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The Ring of Charon | Rating | |
| A | |||
| Roger MacBride Allen | |||
| Series | Related Books | ||
| The Hunted Earth | The Ring of Charon, The Shattered Sphere | ||
The future is doing well. Man has colonized the entire Solar System with orbitals and habitats. Not even Pluto and its tiny moon, Charon, remain untouched, the latter the home of a gigantic particle accellerator and control station aimed at unveiling the secrets of gravity. And yet, the future isn't doing very well at all. The economy is slumping badly, radicals and antitech groups are growing larger and louder, and research stations - such as the one at Pluto - are in serious jeopardy of closing due to lack of funding. So Larry Chao performs one last, unauthorized experiment to show gravitics research to be viable and on the edge of producing real results, and gets far more than he bargains for when his experiment is interpreted by a long-dormant device as a signal to steal the Earth. Now those who remain in the Solar System must figure out where the planet went, how to get it back, and what the heck to do with the sudden intrusion by thousands of uncommunicative aliens intent on doing something at the planets and moons left over.
The very idea of stealing a planet, of physically taking it somewhere, is so grand it is absurd. But Allen actually makes it work, and not just with good technobabble. The tension and drama of it all is done masterfully, and people react exactly as you'd expect to such an event.
The books lot is essentially dual. On the one hand, there are the people dealing with this strange invasion. On the other hand, readers follow the System's main scientists and thinkers as they try to unravel the mystery of what the heck happened, as well as how and why. What is particularly enjoyable is that while readers know more about circumstances thanks to the book's narration, they are not told everything. Thus we get to chuckle and shake our heads as characters come to perfectly logical but wrong conclusions, but still appreciate that these people are smart as they realize facts that were previously hidden even to the reader. It's a delicate balance that Allen handles with finesse.
Simply put, this book is excellent. The educated reader can find some problems with the author's technical jargon, but it is easily dismissed as quibbles in light of the excellent plot and storytelling. The book might even qualify as hard science fiction, if barely. But I daresay it will appeal to just about any science fiction fan at all.
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