Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the novelette:


"Obelisk" by Stephen Baxter

This story is part of the Edge of Infinity group anthology discussion.

★★

Synopsis:  Former spaceship captain Wei Binglin, and deported entrepeneur Bill Kendrick envision a non-functional, but grand building for Mars: a huge building resembling a concrete/steel/glass obelisk. They pursue their vision at the cost of their relation to an adopted daughter.

Review:  The stereotypical drawing of Kendrick's U.S. American character was flawed. The story's scope and overlong exposition could have been reduced, characters could have been defined better and the ending lacked seriously.

This was the anthology's weakest story, 1.5 stars rounded up.

Agree with Andreas, a seemingly pointless story.

There's a whole introduction to Wei Binglin, a passenger spaceship captain whose ship was disabled between Earth and Mars due to some undisclosed problem (meteor strike?) He feels guilt for the passengers whose lives were lost, but the rest of the world apparently considers him a hero for managing to get the ship into Mars orbit and save many other lives despite the crippled ship. Baxter never gives us enough information to understand his guilt. At any rate, he decides to settle down on Mars.

And somehow, years later, he's mayor of a small Martian settlement (because despite his guilt, he can't help accepting responsibility for others? Seeking a new leadership role seems a strange thing for a guilt wracked men to do.)

Enter the brash American engineer, Kendrick , apparently exiled from Earth for undisclosed engineering aspirations (If we leave him on earth, he'll talk us into doing something foolish, so we'd better banish him to save us from ourselves? Just saying, "no," apparently not an option.)

Both these backgrounds are annoyingly facile.

And yet Kendrick somehow talks Mayor Wei Binglin into some grandiose new construction projects. Is that persuasive, a modern Steve Jobs with his own reality distortion field. (Or a Vannevar Morgan.)

All of this seems pretty inconsequential as the story jumps glibly ahead in time. Then we get to the end, and suddenly we're expected to care about a third character whose barely been mentioned, a paradox since apparently both men are alleged to have some sort of emotional tie to the woman. Nonetheless, her entire personality is conjured out of a hat for the last couple paragraphs.

The story seems as pointless as Kendrick's obelisk.

1.5 Star *1/2*

G33z3r wrote: "The story seems as pointless as Kendrick's obelisk."

But I don't think that the obelisk was pointless. A couple of those stories in the anthology try to tell us that one needs more than just air to breath, food, water and a roof: you need art as well as roses or an obelisk which represents hope in the future - something to look forward to, to be proud of.