From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Dec 19 2002 - 08:41:33 MST
Damien Broderick wrote:
> ...
>
>But Poul's novel holds up surprisingly well as a serious extrapolatory
>novel. His prose is cleanly wrought, his projections of a world where IQ
>keeps soaring in humans and animals alike is rather well thought through,
>his device of using an uplifted retarded man as his by-our-standards
>...
>Damien Broderick
>
The idea of the story is moving, and the plot works well. But when I
reread it, I found it very clumsy. As if he were being careless about
his craftsmanship. I think that Poul thought of this one as a
knock-off, and just wrote it because he had too. Despite the strong
basic structure, it doesn't work well. I think that he didn't like it,
and didn't realize how he would feel about it until after he signed the
contract. Contrast this with his "Bicycle built for Brew" aka "The
Makeshift Rocket". That one has a rather weak plot, but he LIKED the
story. And so it *flows*. As a result it's a much stronger work.
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