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It is everything that you can expect from Nancy Kress. It is a solid hard sci-fi, with some revelation made. I cannot help but to compare it with her previous novel that I read, Steal Across the Sky. I have the same feel when I read both novel. Both are related with alien encounter. Both also related with human genetics. Both also bring new revelation about our ancestor. I cannot help also to say that Steal Across the Sky has given me greater impact than this novel.

The novel is told using 2 POV, a researcher, stumbled on something that catch the attention of some aliens; and her son, an ignorant commoner. And the story is pretty much told from the circle of this family, and some closed friends. The story started with an alien encounter, with a hidden agenda. Once the agenda is not hidden, chaos followed.

First of all, this is a thin novel, only a little bit thicker than a novelette. I finished it in one sitting, without a sweat. I give a merit to Nancy because the flow of the novel is so great that it does not give me any speed bump while reading it. But unfortunately, being so thin, you cannot pack too may ideas inside it. Nancy has been doing well in packing all the necessary ideas inside this novel, plus the story, without making it too preachy with technical details.

Now, the down side. Nancy Kress has try to simplify the plot by ignoring all chaos that happened outside the labs. But even by cutting that parts away, she is still missing some interesting dynamics that might happened in her closed circle family and among her lab crews. It should be more interesting if she has more pages to write.

So, that is my final thought, it feels a bit incomplete. It feels that it ends too abruptly. And the final twist is a bit an anticlimactic. Sorry Nancy, only 3 out of 5 this time.

Additional Note (critical review with spoilers)

The hypothesis of Nancy Kress regarding the alien civilization is interesting. She hypothesized that due the more benign planet that the alien inhabited, they became a more cooperative society, compared to ours. And because they are more cooperative, they are far more advanced than we. That hypothesis needs to be explored at least another one hundred pages. Maybe in debates between alien and human, maybe in some scene when the alien are confused about our competitive, self-interested, individualized and obsessive behavior.

Worlds is an ambitious attempt by Joe Haldeman. The title itself is revealing; it is a story of many worlds. Mankind is starting its next colonization, conquering spaces. Many giant space stations are built as new human habitats. Man also starts mining the moon and asteroids. A new interplanetary politics is building, between the old earth and the Worlds.

The premise is interesting, new politics caused by the new colonization, while the old earth is trapped in conservatism and ecology disaster. But it looks like that the author failed to capitalized it. I cannot help but to compared it with Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson. The premise is almost the same; the colonization of Mars creates a new tension in politics. Where Robinson succeed, Haldeman failed.

The first third of the novel is very good. The characters are properly introduced and the world building is amazing. Haldeman successfully captured the new culture caused by the separation from earth quite well. I would give FOUR STAR for the first third. But the second third, when the main character, Mariane O’Hara starts her campus life, it is plain boring. The details do not add well to the story. Instead of building the story, I find it as impediments to the main plot. The revolution spirit is not well captured. Maybe it is caused by the usage of just one POV, Marianne, which herself is almost oblivious the revolution. TWO STAR only for this part. For the final third, the story is improving. The revolution starts, and Marianne find herself in it, helpless and hopeless. The tension is well built. THREE STAR for the last part. So, on average, I give this novel a THREE STAR. Not great, but not bad as well, exactly is the middle.

I would say that this novel is not Haldeman’s best. Nice to read, but not really engaging.

(I GET THE COPY OF THIS NOVEL FROM NETGALLEY)

This novel is indeed a classic. I can understand why it holds its place at the sci-fi hall of fame.

It is indeed the product of its age; America is deeply involved in the Vietnam war, many young men were conscripted, antiwar sentiment were raised due to the involvement of the unintended and unwanted war. You can see those parallels in this novel.

The story circles around a young (and then “very old”) soldier Mandella, who is drafted without his consent, due to the Elite Conscription Act, a law passed to conscript high IQ young men and women to fight extraterrestrials in another system far far away from solar systems. The first time setting is the near future, and then continues to about one thousand years. The military also has overcome the male-female bias. Each draftee is sterilized, eggs and sperms stored in cold storage for later use. The concept of “confraternity” is introduced, where male and female soldiers live in the same quarter. Promiscuity is actually encouraged to strengthen the bond, while exclusive partnership is discouraged because it will create tension and competition.

Since it is decades after the first publishing, I feel that the war issue is about outdated. The strongest part of this novel is not even the war scene. It is the social changes caused by war that is interesting. How the politics changes, the economy booms and collapsed, etc.

Despite the outdated war issue, the gender issue and clash of civilization are still contemporary. The heterosexual vs. homosexual orientation is widely discussed. Imagine when heterosexual became the outlier, while homosexual is the new normality. Imagine that you, being heterosexual is seen as an aberration and everyone wants to cure you. After reading this novel I can sympathized with my LGBT friends.

Clash between cultures (or in this case: species) is also the center theme. Many meaningless wars happened just because we cannot communicate with each other. Once we can understand each other, the war seems to be so puny. And in a long term, all wars might sound so silly. Imagine Japanese people that is portrayed as yellow skin savages that fight the allies. Now all of those image has lost, replaced by the uber-cute techno culture spread by the anime and manga. I can imagine that will also happened to the so-called Islamic terrorist right now. Imagine how would we see them decades from now.

The best part of this novel is the time dilation caused by the near-light-speed travel. It is something that is usually omitted in common space opera. It is just like the issue dealt in the movie “Interstellar”. It is something that should be faced by a star faring civilization.

Overall, a solid 4 stars. If Haldeman makes a more interesting war scene, I will give it a 5 stars.