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A review by joe90
Dark Space Universe by Jasper T. Scott
2.0
**Spoilers**
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I should start by saying it moves along as well as a good yarn should. The author also includes some good background science. But there are issues.
There’s no shortage of deus ex machina, a sure sign this was not solidly thought through.
The aliens are not well conceived: they’re either humanoid - blue or green - or yeti/chewbacca-like, or something akin to an alien cat. No other aliens are described - and there’s mention of many different kinds in the book - other than something like a balloon, and some kind of octopus (which I called Deus Ex Octopus).
On occasion the author gives heaps of detail about some things - planet sizes, distances for eg - and on others almost nothing at all. I have no idea, for example, how big any of the various spaceships/shuttles/fighters/“galleons” are.
Too many shortcuts to move the plot along: telepathy; language translators that just work instantly and too well; faster-than-light travel - “quantum jumping” - which allows *instantaneous* leaps of many millions of light years; multi/other-dimensional beings; limbs can be re-grown, but no detail at all how; an alien that has apparently cloned itself all over the universe and which appears to have instant telepathic contact with all its clones; humans are immortal, but there’s no real backround to this - there’s just “technology”. There are too many SF cliches which bury any original aspects of the story.
It was difficult to come to grips with a giant spaceship - unimaginatively called “New Earth” - which is more like a giant conglomoration of independent spaceship-habitats, and which contains no fewer than 600 TRILLION inhabitants. Now, the author explained this to me on FB, but I’m not buying it. Consider only the resources required to feed and water such an enterprise, let alone keep them all alive forever - remember, they’re all immortal. Consider too that the total number of humans ever to have existed is estimated at 106 billion - the number on this spaceship is 5700 times greater than that number.
And one of the hardest pills to swallow: humans can be cloned: an expedition is sent out, and all members are cloned prior to leaving (the clones are frozen, only to be revived if the expedition fails to return). If they return unexpectedly, and their clones *have* been revived, the clone and the original (along with all memories) can be “blended”. Not sure which body is retained, but again, this is not thought through: if they are blended, which consciousness is retained? If the original is killed/ destroyed, the original consciousness is no doubt killed off too - so the clone should be a different consciousness, right? This fact, however, seems lost on the characters - they seem to be ok with being killed off because they have a back-up clone. Good luck with that one.
I’m afraid there’s just too much belief to suspend. I may consider reading the second book in the series, simply because it’s a fairly quick read and I wanted to see where he was taking the multiverse angle (the author didn’t call it that, exactly).
But the author might consider taking more time over plot lines and story content - sometimes less is more, you know?
I wanted to like this book, I really did. I should start by saying it moves along as well as a good yarn should. The author also includes some good background science. But there are issues.
There’s no shortage of deus ex machina, a sure sign this was not solidly thought through.
The aliens are not well conceived: they’re either humanoid - blue or green - or yeti/chewbacca-like, or something akin to an alien cat. No other aliens are described - and there’s mention of many different kinds in the book - other than something like a balloon, and some kind of octopus (which I called Deus Ex Octopus).
On occasion the author gives heaps of detail about some things - planet sizes, distances for eg - and on others almost nothing at all. I have no idea, for example, how big any of the various spaceships/shuttles/fighters/“galleons” are.
Too many shortcuts to move the plot along: telepathy; language translators that just work instantly and too well; faster-than-light travel - “quantum jumping” - which allows *instantaneous* leaps of many millions of light years; multi/other-dimensional beings; limbs can be re-grown, but no detail at all how; an alien that has apparently cloned itself all over the universe and which appears to have instant telepathic contact with all its clones; humans are immortal, but there’s no real backround to this - there’s just “technology”. There are too many SF cliches which bury any original aspects of the story.
It was difficult to come to grips with a giant spaceship - unimaginatively called “New Earth” - which is more like a giant conglomoration of independent spaceship-habitats, and which contains no fewer than 600 TRILLION inhabitants. Now, the author explained this to me on FB, but I’m not buying it. Consider only the resources required to feed and water such an enterprise, let alone keep them all alive forever - remember, they’re all immortal. Consider too that the total number of humans ever to have existed is estimated at 106 billion - the number on this spaceship is 5700 times greater than that number.
And one of the hardest pills to swallow: humans can be cloned: an expedition is sent out, and all members are cloned prior to leaving (the clones are frozen, only to be revived if the expedition fails to return). If they return unexpectedly, and their clones *have* been revived, the clone and the original (along with all memories) can be “blended”. Not sure which body is retained, but again, this is not thought through: if they are blended, which consciousness is retained? If the original is killed/ destroyed, the original consciousness is no doubt killed off too - so the clone should be a different consciousness, right? This fact, however, seems lost on the characters - they seem to be ok with being killed off because they have a back-up clone. Good luck with that one.
I’m afraid there’s just too much belief to suspend. I may consider reading the second book in the series, simply because it’s a fairly quick read and I wanted to see where he was taking the multiverse angle (the author didn’t call it that, exactly).
But the author might consider taking more time over plot lines and story content - sometimes less is more, you know?