Sudario de estrellas

by Gregory Benford

En un futuro lejano en el que la humanidad ha sobrevivido a un período de catástrofe, la Tierra es el centro de un imperio cuyas colonias se han extendido por las estrellas. En estas circunstancias se produce el primer contacto con una inteligencia extraterrestre: los Quarn. Pero sin que se conozcan sus motivaciones, éstos atacan las colonias humanas extendiendo una plaga mortífera entre los hombres.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 1969

About the author

Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

As a science fiction author, Benford is best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.

Reviews

[Nick J Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is hard sci-fi with a touch of New Wave. It's aged very well. The science must have been very cutting-edge back in 1969 when it was first published. It begins in the distant future with an alien attack on humanity, in the form of a plague of agoraphobia that effectively debilitates Earth and environs. A disgraced commandant who has survived the sickness travels to a distant colony planet in order to secure its strategic position close to an interstellar "flinger". However, he undergoes a trippy religious conversion that leads him to view the conflict in a very different light. There is a focus on race, with the Polynesian-Caucasian protagonist being subject to prejudice in a global Asian culture, wherein an historical "Riot War" has eradicated the population of America and Europe. Alongside the aliens' infection of humanity with a community-dissolving condition that has them hiding in private "Slots", this points the reader toward a very relevant implied moral. In short, The Stars in Shroud is a thinker (and we don't get to find out why it's called that until almost the last page). There's solid characterisation, a complimentary if scant sub-plot portraying a faltering marriage and plenty of action in the last quarter, but the real prize is Benford's dense idea-laden prose. I know of no parallel for him in this regard, even here in what I'm pretty sure is his first novel. Very impressive!

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is terrible - both the story and the book. I got this as an ebook from a story bundle of some description. For starters the OCR is terrible, and the book is formatted in a way that makes my ereader struggle to manage the whole turning pages thing. There were out of place puncutation, burn became bum, and we'll became well, etc. I also suspect pages went missing, because there were some jumps in the story that made zero sense.

Secondly the story... Benford can write, it's just that the story is chocked full of sexism and racism. The racism is the worst bit. The protag doesn't think that women are less capable, but the author didn't even think to include women in commanding roles in the space ships, or in most of the story. There were four or so female characters, and only one of them had any agency, and only at the end of the story, for the rest of it she was a trophy for the main character.

And the racism... the main character is mixed race - white and pacific islander. For reasons that aren't really well explained, Caucasians are generally despised, and the current world government/empire is "Mongol" - and by that I think they mean Asian. I read the authors comments attributed to the protag as an implied "OMG YELLOW PERIL". The author also has something, and I'm not quite sure what it is other than a "South Asians are so mystical" thing going on about South Asians... who in this book now live on another planet. The author refers to them as Hindic - I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

I'm giving this two stars because some of the elements of this book were intersting, and the writing itself wasn't bad. Don't bother reading it though if you're unimpressed by sexism and racism.

[Eero · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought and read this paperback ages ago (in 1987) and had pretty much forgotten the story. When I saw the title as a part of the newest Story Bundle, I dusted off the paperback and reread it.

Back then I saw Benford primarily as a hard science fiction writer, a working physicist who would use his expertise to tell a story. That aspect certainly is there in the way he handwaves the tachyonic FTL technology, giving it a sciencey surface underneath which it is no more plausible than any other FTL drive. (He did write scientific papers on the hypotetical tachyons, if I remember correctly, and the gimmick in Timescape is also based on them.) His understanding of physics is evident in little details throughout the story.

But he also tackles much larger themes. In fact, his prose suffers a little from overloading. There are little details and asides that he tosses in nonchalantly with a few sentences where other writers would give them tens or hundreds of pages.

The twist at the end is actually pretty clever, and he does not overexplain it, which means that a subset of readers will not get it. There is a kind of intellectual detachment in his prose, even when he is writing intense action scenes. Some readers will not like that either. Benford tends to portray the universe as vast and uncaring. Sentient beings are tossed into it to live for a while and perhaps make some sense of it.

[Elliot · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise would be interesting, were it written in a different style and with a different climax. The characters are totally unrelatable, and a good 75% of the book is just dry, bizarre rambling. I would like to say that the casual racism is just a product of the era the book was written in, or possibly a narrative choice, but it is still jarring. Ultimately, the climax kind of fizzles to a non-climax as the main character wavers back and forth, villains are dispatched or forgotten in moments, and plot twists are presented with zero pomp or circumstance. I get that it was trying to be philosophical, but a boring and annoying book is not going to get anyone thinking about philosophy.

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not get into it. I really wanted to like this book but I lost interest about 1/3 of the way through. I made myself read another third but I just quit at that point. I just could not get interested in the characters. The plot seemed excellent - an alien race attacking humanity with a disease that causes agoraphobia, except there are some people who recover. It was the execution that failed this book.

[Rob Markley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this after the wonderful collaboration with Brin in Heart of the Comet ...unfortunately was rather disappointed with this rambling tale

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Although it started pretty strong (broad racial stereotypes not withstanding), this kind of fell apart from the halfway point. Interesting that Benford writes in the afterword that he was trying to draw parallels between the collapse of empire and the collapse of a marriage, because I didn't pick up on that at all. Sanjen seemed to just go for anything in a skirt, never mind the fact he had a wife back home, but I didn't get much of a sense that he saw his own marriage as on the rocks. Disappointing.

[Tiffin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was confusing. I couldn't tell who was talking alot of the time. And it seemed like more than once, a scene would just all of a sudden change with no warning. For example, the main characters were in a house and then all of a sudden there was details of them flying. How the heck did they get to the ship??? Just not well written at all.

[Gary Reger · Rating 2 out of 5]

The version I read is a revision of the original that Benford undertook when his publisher suggested a re-issue. Unfortunately, both the style and the plot are less than satisfactory. Much is tedious and hard to understand; the basic idea is not compelling and pretty hard to accept. Not recommended.

[Angel B.A. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hasta hora, es la peor novela de Benford que he leído. Escoge cualquier otra si quieres apreciar al autor en buena forma :-)

[Mmonchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro empieza bien, un expansión de la humanidad después de que las razas blancas perdieran el poder, alguna guerra o catástrofe, y unos alienígenas que se enfrentan de una forma que no se comprende. Pero a partir de ahí empeora y ya no remonta. Es una pena porque el libro tiene muchos aspectos interesantes que están muy desaprovechados.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. The cultural development in this is first-rate, asking interesting question about the place of culture and society in human relations, what happens when those bonds break down, and what happens in the aftermath. In the far future, mankind has, through some vaguely described disaster, become a mono-culture, driven by and based upon a sense of Community. Throughout the book, this mono-culture is frayed and destroyed by alien influence. Against this back-drop, the protagonist struggles to understand what is happening and how he can survive it. (Trying not to go into spoiler territory here). Even though the last quarter of the book falls apart a bit, it is still a fascinating read.

[Graham Storrs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this in an ebook edition from Story Bundle - more about that in a moment.

The book itself was a bit of a let-down. I love Gregory Benford usually, but this one seemed to lack the usual magic. There were good ideas but the plot and pace were uneven and the ending was curiously underplayed. Perhaps it was because this was Benford's first novel (I think) and he still had plenty to learn about the craft.

The edition I read was scanned from text and converted to ebook format. I know this because of the many, glaring mistakes in the text that are typical OCR errors. The formatting was done by a company called Mr Lasers, who should be ashamed of themselves for letting so many mistakes through to the published text.

[B. Zedan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zowie, the themes in this one. Crippling, contagious agoraphobia as a weapon! Humanity's desire to explore and expand! Religion!

Can't really sum this one up. It has perfectly horrifying moments, like the housing used by the folks mentioned with the above malady. Here's a hint, it's called "The Slots".

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may have become exposed to Benford while on break from seminary in the late seveties. I was impressed, his writing being good, his science being better-than-average. This novel is less concept-driven than some, being primarily focused on the character of the protagonist. Like most of Benford's work, it's good, though I prefer the concept-driven stuff generally.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd give this 2.5 stars if I could as there was some very good writing in it. Sadly the story never really fired for me and the narrator grated on me. There were some interesting ideas too but I felt the story was a victim to them rather than an exploration of them.
To each their own.

[Mike]

I may read it before but time to read again.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this when I was fairly young but I still remember enjoying it a lot.

[Davo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas, but the narrative feels rather disjointed and I found it hard to really care about or follow what was going on for large parts of the book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I actually read an original version titled "Deeper Than the Darkness". Very interesting.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise but felt very chaotic and unfocused.The writing was incoherent at times and wasn't as smooth as I like.

[Koji Mukai · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Science Fiction Book Club edition

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Old style SF story

[Diana]

E

[Polifemo]

La humanidad conserva vívidamente en su pasado el recuerdo de tiempos aciagos en los que la raza blanca perdió la supremacía en la Tierra, abocada en su afán de autodestrucción. Sobre las cenizas de la cultura desaparecida se construyó dolorosamente una nueva sociedad capaz de superar las diferencias raciales. Ahora, centenares de años de expansión por las estrellas se ven amenazados por la aparición de los Quam, una cultura extraterrestre que ataca insidiosamente y sin razón aparente las colonias de los distintos planetas.
El capitán Ling Sajen se ve apartado del servicio en la flota estelar y acepta un destino en Veden, una colonia de origen indio en la que pronto empiezan a detectarse los primeros síntomas de la plaga extendida por los extraterrestres. Ling se convierte en portavoz de un nuevo movimiento de iluminismo religioso sin saber qué fuerzas ocultas actúan para motivarle.
En una situación apocalíptica en la que todo parece perdido, sólo la serenidad capaz de descubrir los motivos ocultos de un conflicto sin precedentes puede lograr contemplar con ánimo la posibilidad de un nuevo comienzo en el que todo sea distinto.