Usurper of the Sun (Novel) (2002)

Reading like "Rendezvous with Rama" filtered through "Blind Sight" by Peter Watts, the emphasis here is on the science and the concepts. This means that while Nojiri has succeeded in keeping to Greg Benford's dictum to "make it weird," the level of characterization feels very old school and I don't mean that in a good way. The exception would be in the character of Aki Shiraishi, and her drive to understand an extra-solar migration (even as it threatens human existence) is well rendered; though perhaps that is simply a function of me filling in the blanks from having watched a hundred or so anime series. I'm reluctant to say much more, as even though this novel (really a fix-up) is rather dry, it does evidence a lot of hard thought and so is worth reading on that basis. ( )

Usurper of the Sun is a solid, but unspectacular, novel of first contact. I’d say it’s good reading but won’t win any awards, but I’d be wrong. It won Japan’s Seiun Award, so maybe my perception is a bit off. If this had been written 40 or 50 years ago when this style of science fiction writing was predominant, Nojiri’s work would be considered a classic. What we’ve come to expect from science fiction has changed quite a bit, so it feels quite dated. Not in technology, just in style. The technology described is still interesting, even a decade after its original publication as short stories in Japan.

Full review at my blog: http://reading.kingrat.biz/reviews/usurper-of-the-sun-housuke-nojiri ( )

Peering through the astronomy club’s telescope, a Japanese schoolgirl is the first to observe a giant tower on the planet Mercury. When other observatories confirm its existence Aki Shiraishi becomes the most interviewed person on Earth. It propels her into a career in astronomy. When the tower begins to construct a ring around Mercury that blocks sunlight from reaching earth, climactic disaster shakes the planet and civilization is in chaos. Eight years after her initial discovery and as the most prominent scientist in the new field of ringology, Aki arrives at Johnson Space Center in Houston to train for the Vulcan Mission, a mission to send a spacecraft to Mercury to destroy the ring. ( )