By: Donald Kingsbury Publisher: Baen Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Baen Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 480 Publication Date: December 01, 1987
Reads well in light of events of 9-11 Yes, this book is dated on a number of levels, principally the fact that there is no longer a U.S.S.R. and also that we haven't moved aggressively into space. That aside, the book is interesting when comparing its philosophy and predictions to current events. Both the missile shield debate and the September 11 terrorist attack are predicted in altered forms.
Regarding missile defense, for example, Kingsbury implies that a missile shield could be an invaluable defensive weapon, rather than, as the New York Times editorial board would have us believe, just a destabilizing, costly piece of junk. Also, the effect of terrorist attacks by airplane on a country's capital were correctly prognosticated: when the U.S. capital was attacked on September 11, the military went to threatcon delta, the highest level of military alert. Granted, the military response of the U.S. has been completely opposite that of the U.S.S.R. in Kingsbury's book, but some of the actions and the general sense of paranoia are eerily foretold.
Overall, an excellent book. Too scattered in its several storylines to be a real novel, the book is more a rumination on psychology, geopolitics, technology and interpersonal relations, with conclusions that resonate with the crises of the day.
One of the greats This one is on the short list. One of my five favorite SF novels of all time along. A very strange novel with several strands of stories going on at the same time and only touching together at the end.
For AV-squad guys who wear camouflage I so deeply enjoyed the story and the philosophical issues in Courtship Rite, that the disappointment of the Moon Goddess and the Son hit with a double whammy.
Kingsbury is in many ways a clone of Heinlein, which is both good and bad. This book is an exemplar of shabby Heinleinism, where a moped of plot tries to tow a double-wide of ideology. (Think of Time Enough for Love, about astronautics rather than animal husbandry). The hero is a macho blowhard (quote: "I get *horny* when I imagine a world without Democrats") who psychologically abuses his son, but accomplishes not much else.
The book is basically a long, disjointed diatribe about how prima-donna-type engineers could solve the world's problems, if only the goddam liberal politicians would let them. Early in the book, some Afghan engineering students build homemade cruise missiles and blow up the Kremlin. Cruise missiles, easy and low-tech, given the cheap GPS technology that we've had for 15 years now. Cruise missiles make a space-based missile defense shield completely pointless; nevertheless Kingsbury has a perfectly-functioning one save the world from the ensuing Soviet retaliation.
But this isn't the most ludicrous fantasy: Kingsbury has the American generals refrain from retaliating against the Soviets! And the Soviet generals stop their attack once they're persuaded that the US wasn't responsible for the attack on the Kremlin! This level of nerdy, idealistic naivete makes the non-technical action in the story wholly unbelievable and very unsatisfying. Which is why this story went out of print so quickly, I guess. The big question for me is how the same guy could write a story as good as Courtship Rite, and another story as weak as this one. Perhaps the answer is that I read CR as a pimply teen-ager, but I read MG&S *after* I had lost my virginity.
An excellent space industrialization book If you like "hard SF" with lots of technological and social ideas and economics as well, this book is for you. Good and readable, with some memorable characters, set in the early 21st century. Innovative space launch systems and orbital space port design, and a systems engineering approach to one way to make space development happen.
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