The Book Depository A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White
903 ratings
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Price: £14.55
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe : Paperback : Little, Brown & Company : 9780316412063 : 0316412066 : 26 Jul 2018 : The first book in a bold, new, planet-hopping, treasure-hunting science fiction series that blends the lightning-pace of The Fast and the Furious with the fun characters of Firefly. The Book Depository A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780316412063
MPN: 0316412066
GTIN: 9780316412063
Author: MR C DICKIE
Rating: 5
Review: Sorry but I don't like works of creativity that include our currently accepted beliefs of 'physics' in it. It's not sustainable as time and time again these theories are shown to be in need of correction. How am I to read some fiction and determine my life around these notions. It's not fantasy, it's all science non-fiction fiction. Emmm.... Although, if 'magic' were to exist in solar systems far away, might not this abide, and be caused, by ''''...scientific...''' rules. I read the whole book and then gave up there. Compares favourably as an aside to A Brief History of Time. I almost gave it one star due to the brazenness of the author to ignore clearly defined genre limits. I've awarded this work of fiction five stars as there's a thin line between success and failure when negotiating the meandering path of appeasement in peoples sense of false limits. I enjoyed reading it.
Author: Amazon Customer
Rating: 1
Review: Wow. I've read some bad books recently, but this turned out to be a stand-out clunker. It's not just that it's badly written. Although it is. The author takes some time at the end to thank the other hands involved, so it's been badly edited too. Otherwise, you imagine, road-bumps like "recalcitrance" and the obvious confusion between "previous and "prior" would have been nipped in the bud. Above and below that, though, it's broken at every level. The structure doesn't work. There are two point of view characters, both introduced as if they're the protagonist but neither of them ever really assumes the role. They both have redemption arcs, and both go through the exact same experiences to get there. They're also 2 out of 3 leading-ish female characters who all have the same stick-figure, slightly broken, isolated, angry, arrogant, single-minded personality. The story doesn't shift cleanly or evenly between them. And because all the characters have the same monovoice, it's never completely clear which one's on stage or in focus. It's just "redunditrance". For a story that's been praised for the characters, it's depressingly light on character and very heavy on event. I would say plot, but there isn't really any single thread that drives the story. The title's "Big Ship" isn't important to either PoV. One wants to retire to a farm, and the other is a grand prix racing driver who wants not to be wanted for murder anymore. The only person the "Big Ship" really serves is the author, because it's the crowbar to get his projected write-to-market series-setting spaceship and ragtag crew of supporting characters involved. This is one of a new breed of books which try to merge sci-fi technology with magic, which just begs the question, why bother? Why reinvent the wheel? Most great space adventure technology is already, essentially, magical. For a start, interstellar space travel. Fantasy power sources provide inconsistently limitless power for anything from spaceships to ray guns, until the plot demands that they don't. Readers just buy in and get on with the job in hand. Even in the original Star Wars, the Force wasn't much more than a neat rationale for why the good guys were such great shots and the bad guys couldn't hit a barn. Should've left it there, Mr L. The magic system in "Big Ship" isn't particularly imaginative. It generally just takes standard fantasy technology and says "because magic". It's also not consistent, especially when the plot demands a necessary impurity so that magic stops working. Most characters have a midichlorian-like magic gland, which like the Wild Card virus or the X-gene or terrigen mist bizarrely doesn't work the same way for everyone. Some people don't have the gland, and can't do magic, which means fair enough they can't do magic themselves, but it also inconsistently ends up making some magic not work on them sometimes. On top of this there's a whole cake-and-eat-it thing going on where there's also bog standard technology at work. The problem there is, the author obviously doesn't entirely understand the real science he throws at the wall. Usually "inertia" or "momentum". In a nutshell, it's terrible, and if I'd paid more than a daily deal price I'd be very cross. As it is, I'm just disappointed, mainly with myself for sheep-following all those 5 star reviewers. If you're in any doubt that it isn't great, look at the number of those 5 star reviews that praise with faint damnation like, "it's great if you ignore the dumb stuff", or "it's OK if you don't care that the author doesn't get science".
