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Spēcial Education
Peter Cory has traversed Isis and become a 10th level WWyhr Läaq, but R’gGnrök is still coming and H. Sapiens, Earth humanity, is still acting like a spoiled two-year-old with nukes as its toys and murder as its preferred method of conflict resolution. Before humanity can be trusted with the tools that it desperately needs to fight R’gGnrök, it’s going to need some Spēcial Education.
430 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 25, 2023
About the author
David R. Palmer
12 books64 followersDavid R. Palmer is an American science fiction author. His works have been nominated three times for Hugo Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 5, 2021
I had more than a thirty year wait for a sequel. Mostly the book was what I expected. Silly, amusing word play combined with cute ideas. Reminds me deeply of Doc Smith in terms of plotting and somewhat excruciating digressions into the details of the current technical thing the book is focused on. The focus changes a lot and off we go into another long digression. So for action, what is supposed to be high genius thinking, cosmic disasters, long technological discussing, long magical methods discussion the books tries pretty hard and delivers. I think I would have liked it a lot more at 18. Now, it's amusing and completes something I spent more than 25 years looking for in book stores.
The political rants in the book tend toward Vince Flynn, right wingish effective solution nonsense. Remember Freedom Fries and being down on all things French? That timeframe seems to have influenced development too much as the French are mocked for no apparent reason. The author pulls out a magic box for detecting shades of truthfulness and really doesn't do the chaos that would result with due care. A major subplot about taking care of terminally ill people explore some political corruption and then seems to just be tossed away for random somewhat unneeded rides in spaceships. The plot doesn't flow so much as drop interesting boulders around the story landscape.
The super big bad, which never made much sense, shows up after an apparent long diet and without many super powers. The mechanics of settling its hash never make much sense. Who cares if your spaceship can accelerate at 50G if you have a billion light years to travel? The amount of acceleration in that sense can never make any difference given the time frame. Basic arithmetic just seems to be missing so much that many of the the build up tech discussions are really a waste of time. Other details and timing seem really weird. The details must matter because they are explained at punishing length.
The author's focus on seriously underage genius kids making their own rules for sexuality is odd. He used the idea in Emergence. I don't think it added anything to this book, putting it mildly. It comes off as creepy in my opinion. Off to read Tracking next.
The political rants in the book tend toward Vince Flynn, right wingish effective solution nonsense. Remember Freedom Fries and being down on all things French? That timeframe seems to have influenced development too much as the French are mocked for no apparent reason. The author pulls out a magic box for detecting shades of truthfulness and really doesn't do the chaos that would result with due care. A major subplot about taking care of terminally ill people explore some political corruption and then seems to just be tossed away for random somewhat unneeded rides in spaceships. The plot doesn't flow so much as drop interesting boulders around the story landscape.
The super big bad, which never made much sense, shows up after an apparent long diet and without many super powers. The mechanics of settling its hash never make much sense. Who cares if your spaceship can accelerate at 50G if you have a billion light years to travel? The amount of acceleration in that sense can never make any difference given the time frame. Basic arithmetic just seems to be missing so much that many of the the build up tech discussions are really a waste of time. Other details and timing seem really weird. The details must matter because they are explained at punishing length.
The author's focus on seriously underage genius kids making their own rules for sexuality is odd. He used the idea in Emergence. I don't think it added anything to this book, putting it mildly. It comes off as creepy in my opinion. Off to read Tracking next.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2024
A long time coming
I read the first two books in the 80s and bemoaned the fact that sequels were not readily available. It saddens me that I had to wait 4 decades. Still, worth the wait. Jennifer is more or less like you expect as a wunderkind. The story is fantastic and worth the money.
I read the first two books in the 80s and bemoaned the fact that sequels were not readily available. It saddens me that I had to wait 4 decades. Still, worth the wait. Jennifer is more or less like you expect as a wunderkind. The story is fantastic and worth the money.
May 21, 2023
Kind of meh
First read the prior book in this series some twenty plus years ago, and waited breathlessly for a sequel that never came. Thought it was hopeless, until I saw the add for this while checking out another book. I quickly bought it.
The problem is that the book focuses on a new character, rather than Peter or Meg from the first book.
The bigger problem is that the first half of the book is rather preachy. If it had been less concentrated, wouldn't have been so annoying.
First read the prior book in this series some twenty plus years ago, and waited breathlessly for a sequel that never came. Thought it was hopeless, until I saw the add for this while checking out another book. I quickly bought it.
The problem is that the book focuses on a new character, rather than Peter or Meg from the first book.
The bigger problem is that the first half of the book is rather preachy. If it had been less concentrated, wouldn't have been so annoying.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews