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Star Fall #1
Star Fall
Berkley Books, 1990. Mass market paperback, 1st edition. Prolific sci-fi novelist Bischoff's tale of a huge starship carrying representatives of all intelligent races on a voyage to the legendary center of the universe, old Earth. A sequel, "Star Spring" was published in 1982.
Paperback
First published May 1, 1980
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About the author
David Bischoff
164 books103 followersaka Mark Grant (with Bruce King), Brad Quentin (with Terry Bisson)
Born in Washington D.C. and now living in Eugene, Oregon, David Bischoff writes science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. Though he has been writing since the early 1970s, and has had over 80 books published, David is best known for novelizations of popular movies and TV series including the Aliens, Gremlins, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and WarGames.
Born in Washington D.C. and now living in Eugene, Oregon, David Bischoff writes science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. Though he has been writing since the early 1970s, and has had over 80 books published, David is best known for novelizations of popular movies and TV series including the Aliens, Gremlins, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and WarGames.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 10, 2011
Todd Spigot has finally saved enough money to leave his planet of Deadrock. At least temporarily.
He will be on the maiden yoyage of the ship Star Fall, a joint project between the Terran and Morapn races. Formerly enemies, the Terrans and Morapns are using the Star Fall to issue in a new co-operative era between all species in the Galaxy.
So Todd goes to a Body Parlour, "rents" a new cloned body and leaves his own body there to be clained in eight months when he returns from the first voyage of the Star Fall. (Cloning bodies and changing brains from one body to another are quite common in this futre era).
Of course, when Tood boards the Star Fall, he soon finds himself mixed up in a confusing and dangerous series of events. For there are those who do NOT want peace between Terrans and Morapns--and they have an agenda of their own.
I debated btween two and three stars but the rushed ending settled me on two stars. There are a few interesting ideas here and some bits of good writing. There is also some odd writing, and a convuluted plot.
Written in 1980 and as far as I know not reprinted. A qucik, midly interesting read which many will forget two weeks after reading it. Recommended for the very patient Sf reader.
He will be on the maiden yoyage of the ship Star Fall, a joint project between the Terran and Morapn races. Formerly enemies, the Terrans and Morapns are using the Star Fall to issue in a new co-operative era between all species in the Galaxy.
So Todd goes to a Body Parlour, "rents" a new cloned body and leaves his own body there to be clained in eight months when he returns from the first voyage of the Star Fall. (Cloning bodies and changing brains from one body to another are quite common in this futre era).
Of course, when Tood boards the Star Fall, he soon finds himself mixed up in a confusing and dangerous series of events. For there are those who do NOT want peace between Terrans and Morapns--and they have an agenda of their own.
I debated btween two and three stars but the rushed ending settled me on two stars. There are a few interesting ideas here and some bits of good writing. There is also some odd writing, and a convuluted plot.
Written in 1980 and as far as I know not reprinted. A qucik, midly interesting read which many will forget two weeks after reading it. Recommended for the very patient Sf reader.
May 23, 2012
It reads like the author wanted to do some musing on the mind-body connection, so he just straightforwardly incorporated that into the story before there was even a story. We’re introduced to two characters – Philip Amber and Todd Spigot – who are opposites physically and mentally and, through circumstances that aren’t that well-explained and clearly there for the convenience of the plot, end up having their brains implanted in bodies that belong to the other. Note the wording there – it isn’t clear that the body that Philip Amber starts the story in is his original. He seems to have been doing the manner of body-hopping for a long time. Todd Spigot’s body is the one he was born with, though, and one of the more interesting points in the book is the changes it goes through while inhabited by a fitter mind. As the story progresses, we run the rest of the gamut – there are disembodied brains, cyborgs, collective minds, and human-alien hybrids.
Bischoff doesn’t seem to have any particular point to make with all of this. He just kind of sets up the situation and lets you hang your own thoughts on it. This book isn’t trying to blow your mind, just engage it a bit, and I really appreciated that.
The downside is that the plot feels kind of arbitrary. If you asked yourself what meditations on mind-body duality have to do with a plot to blow up Earth with antimatter using a luxury starliner as the delivery agent, you’d draw a blank, right? And on putting down the book, that was what I was going to say. But then I remembered that we didn’t even know that’s what the book was about until about 3/4 of the way through. Which, in some important sense, means that that wasn’t what the book was really about.
But what was it about? In some important sense, the themes and the plot don't seem to mesh all that well, and the whole thing is on autopilot most of the time. The characters find themselves in a situation and go where it leads. Just as we find out what the book is really about, a deus ex machina shows up to carry the story for a little while - but quite not all the way through to the end. It's sort of hard to know what purpose the story was serving. The deeper themes seem out of place in the relatively-standard plot.
On the whole, highly-recommended for people who like a little philosophy in their science fiction but insist that novels not substitute for treatises. This provides good food for thought without telling you what the conclusions are. It seems to have been written more quickly than it really needed to be, but it's a lot of fun all the same.
Bischoff doesn’t seem to have any particular point to make with all of this. He just kind of sets up the situation and lets you hang your own thoughts on it. This book isn’t trying to blow your mind, just engage it a bit, and I really appreciated that.
The downside is that the plot feels kind of arbitrary. If you asked yourself what meditations on mind-body duality have to do with a plot to blow up Earth with antimatter using a luxury starliner as the delivery agent, you’d draw a blank, right? And on putting down the book, that was what I was going to say. But then I remembered that we didn’t even know that’s what the book was about until about 3/4 of the way through. Which, in some important sense, means that that wasn’t what the book was really about.
But what was it about? In some important sense, the themes and the plot don't seem to mesh all that well, and the whole thing is on autopilot most of the time. The characters find themselves in a situation and go where it leads. Just as we find out what the book is really about, a deus ex machina shows up to carry the story for a little while - but quite not all the way through to the end. It's sort of hard to know what purpose the story was serving. The deeper themes seem out of place in the relatively-standard plot.
On the whole, highly-recommended for people who like a little philosophy in their science fiction but insist that novels not substitute for treatises. This provides good food for thought without telling you what the conclusions are. It seems to have been written more quickly than it really needed to be, but it's a lot of fun all the same.
July 16, 2014
The book presents a great mistaken identity setup via the novelty of body swapping, and then settles into a less interesting plot about saving the world from a big bad guy. Some comedy, more exploration and lunacy with body swapping, and less 'all religions are actually the same religion' could have made this feel a lot more complete.
The book maintains a frustrating formula of leading up to something interesting, and then shifting the narrative to a different character doing something else so you have to wait to maybe find out what happened when the characters later go "remember what happened..". Uhg.
It's worth noting that for something written in the 80s, much of the future technology described in the book seems like pretty reasonable speculation.
The book maintains a frustrating formula of leading up to something interesting, and then shifting the narrative to a different character doing something else so you have to wait to maybe find out what happened when the characters later go "remember what happened..". Uhg.
It's worth noting that for something written in the 80s, much of the future technology described in the book seems like pretty reasonable speculation.
March 8, 2016
Meh. The character development was wildly optimistic. Too many interesting ideas not explored adequately. I prefer seeing one idea stretched to see where it ends up. Also, detective and dinosaur hunting stories thrown in? Felt like a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip.
January 2, 2008
read 10.02.86
March 5, 2011
Grade C. Book Sf1.
June 18, 2013
This is a new release from Event Horizon EBooks, an e-book reprint of the original 1980 Berkely printed edition. Note that the rating is posted by the publisher.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews