Pallas

by L. Neil Smith

Book Overview

Pallas is a colonized asteroid and home to the Greeley Project, a colony/prison under the direction of former U.S. Senator Gibson Altman. Young Emerson Ngu, escapee from the Greeley Project and husband to Altman's daughter, uses his talents to achieve dazzling success. Now it's a standoff that Pallas may not survive.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312856768
• ISBN13: 9780312856762
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 447 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Another great novel by one of the greatest authors of all time.

Once again, L. Neil nails it. Great story, characters you'd like to know, places you'd like to go, villains you want to kill, what more could you ask for! Another Libertarian fantasy I wish I could be on the scene for.

Pallas - Literature for the 21st Century

Not many science fiction writers can actually create a new world populated by heroic, but real people - AND convey a sense of dynamic IDEAS about society and technology that yoju would WANT the future to become. L. Neil Smith has done just that with "Pallas", arguably his BEST BOOK ever (until the upcoming "Ceres", that is! :-) Pallas tells the story of a child inventor who grows up to become a hero amidst the largely, but not exclusively, liberty-loving colony on Pallas asteroid. While the enemy is obvious, the plot twists and turns are not. In science-fiction, its the IDEAS that count, and this book ROCKS with them. As good, if not better, than Robert Heinlein and Fred Pohl. Buy and read this book and enjoy!

How do you take your freedom? straight or on the rocks?

L. Neil Smith's vivid portrayl of absolute personal freedom versus the politically correct utopia is mind opening. Not only does this book show exactly the reason our forefathers put specifically into our constitiution our right to bear arms, but it also shows how things could have been if we hadn't felt the urgent need to get rid of our personal responsibilites by giving them over to a government. The clashes between Emerson Ngu and his arch enemy Gibson Altman are completely realistic, the plot flows true-to-life, and even though Smith is a bit heavy handed with libertarian rhetoric, it doesn't take anything away from the story. Besides, aren't most of us, in our most private thoughts, sick and tired of the intrusions we allow our government to make?

El Neil At His Best

The thing that most intrigues me about Smith's fiction is that, even though I know he's going to preach libertarianism to me, I also know he's going to slip in at least one new thought I'd never considered. I just never know when it's coming, or from what direction.So...was the invention of agriculture really a positive turning point in human history? I must admit the question had never occurred to me.The characterizations are stronger in this novel than in some of his earlier work. I get the impression that he's more confident, finding his own voice rather than trying to be Heinlein. You can find things to quibble with. The Pallas society is a bit self-consciously old-west. In an environment where all guns have to be imported from Earth I couldn't get past how casually Emerson acquired an extraordinary speciman. The ending left me a bit unsatisfied.But all in all it's a very fine novel; engrossing and thought-provoking as almost all Smith books are, and highly entertaining. There are very few contemporary authors that I follow around to see when the next book is due; Smith has become one of them.

Something very rare in Sci-Fi

Pallas is something very rare inaSci-Fi read, it provoked me into thinking about the nature of our society. I wasn't a liberatrian before this but I seriously considering it now. I am ordering copies for my two nephews, maybe it'll also start them thinking. Though the novel ends on an optomistic note, probably in the real world men like Altman will win out and we will all live in Greeley.

Pallas and Smith's Message are Long Overdue

In a world where individual freedom is under seige from both sides of an obsolete political spectrum, Pallas and the other works of L. Neil Smith are a godsend. In Pallas, Smith conveys a simple message: Freedom. This freedom has been absent from most of the world throughout human history, and it's about time that we start striving to obtain the free market society that Smith envisions.