Reckoning Infinity

An SF novel about a group of people investigating a strange object that's entered the solar system, which might be a ship, or might be an organism, or might be both. But things get dangerous very quickly, and once they're in, it turns out not to be nearly as easy getting back out again.

It's a decent enough example of this particular kind of SF novel. My biggest complaint about it is that the exploration isn't nearly as exciting and sense-of-wonder-infused as it really should be. There are some fairly suspenseful moments where the crew's survival is in danger, but far too much of the story involves crawling through endless, featureless tunnels, and while the artifact is interesting in an abstract kind of way, significant revelations show more about it are few and far between. I do, however, like the way the author pays attention to scientific details, particularly the realities of moving around in low gravity, without resorting to lots of clunky exposition or narrative-stopping physics lectures. And although the characterization is far from perfect -- one character who should be immediately sympathetic, for instance, comes across as far too self-pitying, and another who might be obnoxious in an entertaining way instead becomes annoyingly one-note -- at least there is a sincere attempt at characterization and everybody acts reasonably human, something that is by no means guaranteed in a hard SF story. show less

sigh. this is not worth the read: it's poorly written, the dialogue is stiff and artificial, the descriptions are boring, and the character's voices sound fake because they don't fit their profiles. what is amiss with TOR that it is publishing books of this calibre? it's a fair enough premise, and a good title. now somebody needs to write a decent book around it.

ZB5