Review. The Ganymede Club
Review. The Ganymede Club
Charles Sheffield will always score high marks in any review that I write.
He has a way of making hard science fiction seem effortless.
I'm no scientist but I gather Sheffield is, and he puts the knowledge to good
use in his fiction.
So what is the story this time ?
The book opens with a number of scenes which are quite disconcerting. It
seems that all of the characters that get introduced, die just as soon
as thay are sufficiently rounded to start to matter to you.
Killing off your main characters is not a good writing technique. Knowing
this I stuck with the book through the first three chapters.
I was rewarded with a tremendous romp through the solar system, from Ganymede
to Calysto to Titan to Lysithea.
To where ? ... To Lysithea. According to my dictionary of astronomy, a small satellite
of Jupiter discovered in 1938.
I bet Sheffield didn't have to look it up !
So... To the plot.
Well the story is about a pair of children who escaped the decimation of Earths population
by the skin of their teeth, taking refuge on Ganymede.
The elder, Lola, becomes a haldane. A sort of licenced psychiatrist with a lot
of technical and medical backup.
Her Younger brother, Spook, becomes a player on the 'puzzle network', where he
makes friends with some very interesting people with useful talents.
To this brew is added a coterie of people who just don't seem to get any older !
Needless to say, our two main protagonists get caught up in the 'Ganymede Clubs' need
to remain undiscovered.
Immortals think differently dontcha know. Violently too !
To tell you any more would be to delve too deeply into the plot, depriving you of a good read. The storyline isn't deep. But it is sprinkled with ideas which make you think, not scientifically inaccurate according to current knowledge, and a damn good yarn.
Recommended.
