Slow Train to Arcturus

by Eric Flint and Dave Freer

Book Overview

1. Eric Flint has co-written three NYT's best-sellers.

2. Flint's 1632 was a smash hit, with over 95,000 copies sold, and an 88% sell through in mass market from 02/01 to date.

3. Flint and Freer's earlier collaborations have had strong sell throughs, including 76% in mass market from 02/03 to date for their Pyramid Scheme.

4. Freer's A Mankind Witch garnered rave reviews, such as a starred...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416555854
• ISBN13: 9781416555858
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Baen
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Creative, Relevant Story In the Tradition of Classic Sci-Fi

The short version: A ripping yarn with big social ideas about the need for society to be big enough to value those at its frontiers and for those on the edge to lend their experiences worth by passing them on for others' benefit. I would buy this for a tween/teen or older without hesitation. The long version: This is very much its own book, though it would be easy to compare this to a number of other works. Imagine "The Wizard of Oz" as written by J. Michael Straczynski or "The Canterbury Tales" as written by Isaac Asimov. Such comparisons can be drawn for the simple reason that "Slow Train to Arcturus" takes a classic narrative form, the physical journey that produces and represents an emotional and intellectual evolution, and sets it down as a science fiction tale with a couple of very interesting twists. It has plenty of leg to stand on as its own tale, however. The plot itself is a ripping yarn that gets off to an engaging start by being told entirely from the perspective of an alien scientist for the first few chapters. We are given just enough introduction to the alien species whose encounter with humanity frames the story that we feel we can trust the narrator's take on the situation and are comfortable with their intent. The alien species is compellingly written, very human in their ambitions and their better natures but sufficiently different to inspire curiosity and a little wonder. They are an example of the very best of classic science fiction alien life: just different enough to be weird, and for much of the story its through their eyes that we see events and the reader has to parse their descriptions of things. Later narration spins out to a more omniscient third person but alien views of humanity are used to good effect as proxies for the ways we humans find one another to be alien. I won't discuss the plot, for fear of spoilers, except to say that the events of the book provide its authors with ample opportunities to create and describe complex new settings which they do with relish. They show time and again that they've put real thought, creative and logical, into the settings they describe. Elements of "hard" sci-fi pop up throughout but always as ways to enable the story rather than as barriers in its path. To be honest, despite all this praise, for most of my first reading my reactions were critical. Up until the very end I thought I had predicted the ultimate outcome perfectly only to find that I had not. I thought I had figured out the politics of the story and I had not. I thought I had seen all these characters before but kept being surprised by little things they did until the resolution, though natural, was in fact not something I had predicted at the beginning. Eventually I realized why I kept feeling like I had failed to click with it: I had come at it from the wrong angle. This is written in the classic, politics-on-its-sleeve style of the science fiction of a generation or two ago, where

Hard science fiction about the soft sciences

This is the best "hard" science fiction book I've read in a long time. It takes the eminently plausible concept of a generation ship, and solves the two major issues with it: 1. How do you keep the artificial biospheres going. 2. Why would anybody want to spend their lives, and the lives of their descendants for generations to come, in such a limited environment. This emphasis is what you'd expect from a book written by a biologist and a historian, which is what Dave Freer and Eric Flint are by training. It makes this book much more interesting than previous books in the generation ship sub-genre. That, by itself, would make this book worth reading. However, as an added bonus, we have Dave Freer's zany humor. The story is told from the perspective of an alien, going through human societies populated mostly by what mainstream human society considered worthless losers. This makes for very interesting encounters. Here's one you can read without spoiling the book: He was a good hunter. By uThani standards, too good. Too good to be unmarried anyway. It was fun being chased by several women, but sometimes the consequences of letting more than one catch you . . . Caught up with you. Especially if your name meant hunter-whose-balls-are-bigger-than-his-brains. So he'd gone off on a hunting trip, a long hunting trip. If you like hard science fiction, read this book. If you don't like hard science fiction because you don't particularly like physics, read this book. If you don't like hard science fiction, but like humor, read this book.

Another Excellent Read from Dave Freer

Dave Freer comes up with a novel idea in this new book; combining several old SF tropes into one concept. Once again, this is character driven SF, with a hard science background and plenty of good dialogue. Anyone who likes to read will enjoy this book, and if you already know Dave's work, you'll really like it.

Pilgrim Takes a Slow Train

Dave Freer and Eric Flint have taken an interesting idea and used it to ring changes on Pilgrim's Progress. Imagine a starship made up of linked but not easily interconnected habitats in which many small utopian societies have created their cultures while traveling to the planets that will be their ultimate homes. Imagine some of those cultures breaking down, and then inject a set of aliens who come visiting. Now visualize all of this with Freer and Flint's patented twisted sense of humor, from collaborations like Pyramid Scheme. You'll like this book. Walt Boyes Associate Editor Jim Baen's Universe [...]

A Motley Crew

Slow Train to Arcturus (2008) is a standalone SF novel. The story is set in the mid-future over five centuries from now. The ship/habitat was launched in 2153, but the interception by Miran aliens took place in deep space about four centuries later. In this novel, the Mirans detect an alien spacecraft approaching their sun at a velocity of 0.3 lightspeed. Checking their archives, they discover two centuries of data on the alien vessel. They decide to investigate the object more closely. Mirans are generally claustrophobic and hate crowds. Since the spaceship is small and crowded, the crew were chosen for their relative comfort in such conditions. Moreover, Mirans start life as males and eventually transform to sessile females. Since they are larger and more experienced than the males, the females rule Miran society. All the crew are taking drugs to remain male. The Mirans rendezvous with the alien vessel after a voyage of six years and over a distance of 1.8 lightyears from their home sun. Most of the crew were in drugged suspension for the trip. As they neared the alien vessel, the sleeping crew are awakened. Kretz is the xenobiologist and engineer in the crew. Nobody thinks that a biologist will be necessary since the alien vessel is obviously a probe. Yet Kretz is among the crew because they can't go back to get anything they forgot. Selna is the ship physician. He is close to changeover to a female. The drugs are just barely keeping him male. Zawn is the archaeologist and leader of the crew. He should have a field day with the alien object. Arbet is the deepspace radiation expert and pilot. He has been awake during the whole six years studying deepspace emissions. Derfel is a generalist, a jack of all trades. He has several fields of expertise. He is the most abnormal of the misfit crew, actually liking crowds and small spaces. In this story, Kretz awakes still groggy from the drugs. Zawn is already awake and viewing instruments on the science deck. Kretz joins him there and Selna gives him a vile-tasting high-energy drink to speed his recovery. The alien spacecraft is obviously not just a probe. It has engines and a working fusion reactor as well as atmospheric replenishments. It is composed of spherical objects like beads on a string. Moreover, it has airlocks. Zawn and Kretz discuss who will enter the alien vessel. They decide that they will both go and that Arbet will accompany them. Their ship maneuvers behind the last bead on the string and links up to the rearmost airlock. When they enter the vessel, they find it contains many tunnels lined with lights, pipes and plants. They also find living aliens. After a bad start, relations seem to improve. Their translator computers are beginning to understand the alien language. On the next visit, the stripe-faced strangers invite the whole crew to come to a banquet. Unfortunately, the Mirans seem destined to be the main course. The aliens throw flame a