A Maze of Stars

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A Maze of Stars

Title:

A Maze of Stars

Author:

Brunner, John

Subject:

Fiction

Science Fiction

Description:

A thought-provoking novel of a sentient spaceship’s voyages, from the Hugo Award–winning author of Stand on Zanzibar. "One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves." —SF Site Among six hundred thousand stars visited by man, sixty thousand have planets hospitable to life, six thousand have developed life and six hundred have been settled, or seeded, with humanity. A vast vessel, known simply as Ship, travels an endless route, checking in with all the settled planets, observing, offering help where it can as some flourish, some falter but all change and evolve. Unexpectedly, Ship has developed feelings and intelligence and it struggles with human-like emotions as it sees the many ways that man can evolve or devolve when left to his own devices with the one eternal constant—change.

Publisher:

Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Open Road Media

Date:

2014/04/01

Digital Format:

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Language:

English

Summary

A thought-provoking novel of a sentient spaceship's voyages, from the Hugo Award-winning author of Stand on Zanzibar .

"One of the most important science fiction authors. Brunner held a mirror up to reflect our foibles because he wanted to save us from ourselves." --SF Site

Among six hundred thousand stars visited by man, sixty thousand have planets hospitable to life, six thousand have developed life and six hundred have been settled, or seeded, with humanity. A vast vessel, known simply as Ship, travels an endless route, checking in with all the settled planets, observing, offering help where it can as some flourish, some falter but all change and evolve. Unexpectedly, Ship has developed feelings and intelligence and it struggles with human-like emotions as it sees the many ways that man can evolve or devolve when left to his own devices with the one eternal constant--change.

Author Notes

John Brunner started his career as a productive writer of Ace Double Science Fiction novels, sometimes writing both sides of the same double. He produced a wide variety of entertaining and well-conceived science fiction adventures before testing his ambitions with more and more complex and stylistically sophisticated novels. Among his triumphs are Stand on Zanzibar (Hugo winner for Best Novel), The Jagged Orbit , The Sheep Look Up , The Shockwave Rider , and A Maze of Stars . Although he wrote relatively little fantasy, he was widely acclaimed for a series of short stories collected as The Compleat Traveller in Black . Brunner also wrote mysteries, thrillers, and several well-regarded historical novels.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The latest novel from award winner Brunner ( The Crucible of Time ) reads like a series of short stories loosely linked by a framing narrative and a potentially intriguing plot device: a sentient spaceship. Called simply the Ship, this technologically superior vessel placed human colonies 500 years ago on the hundreds of hospitable worlds in the densely packed Arm of Stars. Programmed to return periodically and monitor the colonies' progress, the Ship is permitted to rescue endangered settlements--or individuals--and carry them to a more suitable planet. Since the Ship was developed with the capacity to think, Brunner depicts it striving to understand its own ultimate purpose and evolving personality. As it visits the various colony worlds, Brunner chooses several of these planets for closer inspection, producing a largely self-contained short story in each case before the Ship moves on. These sections display the author's impressive imaginative powers as he creates detailed, unique cultures and histories for each of his worlds. These independent narratives do not, however, add up to a successful novel. The passengers become little more than talking heads, asking the Ship questions that allow Brunner to fill in background details. The final section, in which Brunner explains the origins and purpose of the Ship, is flat and hurried. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Review

Trapped in an endless progression through time and space, a sentient ship visits and revisits the 600 planets it once seeded with human life, occasionally picking up passengers for enlightenment and entertainment and always questioning its purpose in a universe where human adaptability has too often proven its undoing. As is often the case in metaphysical meditations disguised as sf novels, this ambitious work by the author of Stand on Zanzibar (1968) suffers from too much philosophy and too little continuity, as intriguing characters appear and disappear in a few short chapters. Libraries with large sf collections may want to consider. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

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