The Burning Heart of Night

by Ivan Cat

Book Overview

Lindal Karr is a one - in - a - million seedship pilot; an extremely rare individual who can exist in the slowed - down fugue - state necessary to pilot one of the enormous, living spacecraft which transports colonists in deep - sleep from one world to the next. But when Karr's ship is sabotaged, his titanic vessel crashes onto the island planet New Ascension, setting a portion of the planet's immense ocean ablaze. Karr ejects and survives, only to...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0886777895
• ISBN13: 9780886777890
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Daw Books
• Length: 591 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Read

Ivan Cat's book is a great adventure story which brings a starship's captain onto a planet where the human colonists and alien inhabitants are hopelessly divided without and within. The author's strength is his ability to tell a story with cinematic clarity, a story bringing together the elements of prophecy, legend, and strife that result in the undertaking of a quest with all participants seeking a common goal despite differing motives. Mr. Cat's ideas are well thought out. His description of "fugue time," for example, a state of being in which subjective time is slowed down to a fraction of real time, is brilliant and entertaining. Mr. Cat's ability to get into the alien mind of the Kafra is utterly convincing, and as well, he exposes with surprising subtlety the infighting between the different factions of the human colonists. As in all the best sci-fi novels, Mr. Cat deals with complex issues directly related to those in the real world: morality, exploitation of resources, conservation, prejudice. But the author never gets preachy. The action keeps the plot moving, so much so that for the whole time I was reading this novel, I found myself compulsively reading snatches of it whenever I had a free moment. This novel is stronger than Mr. Cat's first and is more thought-provoking, but Cat's strength is that he never loses sight of the fact he is telling a story. This book will appeal to anyone who wants a good action-adventure romp but also to those who want a book that engages the intellect. Well worth the money.

As creative as any writer in the SF field

Ivan Cat's "The Burning Heart of Night" is a creative mind's play area. The concepts he puts forth are simultaneously very cool and rich with mindbending consequences as the story progresses. This book has the most unique solution to the problem of relativitic travel ever imagined. It has a Living Starship (a seedship) and a Valiant Pilot (Lindal Karr), existing in a unique symbiotic relationship. It has aliens that you'll love and aliens that may disgust you. It has a young (of age, sorta) lady (Jenette Tesla) that you'll dream of and fall in love with. It has a plague that threatens to wipeout the human colony that's barely scrapping out a living on New Ascension. It has joys and sorrows, and moral dilemnas that keep all the 'relationships' vibrant and you reading. It has prose that's second to none. This book is a visionaries own Cinema in words. Though, the story may drag at about the two-thirds point, HOLD ON, getting to the end is mandatory. You'll be shocked and surprised and delighted. The story is a technologically based adventure SF comparable to Niven's Ringworld. Also recommended: Ringworld by Larry Niven The Eyes of Light and Darkness by Ivan Cat

Great Science Fiction

Ivan Cat's new novel "The Burning Heart of Night" is a masterful exercise in world-building, combining a delightful story, interesting characters, and an exciting plot that kept me page-turning late into the night. While I agree with some other reviewers who pointed out that the conclusion is maybe a little too pat and idealized, this did not detract from the overall fun I had with the book.This is one of those science fiction works that keeps you thinking about it after the last page is read. What would happen if human "seeding" of colonies, at sub light speeds, became a high priority? Would the pace of human innovation be drastically slowed when it takes decades or centuries to transfer information between colonies? And what would happen if some humans (pilots) spent most of their lives in "fugue" time, spanning thousands of "real" years? What would they be like, and what would happen if they suddenly found themselves having to interact with "normal" people?And what would happen on a planet like "New Ascension" where unforeseen planet biology forces tough choices on the colonists? How would human society evolve? And how would the colony leaders react? Only towards the end of the novel do we begin to understand why the New Ascension colonists behave the way they do.I found myself pondering all these questions and more after finishing the book. However, I do not want to leave the impression that this novel is simply an intellectual exercise. There is action and excitement apace. The hero falls in and out of dire straights more often than Indiana Jones. There were a few times when I thought he was toast, and it was only by noting that several hundred pages were left in the book that I could foresee his escape ... and escape he does, in unexpected yet logical ways!The novel is not flawless. I noted a few lapses of science and logic that slightly mar the overall ambience. Also the dialog is a little clunky in a few places, awkwardness that is not completely explained to me by the circumstances and setting. But these are minor cavils by an anal-retentive perfectionist (me) and detract little from the book. The fact that I read the entire 591 page story in three days (and I am not a particularly fast reader) will attest to that point.In summary, I would unreservedly recommend this book to science fiction fans, and to anyone else who likes exciting, well plotted books with interesting stories that also provide food for thought.

Grand science fiction adventure!

Ivan Cat bursted on the sf scene a few years ago with the unforgettable and chilling space opera:eyes of light and darkness.Finally after a few years he gives us his second novel.This one of the most involving and gripping sf adventures I've ever read.Burning heart of Light is story of planet in peril and the unexpected visitor to that planet who becomes the planet's savior. Lindal Karr,a pilot to his living seedship Long Detail battles a deadly saboteur on his ship and must crashland on the beautiful but deadly island planet of New Ascension and sets immense ocean ablaze! New Ascension, a lost colony world harbors a terrifying secret:a horrible virus called The Scourge affects all of the life-forms but especially the human inhabitants who in their fear of dying enslaves the sentient species called Khafra and drained them of their immune venom which saves lives of the humans but it kills the khafra!This horrible process is called the Sacrament.One of the ones who is trying to find a cure to this disease and stop the killing of the Khafra is rebellious daughter of the colony's leader:Jenette Tesla and her faithful khafra servant Arrou. Jennette and Karr must form alliance to stop the war between the Khafras and the humans and seek a cure to Scourge.Cat's world-building skills are incredible as he takes you step by step into this beautiful but terrifying planet as beings both human and nonhuman seek the survival of their species at all costs.This novel asks the question does one species have the right to destroy another for it's on survival.The action sequences in this novel are wonder to behold as Cat describes brutal battle scenes between humans and Khafra and race of mutant and mad khafra on the planet.Characters in this novel are delight like Lindel Karr the aloof pilot who must rely on others to save his ship and maybe his life on hostile planet.Jenette Tesla-the brave young woman torn between helping the Khafras and saving her fellow humans.Tlalok-the warlike khafra who seek to destroy the humans and who has a special hatred toward Karr who killed his mate. Arrou-loyal domesticated Khafra who must help Jenette and Karr even if it means going against his own kind.Olin Tesla-Jenette's father and leader of the colony who seeks to save the humans but doesn't care how many khafras die in the process!Incredible epic far future sf novel propels to the 47th century and to a world of beauty and danger!

exciting futuristic other world tale

Interstellar Captain Lindal Karr transports humans from Sheldon's World to Evermore when a stowaway claiming to be Lindal's guardian angel Bob begins killing the passengers while they sleep in a fugue state. Lindal who is immune to fugue sleep is helpless to stop Bob who perseveres in a normal state that enables him to live with an incredibly faster metabolism that also makes him seem invisible to Lindal. Bob forces the Long Reach to crash into the ocean of the remote planet of New Ascension.The colonists on New Ascension struggle with a deadly local microbe. They barely survive a little longer by draining the immunity serum of the native sentient population the Khafra, an action that kills the Khafra. Civil war is imminent with Jenette Tesla, daughter of the human leader, desperately trying to find peace and stop the genocide. Lindal with fugue might be the miracle if the colonists let him live long enough to help, but who to trust among the planetary colonists, the victimized Khafra, or the mysterious angel Bob?THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT contains an interesting look at the cost of survival that humans will pay for a few extra years of life. Though Angel Bob is cloaked in mystique, the identity of the being is obvious early on. Lindal understands being different while Jenette represents the good in mankind with her willingness to do what she believes is the right thing. Albeit solutions to extremely complex interspecies issues are overly simplified, science fiction readers will relish this exciting futuristic other world tale.Harriet Klausner