Product Description: At Millennium's end, the Earth was poisoned beyond repair--and ships ventured out into the solar system in search of life-saving raw materials and new planets to colonize. Now it is 2083. No suitable worlds have been found and the Earth can sustain life no longer. In humanity's final moments, two renegade family units--a microcosm of a self-destructive society--rocket into the heart of a mysterious alien culture. Here an entity has been created for the purpose of preserving all life, but to do so, it must absorb the past, present, and the future of the universe.
In a distant realm of last, desperate hope, the flawed representatives of a near-dead world are searching for the key to humankind's survival. But it may already be too late...and it may always have been.
A Thinker I remember reading this when I was younger, probably around 14. This was a book that started out normal, and then I don't know what happened to it.
Initially I thought the book lacked many key elements, and quite frankly if you're going to look at it in a strictly science-fiction / fantasy spotlight, then you're going to miss some of the finer details. A book, is not written to coform to a category, but rather; a category is written to conform to the book.
This book is chonicles and exemplifies all of mankind's fallacies. The belief in auto-supremacy, the belief that man is higher than all, etc. The objectifying of women is another one of mankind's shortcomings. Regardless of what anyone says, this book does indeed highlight many, many things that should be of concern for today's society.
The people gathered together are truly representative of a microcosm of today's society. Greed, sex, money, drugs, and "nubile" flesh, dominate everything.
What it all boils down to is it's all about the sex, but pay attention, you'll learn something about yourself if you think hard enough about it.
Shallow and One Dimensional This has to be one of the worst books I've read in a while. I kept reading, hoping it would redeem itself, but instead it only got worse. The misogynistic Wolf, the main character, never grows past his obsession with women's genitalia. The women have no depth and remain objectified. The plot, if one can call it that, becomes horribly improbable and stereotypical at the same time - star gates which magically transport, good aliens who can telepathically speak to us, bad aliens trying to wipe out humanity, etc. ...
They'll eventually get it..... Most of these reviews focus on the fact that the "book has too much sex". Well, that's kind of the point. The novel is heavily focused on the failures of its characters. Yes, given the backdrop of all this cosmic wonderment - alien species, the end of the universe, black holes - they are still **human** and still very much looking out for number one. This is the major character flaw of the human race, the inability to act selflessly to further the species, something the alien "conquerors" appear to have done rather well in their quest to "engulf" the universe. The ending of the book has some major religious implications, and will possibly confuse anyone not already familiar with Tipler's Omega Point theory. But the entire book can be summed up by this one line, spoken between two characters near the end - "Everything matters, Mr. Wolf. That's why excuses always fail". Yes, the book could have been better, but Barton and Capobianco have always been obsessed with the negative dynamic between any group of characters, the interplay between wants and needs. In reality each and every character in their books, ALL of their books, are looking for redemption and reconciliation. In this book, their characters finally find it.
This book almost had a chance..... It started out slow and a little interesting. Then, it moved into some real action with some believable SF.
Then came the profanity and the sexual overtones. I could deal with that, but after about 100 pages it grew old. And to make matters worse, all of a sudden the book moves into totally unbelievable situations and events. I don't mean unbelievable like "Wow that's cool!" I mean it like "There's no way this could happen, that's stupid..."
And to top it all off, there was still about 125 pages to go and the story was going downhill fast. It seemed like the writers recognized that the plot was fading and they hadn't developed an ending. So, they apparently decided to throw in a lot more sex scenes more often.
The writers should have stuck to SF and not to their sexual fantasies.
I finished it (against my better judgement...) Only because I am waiting on a book in a series that I am in the middle of. If I had it, this book would have gone by the wayside very quickly.
Anyway, the first third of the book is "ok" to "almost good". After that, you can decide.
Don't let the cover fool you. This story is bascially the worst of every soap opera plot combined with 2001. The use of profainity is unnecessary. And the she slept with him/he slept with her subplots steal every potential storyline in the book, making a terrible novel. The only good thing about the book is the excellent cover. That is the only reason this got 2 stars instead of one. Read the Odyssey books by Arthur C. Clarke instead.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
