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The Compleat McAndrew
Presenting the space adventures of Arthur Morton McAndrew, space-time expert and scientist extraordinaire, and his long-suffering companion, spaceship skipper Jeanie Roker. Jeanie first met McAndrew on a routine run to Titan and quickly learned he was a genius of the caliber of Newton or Einstein. When McAndrew invented a space drive that let frail humans survive hundreds of gravities of acceleration, he disappeared while testing it, and Jeanie had to find him, using a trail of cryptic messages he had left behind. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, in spite of the gray hairs that Jeanie began accumulating as a result of McAndrew's impractical nature and his talent for getting himself into trouble with much more practical villains, such as...
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2000
7 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
About the author
Charles Sheffield
216 books171 followersCharles A. Sheffield (June 25, 1935 – November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.
His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.
For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.
He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.
Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.
He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.
He was married to writer Nancy Kress.
His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.
For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.
He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.
Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.
He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.
He was married to writer Nancy Kress.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 7, 2012
A collection of short stories centering around the physicist and engineer Arthur Morton McAndrew and the space captain Jeanie Roker. This is hard science fiction, and reminded me how little of it I read, not because I don't like it but because I don't hear of hard science fiction books often unless I'm specifically looking for them. Each story has somewhere in it, and usually central to the plot, some fun bit of speculation in physics or astronomy. McAndrew embodies the positive qualities of the geek stereotype, and probably endears the book a little more to readers like me, who tend to see themselves in any geekish character. Roker is tougher than McAndrew and more "cowardly" - more sensible would usually be a better way of saying it - and usually the one to get them out of tight places. And between human nastiness and space accidents, they do get into plenty of tight places.
January 6, 2020
The set of short stories around McAndrew (Arthur Morton "McAndrew") are long time favorites of mine and stories I consider to be among the "classic gems" of hard science fiction.
Abstract: These stories are an interlinked set of short stories showcasing the adventures of Arthur McAndrew (an unworldly physicist) and his partner Jeanie Roker (a practical test engineer).
These stories are classic "hard" science fiction. Every story is a well-thought out extrapolation from existing physics. There is even a "cribsheet" for each story on where the science stops and the science fiction begins (depending on the version, this cribsheet either follows the story or is in an Appendix). As part of this, each story has a central defining scientific concept and the plot of each story builds and supports that concept. In addition to being scientifically grounded, the stories generally have a well-defined plot and typically a wide streak of humor.
As with most "hard" science fiction, the character development is secondary to the plot and science, but nonetheless the characters are solid and believable (particularly after you read several of the stories to get the overall feel of the characters). A particularly nice feature of the various characters is the strong avoidance of traditional science fiction stereotypes. Keep in mind these stories were written between about 1978 and 1990, making this very exceptional for the era and about nominal for today. Saying this another way, the stories feel very contemporary in spite of their age.
As perhaps the most important example of this avoidance of stereotypes of the their era, the stories are all written from the 1st person view of Jeanie Roker (cargo pilot and holder of degrees in Electrical and Gravitational Engineering). The remaining key characters in the story (including McAndrew) work at the "Institute", where his associates are described by the head of the institute as: "But take the people here at the institute, Wenig looks like a mortician, Gowers could pass as a dumb-blonde hooker, and Siclaro reminds me of a gorilla. And each of them a mind in a million."
Note: This is a new review simply because I've recently joined Goodreads. The stories have been in my personal library for many years. Note also that I've posted a duplicate review to the various versions of the McAndrew stories.
Abstract: These stories are an interlinked set of short stories showcasing the adventures of Arthur McAndrew (an unworldly physicist) and his partner Jeanie Roker (a practical test engineer).
These stories are classic "hard" science fiction. Every story is a well-thought out extrapolation from existing physics. There is even a "cribsheet" for each story on where the science stops and the science fiction begins (depending on the version, this cribsheet either follows the story or is in an Appendix). As part of this, each story has a central defining scientific concept and the plot of each story builds and supports that concept. In addition to being scientifically grounded, the stories generally have a well-defined plot and typically a wide streak of humor.
As with most "hard" science fiction, the character development is secondary to the plot and science, but nonetheless the characters are solid and believable (particularly after you read several of the stories to get the overall feel of the characters). A particularly nice feature of the various characters is the strong avoidance of traditional science fiction stereotypes. Keep in mind these stories were written between about 1978 and 1990, making this very exceptional for the era and about nominal for today. Saying this another way, the stories feel very contemporary in spite of their age.
As perhaps the most important example of this avoidance of stereotypes of the their era, the stories are all written from the 1st person view of Jeanie Roker (cargo pilot and holder of degrees in Electrical and Gravitational Engineering). The remaining key characters in the story (including McAndrew) work at the "Institute", where his associates are described by the head of the institute as: "But take the people here at the institute, Wenig looks like a mortician, Gowers could pass as a dumb-blonde hooker, and Siclaro reminds me of a gorilla. And each of them a mind in a million."
Note: This is a new review simply because I've recently joined Goodreads. The stories have been in my personal library for many years. Note also that I've posted a duplicate review to the various versions of the McAndrew stories.
March 6, 2017
I'm not the world's biggest fan of short stories - I end up skipping short story collections by authors that I truly enjoy a lot, because I'm really picky about them and generally prefer my fiction "the longer, the better" - but this is a nifty collection of shorts. Sheffield writes superhard sci-fi but still manages to keep it entertaining. While characterization isn't his strong suit, especially in this format, there's enough scattered here and there to give you a good overall feel for McAndrew and Jeanie by the end of the book. And the last chapter, where Sheffield explains a lot of the scientific thinking behind the individual stories, was the icing on the cake for me. I love that kind of stuff.
May 8, 2020
We read the First Chronicle for a book club.
Let me warn you, this is verrry far outside the scope of things I normally read. Science fiction is still a bit of stretch for me, and hard SF is quite far from my comfort zone.
I also read the Introduction (which I read by accident thinking it was the story, but it turned out that it was actually pretty helpful in setting up the story) before reading the First Chronicle.
I admit, I was a bit lost with all of the science, and unsure of half the stuff that happened outside the basic plot of a prisoner transport and jailbreak attempt.
It was interesting to know that the author, as a mathematician and physicist actually knows what he's talking about in his stories, instead of Hollywoodifying everything like so much of what we see today. But even though I respect that, the amount of science concepts explained is probably the main reason I couldn't click; the other reason being that none of the characters are fleshed out other than their CVs and that MacAndrew was a pacifist (a fact repeated several times). The intro says that MacAndrew grows as a person and character later on in the chronicles, and though I'm interested in seeing that happen, unfortunately not interested enough to keep going. Glad I tried something new, but not my cup of tea.
Let me warn you, this is verrry far outside the scope of things I normally read. Science fiction is still a bit of stretch for me, and hard SF is quite far from my comfort zone.
I also read the Introduction (which I read by accident thinking it was the story, but it turned out that it was actually pretty helpful in setting up the story) before reading the First Chronicle.
I admit, I was a bit lost with all of the science, and unsure of half the stuff that happened outside the basic plot of a prisoner transport and jailbreak attempt.
It was interesting to know that the author, as a mathematician and physicist actually knows what he's talking about in his stories, instead of Hollywoodifying everything like so much of what we see today. But even though I respect that, the amount of science concepts explained is probably the main reason I couldn't click; the other reason being that none of the characters are fleshed out other than their CVs and that MacAndrew was a pacifist (a fact repeated several times). The intro says that MacAndrew grows as a person and character later on in the chronicles, and though I'm interested in seeing that happen, unfortunately not interested enough to keep going. Glad I tried something new, but not my cup of tea.
May 9, 2019
It is an ok book.
February 2, 2020
Entertaining collection of hard SF stories
January 2, 2017
A fun collection of short stories each with with a hard sci-fi concept at its heart.
March 9, 2024
Sheffield, Charles. The Compleat McAndrew. 2000. Gateway, 2013.
Charles Sheffield was an Anglo-American science fiction writer who worked from 1977 until his death in 2002. In 1978, he and Arthur C. Clarke each published novels featuring space elevators. Trained as a mathematician and physicist, Sheffield certainly deserves to be mentioned alongside such scientifically literate writers as Clarke, Niven, Benford, Bova, and Brin.
The Compleat McAndrew is a collection of short stories featuring physicist Arthur Morton McAndrew and Jeanie Roker, who pilots him around the solar system. The stories are narrated by Jeanie, a cautious pilot who sees her job as keeping McAndrew out of trouble when he gets lost in a physics experiment. She provides common-sense explanations of some of McAndrew’s more difficult locutions. She helps him battle the bureaucrats who want to reign in his experiments, but she is often jealous of the young women who see him as a scientific rock star.
Each story in the collection has a central scientific problem or idea at its center, often dealing with gravity and other astrophysical issues. Jeanie and McAndrew are more at home in space than on a planet. In “With McAndrew, Out of Focus,” when Jeanie observes a supernova from space while McAndrew is stuck on Earth, she feels sorry for him: “Me, I could look into the evening sky and see herringbone patterns of gorgeous rose and salmon-pink clouds catching the light of the supernova. McAndrew looked at the same thing and saw an annoying absorbing layer of atmospheric gases cutting off all light of wavelength shorter than the near ultraviolet. The Cassiopeia Supernova was flooding the Solar System with hard radiation—and here was McAndrew, down on Earth, condemned to visible wavelengths and missing half the show.”
Charles Sheffield was an Anglo-American science fiction writer who worked from 1977 until his death in 2002. In 1978, he and Arthur C. Clarke each published novels featuring space elevators. Trained as a mathematician and physicist, Sheffield certainly deserves to be mentioned alongside such scientifically literate writers as Clarke, Niven, Benford, Bova, and Brin.
The Compleat McAndrew is a collection of short stories featuring physicist Arthur Morton McAndrew and Jeanie Roker, who pilots him around the solar system. The stories are narrated by Jeanie, a cautious pilot who sees her job as keeping McAndrew out of trouble when he gets lost in a physics experiment. She provides common-sense explanations of some of McAndrew’s more difficult locutions. She helps him battle the bureaucrats who want to reign in his experiments, but she is often jealous of the young women who see him as a scientific rock star.
Each story in the collection has a central scientific problem or idea at its center, often dealing with gravity and other astrophysical issues. Jeanie and McAndrew are more at home in space than on a planet. In “With McAndrew, Out of Focus,” when Jeanie observes a supernova from space while McAndrew is stuck on Earth, she feels sorry for him: “Me, I could look into the evening sky and see herringbone patterns of gorgeous rose and salmon-pink clouds catching the light of the supernova. McAndrew looked at the same thing and saw an annoying absorbing layer of atmospheric gases cutting off all light of wavelength shorter than the near ultraviolet. The Cassiopeia Supernova was flooding the Solar System with hard radiation—and here was McAndrew, down on Earth, condemned to visible wavelengths and missing half the show.”
January 19, 2009
This is a collection of sci-fi short stories. Most of them are formulaic, but it's a formula that works: there is some new or unexplainable phenomenon, scatter-brained physicist (McAndrew) and the narrator (spaceship pilot) go off to explore. McAndrew does something stupid and puts himself in danger, but he and the pilot overcome the adversity through cunning and/or scientific knowledge.
All of the stories have a little bit of a different twist, and it's enough to keep them interesting. The book is an easy read, and was definitely enjoyable. All of the stories were originally published separately, which I think would have made the pattern less obvious -- reading them together makes it stand out. That's the only minor drawback to an otherwise really good book.
All of the stories have a little bit of a different twist, and it's enough to keep them interesting. The book is an easy read, and was definitely enjoyable. All of the stories were originally published separately, which I think would have made the pattern less obvious -- reading them together makes it stand out. That's the only minor drawback to an otherwise really good book.
April 7, 2014
The word that comes to mind after reading this collection is "OK." The stories are very much in the classic hard SF/Space Opera mode, with a brilliant white guy who saves the day with science. A number of Big Ideas are trotted out, and there's a fair bit of theoretical astrophysics discussed. A few of the stories were fun, but most were. . . competent. The writing is straightforward and unembellished, the world presented has few surprises, and neither the prose nor the narrative take any chances. It's . . . OK.
May 2, 2008
Charles Sheffield writes incredibly intelligent technological science fiction. He explains in his forward that whenever he runs across a new scientific theory he often ends up with a McAndrew story. All in all it ends up with some really good short stories.
October 11, 2013
Quite an interesting set of stories, although the McAndrew/Jan relationship gets a bit confused in the later stories.
Unfortunately, just as I was really getting into them, it was over. There needed to be more!
Unfortunately, just as I was really getting into them, it was over. There needed to be more!
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April 14, 2008Science Fiction
November 16, 2013
I really like this author and love the different twists that come from looking from the side.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews