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Reader Reviews | |
Review by David (300617) Rating (8/10) Review
by David For many of you [at the bookclub], this is an introduction to science fiction. It should be pointed out that there are entire spectra of SciFi, the most commonly referred to is the Hardness – How hard a work is depends much on the scientific realities/theories it is based on, and the detail which it goes into. From TV Tropes:
The Forever War falls to the harder side, but is still very accessible – it doesn’t go into great detail of how things work, but the science is sound – Time dilation effects as you approach the speed of light, and the behaviour of liquid helium are accurately used in the work, which adds to the suspension of disbelief. I couldn’t really say that all of the speculation is accurate, although I’m fairly sure that the language we speak probably is very different to that of Shakespeare, which is only a few hundred years ago. How much the language will continue evolving given that the written word is more common, and education means that most people will have access to the same language, I could not comment. Although the suggestion that northern dialects will take over amused me! Without the foreword, and the background of the author, I didn’t realise the connection with the Vietnam war, and the book makes a lot more sense in that context, considering the social changes around the 60’s – the rise in promiscuity and the more permissive society in general. I don’t know much about that time, as a child of the 70’s/80’s, but it seems to tally with what I have heard. The only bits which I didn’t particularly enjoy were the “sexy” bits – Again, it gave some context with how society changed, but it never really worked for me. I probably skipped those bits as a kid, but that’s just me... |
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