A new feature: book review

“Horizons” by Mary Rosenblum (ISBN 978-0-7653-5515-7, $6.99, 324 pages) is the first book from this author I’ve seen, and no others by her are mentioned in or on the book. I will admit I sometimes *do* judge a book by its cover, and this one has a nice write-up on the back which intrigued me. I won’t say it’s the best sci-fi book I’ve ever read (probably something written by Asimov or Heinlein if you really press me), but it’s fairly good and kept my interest.

Civilization on Earth has advanced to the point where there are several orbiting “cities”, asteroid miners (rock jocks), and a quasi-UN organization which is made up of some small nations and some large federations, like the European Union and the North American Alliance. A faction of ecologists called Gaiists are wanting to twart independence efforts by these Platforms from the Earth, humanity has started to evolve into another species in the micro-G environment, nano-tech augementation allows empaths who can read emotions but not thoughts, and several other interesting twists provide plenty of backdrop for what appears to be both inter-family and intra-family feuding but on second glance things aren’t quite what they appear to be.

I won’t give away any of the plot but I will say two things: the butler didn’t do it, and the good guys (sans white hats) do win in the end.

This one will never sit on the classics shelf next to “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells, but it’s a good way to occupy a cold winter’s evening or three.

*** of *****

This entry was posted on 18. December 2007 at 18:49 and is filed under Book reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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