nitishkmrk

This book was an okay adventure in an alternate-world kind of Venus, in which our heroes take an airship across Venus to rescue a downed spacecraft, get stranded themselves, and then must try to make their way back thousands of miles without getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers, raptors, massive dinosaurs of all stripes, huge crocodiles, etc. Not to mention the rampaging Neanderthals and their clubs. Much of the story unfolds in a very predictable fashion, peopled by characters of only limited depth. The protagonist, Marc, trains a local almost-wolf by rescuing it as a puppy, from which point on it is 100% loyal, super-intelligent, and figures out what he wants apparently by mind-reading, developing new skills as needed, like bloodhound-style tracking and knowing which people it should bite and which it should protect, without any instruction. Marc also hunts raptors on foot, bests a native rival (who is 2 inches taller than Marc but 30 seconds later described as 3 inches taller) in hand-to-hand combat (of course, this rival then develops grudging support for Marc, even though he's supposed to have "made a deadly enemy" by besting him), builds just about anything overnight, and speaks in a subtly annoying Bayou patois. Wait, you ask, what about a native Venusian love interest for Marc? Don't worry, she's in there too. The ongoing mystery behind the plot is the question of why so much of the life on Venus (human and animal and plant) is so similar to that of Earth, although curiously jumbled together (dinosaurs with modern humans with Neanderthals). This is an interesting puzzle, with a sort of uninteresting (to me) solution. The innovative element is the alternate history reworking of American and Soviet exploration of Venus, and the effects of their findings on local Earth politics. I found this interesting, but the egregious modification of Venus itself was like fingernails on a chalkboard. It's not often that a book raises my scientific hackles by the second line. In fact, I don't think that's ever happened before. But when this book mentioned Venus's "short nights", I thought, "What?!" Not only did Stirling change the rotational period of Venus, he also modified its atmosphere, pressure, history, geology, and everything else... in grating conflict with even what you'd observe of Venus from Earth (before visiting). I usually can manage sufficient suspension of disbelief, but in this case it was a constant grating annoyance. Others might do better with this. :) Overall, it was engaging enough to keep me reading. But I recall enjoying Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time much more. It's possible that this was written as a nod to Edgar Rice Burroughs in terms of his Mars and Venus books, and it certainly has some of the same feel (plot, world, and local love interest-wise); but while books written in the 1930's about space travel have a certain innocent charm, books written today in blatant violation of the most basic current observations of our neighbor planets instead seem... weak.

2022-10-23 21:33