Robert L. Forward (1932–2002)

If you can get past the rampant sexism, hamfisted dialogue, inexplicable alien orgies, and detachment from all realistic human behavior, there's actually an interesting physics thought experiment here.

Robert L. Forward (1932-2002) was better known as a physicist than a novelist. He worked on such science-fictionally hip projects as gravitational waves and the technology for spacecraft tethers. His first novel, Dragon’s Egg (1980), was inspired by Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity (1953), in which the crew of a human spacecraft interacts with a species on a high-gravity planet. In Dragon’s Egg, a human crew studies a fast-evolving species on the surface of a neutron star.
Like Clement, show more Forward was careful to keep his speculation scientifically accurate. He has been quoted as saying that his story was a textbook on neutron stars in novel form. The novel has a clever appendix explaining the physics. Its bibliography includes some fictional future works and some of Forward’s own scientific publications. I think I should have read it first.
The common complaint about his writing is that his character development is minimal. True enough, though I did root for several of his crab-like aliens. I also appreciated the timely case he makes for appreciating the talent of women in physics.
If your taste in science fiction runs to the hard stuff, you should relish a little Dragon’s Egg. show less

We need more sci-fi books like this. There is all I love in a sci-fi book: hard physics, a mind-bending concept of alien life, an optimistic view of the future. I don't want to spoil the fun so I won't go into the details of how the pressure, magnetic field and gravity of the neutron star affect its inhabitants, but if you have some knowledge of physics (and/or of Star Trek LOL) you'll guess what's coming!
I hadn't had such fun since the spider society in Children of Time, and I have to say show more that the two books are very similar, albeit Dragon's Egg predates the other novel by decades. Forward must have inspired a whole genre, and I am here for it.
The social evolution on the surface of the neutron star is very much modelled on human history - again, pretty much as in Children of Time - and the human characters are quite roughly sketched, but the novel is thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless, especially if you like to be introduced to a different way of experiencing the world, through the eyes of an alien creature. I particularly liked the way Forward gave the Cheela society an original twist about sex, gender relationships and parenthood without making it feel forced. At some stage I was thinking Cheela for few minutes even after putting the book down :)
The biological evolution of the Cheela is also quite fun to witness, at least for a reader like me, quite ignorant in matters of biology and biochemistry. Maybe people with a more solid background will find the science laughable, but I had a helluva time. show less

The concept is brilliant: intelligent life evolves on a neutron star, which means they experience the world a million times faster than us.

The question of how to communicate with a being whose lifespan unfolds over your coffee break adds an interesting personal dimension, as we see relationships develop in which each side has a very different experience of their shared time. The progress of the civilisation as a whole is just as compelling. The cheela (inhabitants of the neutron star), show more while capable of reasoning and abstract thought, had been acting essentially on instinct, under the harsh constraints of their environment. But with the slightest prod from human contact, they explode into civilisation.

Given their ability to spend a lifetime planning a response to any move from the humans, the cheela are able to run rings around us; no spoilers, though, about what they choose to do.

As usual, I'd love to be able to read a book like this without having to hear how hot all the female scientists are, but hey. show less