he concept of "absorbic bombs" alone ignited in me hours of mental gymnastics.
Occasionally the author's insufferable arrogance bleeds through too much, and the proselytizing just ruins the story. Between those moments a 4.5 star story squeezes through with a 4. Laced with technological mind candy...he concept of "absorbic bombs" alone ignited in me hours of mental gymnastics.
September 28, 2014
To quote the genetic clone of Budda, speaking to the genetic clone of Jesus, on board a space station: "Amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics."
This book is pretty much a piece of shit.
This book is pretty much a piece of shit.
December 15, 2023
This was surprisingly good speculative sci-fi which has aged pretty well (first published in 1995). If the Remembrance of Earth's Past series appeals to you this is a must (and considerably shorter) read.
January 4, 2023
This is a deeply flawed book, but it’s flaws are fascinating. It’s basically a really cool train wreck.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews