Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Spoil away!

I read this in 2014 and I have to say his transformation gave me the creeps. I actually felt uncomfortable.

Also, the idea of the smart roads was interesting. I have also read the follow-up Mars Plus.

Yeah it was kind of creepy, now that you mention it.

The descriptions of the surgical transformations were detailed and physiologically accurate, which made it real for me.

I haven't read anything else by Pohl, so I don't have anything for comparison. I thought it was well written.

I finished it and here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Does anybody feel that Pohl went a little overboard with his showing the reader how excruciating the experience of becoming the Man Plus was for Willy*? Especially in the beginning odd the novel.


Personally I suspect it is to set the mood for what's coming later, but still at times the scientists at work seem excessively obtuse. I imagined there would've been a team of professionals dedicated solely to the well-being of arguably the most important project of the time.

Art wrote: " I imagined there would've been a team of professionals dedicated solely to the well-being of arguably the most important project of the time."

There was a TV series, loosely based on the Manhattan project, called Manhattan and you see that it is not a group of scientists working together, but squabbles, infidelity, etc. It is natural for people so no surprise

Oleksandr wrote: "..There was a TV series, loosely based on the Manhattan project"

Yeah, I've seen both that and the documentary itself on the project.

It's more that I'm underwhelmed by the wholesomeness of the argument that the scientists would have this huge blind spot where neither Willy's or Roger's feelings or well being in general were considered.

Art wrote: " I'm underwhelmed by the wholesomeness of the argument that the scientists would have this huge blind spot"

It's a feature, not a bug! The red line thru the book is the idea that we, like a frog, can be blind to certain things

Art wrote: "Does anybody feel that Pohl went a little overboard with his showing the reader how excruciating the experience of becoming the Man Plus was for Willy*? Especially in the beginning odd the novel.
..."

I guess it is hard to determine the line of where it is too much. I found it helpful to really get how much pain and suffering Roger had to go through. That's one of those things I haven't even thought about before, and I think it made me more sympathetic to his position.

It did seem a bit farfetched that no one seemed to notice or care that Brad wasn't there for the first tests on Willy. Oleksandr has a good point about the theme of a blind spot. As even the computers in the end had a blind spot.

Did anybody solve the mystery behind the narrator's use of "WE" throughout the book?

Art wrote: "Did anybody solve the mystery behind the narrator's use of "WE" throughout the book?"

Alright, having finished the book I'm glad to know that it is explained, to expand on the question:

Do you think it was an attempt at a cliffhanger for the next book or was it intentionally so subtle the first 85% of the book?

Art wrote: "Art wrote: "Do you think it was an attempt at a cliffhanger for the next book or was it intentionally so subtle the first 85% of the book?."

Bearing in mind that Pohl was an established SF writer at the time and sequels are a nice way to milk a popular book, I think he has a possibility of a sequel strongly on his mind

just finished today and boy i did not predict that ending. the whole time i expected Sulie to be a spy and to have been the one doing the tampering. My only complaint is that i would like to know how life on Mars continues but i really loved this book, sounds like Mars Plus is a follow up so I'll have to check it out.

If anybody does check out how the sequel is, please let us know if it adds to the experience of reading Man Plus.

We will add it to the ministries shelf then.

Can't say it feels unfinished, but it lacks that little something good needs to 4-star it.

I'm still working out how I feel... it's definitely not as good as Space Merchants (Which is BRILLIANT), but it has alot of the wit that made that book great.

I think the book would have worked better if it was longer... all those details were nice, but we got shorted in other areas... like the geopolitics and th world outside.

Far too much time on Roger's marriage, which, in the end, was much ado about nothing.

The gender roles and general attitude of the characters was more 50s than 70s, which was weird. Is that how Pohl things everyone is like? Or was it an outcrop of a stressful world, reverting to more traditional roles?


I LOVED the ending... I suspected when they were talking about computer models no one quite knew how they worked, but not to the extent it was listed... almost as good as Mike last month!