The Stars are Also Fire

Harvest of Stars #2

by Poul Anderson

Larry Niven called "Harvest of Stars" "a masterpiece."Now Poul Anderson returns to the same brilliantly conceived future to tell a story of revolution and liberation on the Moon.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera, Ebooks, Fantasy, Technology

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite what other reviewers might say, this book is far from being Libertarian/Objectivist propaganda. Rather, despite the viewpoint mostly sticking with the libertarianish crowds, Anderson does a superb job of presenting both sides of the argument.

There are very few villians here, if any; and while Aleka and Ian loosely fit into the protagonist category and Venator into the antagonist category, both Aleka and Ian are consistently plagued with doubts about their goal, and Venator the remarkably kind agent of a unfailingly humane AI government.

[Lars Dradrach · Rating 3 out of 5]

After being less than impressed by “a harvest of stars” I decided to give the sequel a go.

And let’s get it over with from the start, it is a far better story. 3.5 stars.

Where “harvest” focussed on the humans leaving earth, this one focuses on the ones who stayed behind.

In a society run by connected AI’s (cybercosm), we follow a couple of misfits, colluding with one of the lunar rulers from “harvest”, on a quest for an old secret (a real MacGuffin) and an agent from the cybercosm chasing them.

Interwoven with the narrative we see flashbacks to Danny Beynac, a descendent of Anson Guthrie, who played a pivotal role in the independence struggle on the moon.

There’s still a lot of preaching about governments and libertarianism but it’s better integrated into the story, to the extent that it becomes the story in the end.

My primary complaint about the story is the MacGuffin which simply doesn’t seem important enough to make the characters actions believable.

As I have the 3 volume in my library anyway I most likely will read it to complete the series.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to be a little bored with Harvest of Stars but figured that the next book would be a bit more interesting once the backstories were established. What I got was a convoluted narrative with way too much preaching of libertarianism and not enough narrative. The story was rather confusing and I had a hard time concentrating on the narrative. There are big issues here concerning cyberspace and the future of humanity alongside Anderson's obsession with freedom at all costs, but it felt entirely too top-heavy and the characters were all so one-dimensional. The alternating chapters occur five hundred years apart that doesn't help the readability at all. This was just too much preaching to the converted to me (and I am not even a subscriber to this particular congregation) and despite its status as one of the "all-time" great sci-fi novels (and a Prometheus Award), I didn't enjoy it and had a hard time finding positive points to write about it.

[Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know how people dress up in "Victorian" costumes and affect a manner of speech that is so over-the-top in trying to be "authentic" that it is just tedious and fake sounding?

Well, THE STARS ARE ALSO FIRE is a sf book set in the future, so it's not "Victorian," but Poul Anderson affects the hell out of his narration and the characters' speech to the point where it all runs together in an opaque mess. Amusingly, given his reputation as a right-libertarian-leaning writer, he sounds most like the hippie-leftist "new wave" writers of the Seventies who were painfully "hip" (read: instantly dated) in their stylistic choices and invented slang of the future.

For a better example of invented future language, see Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, or just Wolfe in general, who can manipulate language very well and earns his invention (really, excavation) of novel terminology for the Urth of the far future.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Earth/Luna system is comprised of at least three distinct intelligences: Humans (augmented or not); enhanced species like the Keiki Moana (seal humans); and the machine intelligences of the Teramind - the sophotects. Lunarians are Moon-adapted humans who have designs on running the Lunar mines and franchises since the Selenarchs but are struggling against forces from earth. Earth meanwhile wants to construct The Habitat, a human enclave at the L5 point, which Lunarians fear will undermine their control of resources and spacefaring, The downloaded minds of the humans Anson Guthrie and Dagny Beynac inhabiting robot bodies, act as mediators and mentors for the various factions. Unbeknownst to both the Teramind has hidden details of a distant asteroid known as Proserpina, whose highly elliptical orbit and heavy metal composition, make it a ready-made habitat and space vessel. Lunar magnate Lilisaire gets hints of this concealment and dispatches ex-spacefarer Ian Kenmuir to sleuth out the details, triggering a sophotect reprisal and bringing the systems to the brink of armed conflict. Poul Anderson has set up the ingredients for an exciting confrontation between humans and machine intelligences over the future of intelligence in the Universe…sad to say it’s about as exciting as watching C-Span or a filibuster. It should have entertained but I found it a real slog as I desperately waited for something to happen. Lots of political intrigue but I must have missed something as it garnered some pretty good reviews.

[Gary Reger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poul Anderson is vastly underappreciated. And prolific. This book is epic. You've got transcendent artificial intelligence, interstellar colonization, hard astronomy, bioengineering, sex, talking seals, genetically regressed mormon robber barons. Hell yeah.

[Kevin Cudby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping and nuanced exploration of humanity's long-term options. Anderson convincingly shows how human imagination and dogged stubbornness eventually knock down the most daunting obstacles. Along with "Harvest of Stars," this is a must-read for anyone interested in technology and politics.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, this one did nothing for me but make my doubt myself. DNF. Every time I picked it up, I found myself wondering why I did. Instead of anticipating and looking forward to reading it, I found myself dreading it. I kept waiting for it to grab me, to give me a character I could care about, but it never did. I didn't understand many of the characters' motivations, either. The jumping between timelines, as usual, did nothing but confuse me.

Anderson seemed to be trying to say something big, but for the life of me, I don't know what it was. And since his characters gave me no reason to care about them, I don't mind not knowing.

[Carmelo Medina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mejora mucho las reflexiones que plantea al lector pero pierde en profundidad de los personajes y se vuelve previsible. Si en la primera parte tenía notas libertarias, en algunas partes de la novela casi sientes que el autor te coge fuerte del brazo y te dice "verdad que los estados son basura!!!". Creo que me plantaré aquí con esta serie, no quiero ni imaginar en que derivarán las tesis del autor metidas con calzador en una, dentro de lo que cabe, muy interesante novela.

[Zane Goertzen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, this book is really boring. I mean crazy boring. I love Sci-fi and this has put me off of sci-fi for the foreseeable future. What was it like? Take the fake future history textbook "Last and First Men" by Olaf Stapledon and mix it with all the bureaucracy of Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and then just read something else.

[Khanh · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

[Bent Andreassen · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 minus.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story, a little slow at first, but I enjoyed the intrigue as it developed and the end felt satisfying- hopeful even.

[Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts slow and tapers off. Two stars is generous.

[Adam Meek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale of an epic battle between The Singularity (called the cybercosm here) starts slowly but eventually ramps up to a galaxy shattering conclusion.

[Manu Castellanos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciencia ficción de la buena... toques cyberpunk.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Billions and billions of years ago when I first bought and read Harvest of Stars and its sequel The Stars Are Also Fire, I loved those books. I can't remember or imagine why. Before embarking upon a reread I could remember nothing about either book, and that's usually a bad sign--that it didn't make a lasting impression, even though plenty of books--often much shorter and read even longer ago--made a bigger impact.

Usually though, even if I've outgrown a book, I can remember and understand what I once loved in it. Even if I don't remember the book at first, I can get glimmers why. For the life of me I don't get why this book once appealed to me. I didn't connect with the characters and this time around I found the novel tedious, preachy, bloated. With Harvest of Stars I thought it might be the libertarian themes that attracted me--I was a newly minted libertarian back when I first read this and it was fun, even a thrill, to see my beliefs reflected back at me in fiction. Doing a reread of a lot of such books this year, I find few hold up well. It's not that I've changed in my worldview, it's that I have a lot less patience for being preached at even when I agree with the views presented. A liberal friend of mine says if anything she holds books that fit her worldview to a higher standard, because if it fails it's like letting the cause down.

I guess I'm with her in this, but even books of libertarian science fiction by L. Neil Smith, James P. Hogan and J. Neil Schulman I didn't love as much as I once did upon reread were memorable and engaging in ways this one wasn't. It was just soooooooooo slow and after reading a hundred pages, seeing there was still 400 plus pages to go I could only whimper... That makes it quite a bit worse actually than Harvest of Stars, which if it had some of the same flaws, didn't make me so impatient to be done. I should add, I still found The High Crusade a blast, and am enjoying my reread so far of Three Hearts and Three Lions. So it's not that I wouldn't recommend Poul Anderson--just not this one.

[Rob · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think maybe this is the kind of science fiction I might have enjoyed in high school; but I was also willing reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. I guess what I'm saying there is: there are some things that we grow out of.

I made it through about 75 pages before I pushed this aside—I just couldn't take it. Whatever story (or stories) were buried in there, they were not coming together; and even assuming that they inevitably would, I could find nothing compelling in the narrative, nor the style. The language was stilted. The bits that read like Randian apologism (and/or dogmatism) grated. And Anderson jumped around in time quite a bit, trying to quick-cut in a bunch of different concepts (those genetically spliced, intelligent seals, for example) but not really ever giving us a compelling character or plot thread to latch onto. And/or whatever you might have latched onto as interesting: well, it won't be back for 100 pages.

First book I've outright abandoned in probably 5+ years.

[Emerson Fortier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read that explore in great depth the differences between individuals, peoples, races, and particularly, machine and man. Set in a not so unlikely future when machines have largely revolutionized the work force sending many into unemployment and a few on a desperate quest for meaning and purpose in a world where the very idea of freedom has been forgotten.

I really enjoyed it. I think you'll like it a lot if your interested in figuring out the way the world might look after the "robotic revolution" predicted by some. A fascinating world, with a great premise, and phenomenal characters with whom I enjoyed exploring every aspect of this future world.

[Mike Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to abandon this book after about 75 pages. I recently read Starfarers by Anderson, and gave it 4 stars. But this book, just never got me interested. I switched to Vernon Vinge's A Fire Upon Deep, and I was hooked after a few pages.

One thing that bothered about this book, was that it seemed that Anderson was relying way to much on a thesaurus, or was using obscure words as often as possible to make the read very difficult.

[Nathan Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memorable characters and a well-imagined setting save a rambling story that essentially goes nowhere. Anderson ratchets up the mystery and anticipation extremely well, but the payoff never really occurs. That being said, this is my favorite representation of moon life next to 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.

[Jeremiah Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very painful book to get through. Every other chapter switches timelines in an unsuccessful attempt to add style to a very dull story. It took me months to get through half of this book and now I'm giving up.

[Jk Huddleston · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sometimes grow tired of the in-depth family blah blah Dagny weepy character even though the man spins a good yarn and is a superb (learned) writer. I give the book three stars for the sheer scale of the story and his vision on what a colonized space future may look like.

[ETMoore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely paced and plotted story with a nicely converged past and present timeline, but like much scifi of this period, it comes to the end trying to resolve metaphysical issues while trying to stay true to it's philosophical materialism and so is ultimately unsatisfying.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This science fiction novel spans five hundred years from man's entry into space colonization to a time when machines control the universe. The only salvation for mankind lays in the past.

[Howard]

5

[Elar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Series have everything going for it, but it lacks final touch and composition to be great. Very hard to follow if listening, because of the alternating timelines and flashbacks.

[Anthony Faber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, but the libertarian and feudal drumpounding gets a bit much at times. Sequel to "Harvest of Stars". Standard space libertarian ubermensch novel.

[Rob Pucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Never could get into it. I will probably try again some other year...