Tau Zero
Ratings54
Average rating3.6
This book packs a hell of punch for something so short. There are some outdated gender stereotypes going on but they didn't bother me too much. The story and what the crew ends up doing is a thrilling ride.
I read this only because I've enjoyed some of the author's other books. I'm normally looking for a story that walks the fine line between plot movement, character building, world building, and the subject the author's is wanting to present for consideration, in the hopes of being drawn in.
I think this book has done most of that except it didn't go far enough in any direction to draw me in. The characters had good beginnings but not much depth, the science would be intriguing if there had been a pinch of something, not sure what, had been added. The only thing I think where it was fleshed out is how human beings would react to being detached from everything that a human being needs to be vibrant, for lack of a better word.
I don't believe I've heard this narrator before; they have an interesting pace to their sentences. I have wondered if that was natural or intended for this book.
A rounded up 3.5. Great, big ideas (as long as you don't think about them too much) and a truly stunning timescale, however the characterisation is weak (plus a lot of the astronauts for this trip seemed to have been selected purposely to wind each other up). You can see why it was a classic of its time.
There are obvious dangers serving on a colony ship headed for a potentially habitable planet. Will the crew manage the effects of isolation, zero g, and continuous existential crisis? What about the time dilation effects due to travelling at near light speed - can people cope with the fact that the planet they're leaving will experience decades of change in their 5 year journey? What if the planet can't actually sustain life - can you imagine having to go back? Even more practically: will you even survive the journey?
Tau Zero explores all these types of questions before grinning mischievously and throwing one last monkey wrench into the equation: what if the ship is damaged en route - not in a life-threatening way - and now can no longer stop? In fact, it can no longer even slow down; its crew is able to survive indefinitely, but time is dilating further as minutes on board the ship become centuries outside. They can't land, call back to home, or even make repairs, and the stars and planets and galaxies they're able to see outside their windows are looking ever stranger and out of reach.
It's a really cool idea. Tau Zero is a hard science (well, for 1970) sci-fi book first and foremost, but at many points throughout it feels closer to a post-apocalypse story. After the aforementioned disaster strikes, the crew of the Leonora Christine become survivors of a very personal apocalypse. The world they knew is gone in every sense of the word, and they themselves have become ghosts without a home or purpose.
The book excels when it explores these ideas, or when it dips into the poetic to describe cosmic phenomena, or when dives into paragraphs of big, crunchy technical jargon for the all the science work being done. It's wonderful scifi writing.
The problem is everything else.
A book detailing a disaster really needs to get the human element right. People should respond to it believably, which might mean some acting irrationally, others rising to heroics, still others falling into depravity or doom or hysterics. The drama and tension naturally arise from people overcoming their weaknesses, making tough decisions, and so forth.
But Tau Zero's characters aren't really people; they're barely even 2D cardboard cutouts. They wander from scene to scene expositing dialogue at each other, or saying their internal monologues out loud to advance a thread, or suddenly acting out of character because it's convenient for the plot at the time. There's very little conflict (the most physical it gets is a single fistfight over cards) and drama is often resolved with a handwave.
The dialogue is especially embarrassing. There are some scenes early on where characters are literally just stating their backstories to one another intermixed with current world history that would surely be obvious to them. It's the type of thing that'd get you in trouble with your 9th grade English teacher.
The worst by far is the protagonist. He's a military man, a cop-esque figure on the ship. But also he knows everything about space and astrophysics and chemistry and planetary colonization and can stand toe-to-toe with experts in their field in any scientific discussion. His arguments are always correct, and those who doubt him eventually regret their words and deeds. He's a better captain than the captain. He's a master manipulator, with networks of deputies and secret deputies and spies. He can pilot star ships better than anyone. He's the best melee fighter, the best at navigating zero-g, and the only one with a gun. He's also naturally handsome, rugged, and is worshipped by at least two women.
He's absolutely ridiculous.
It's such a shame, because I love so much else about this book. Though the science never really rang true to me, I still suspended my disbelief because it's explained so well. The premise is excellent, equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, and the tension it weaves throughout the book left my palms sweaty.
All it needed was a handful of characters who behaved like humans. Instead, we get these weirdos. You get the sense that Anderson viewed humans as an unfortunate necessity to write about a cool spaceship flight. I wish he hadn't even bothered and made the Leonora Christine an unmanned expedition.
This was not the book I thought it was.
Long ago I read a book about a group of people were traveling in space and for some reason they are able to solve very complex problems.
In particular, they developed a way to send a lot of text by converting it to a single very large number.
This book involves a group of people traveling through space at very high velocities and enormous relativistic effects occur.
It's very interesting but not the one I thought.
Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 7
Prose: 5
An interesting concept: The first intergalactic space voyage destined to the most Earth-like planet identified. However, it is a hard science fiction novel. As such, the book is really about the science and simply does not focus on the story enough. P.Anderson does justice to the character emotions, but it isn't enough.
Interesting note: This is the extra-terrestrial version of Wells' The Time Machine.