Beyond Heaven's River

by Greg Bear

Book Overview

Yoshio Kawashita is a great warrior until aliens whisk him away during World War II. They put him on a desolate planet far from his home, where he is destined to remain forever, leaving him alone in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743474848
• ISBN13: 9780743474849
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: iBooks
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable easy read

This definitely shows the signs of being an early novel, but it is still quite enjoyable, employing some nice literary touches. As another reviewer remarked, the book had some poor editing. Lines of dialogue were obviously missing. There were also some continuity issues in terms of the book's tone, but it is very clear that beneath these surface glitches is a strong story and a strong budding writer.

Sublime and Inventive to boot.

"Beyond Heaven's River" is a well-plotted novel, something that seems to be increasingly rare in the world of Science Fiction. Maybe it is because it is a sparsely printed, 250 page novel, instead of some 600 page, mini-script, sloppy "epic". For that reason alone it is weel worth reading; there can be good, short SF novels. Beyond that, Bear has constructed a wonderfully sublime, if a bit overly vague, universe, inhabited by unseen aliens and filled with motivated, imperial human beings. Within this context, a Japanese soldier, from the early 20th Century is an interesting point of view to follow through the bizarre, soul-searching, (dare I say?) epic.