Subject: RAFT by Stephen Baxter

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: 16 Mar 92 23:20:40 GMT

RAFT by Stephen Baxter
                        A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
			 Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

        Sunday, 10 AM, Boskone, talking to Mark's college roommate: "So what
   have you read that you liked lately?"  "Oh, [some books and] I really liked
   RAFT by Stephen Baxter."

        Sunday, 11 AM, Boskone panel on nominating for the Hugos: "Yes, you
   over there?"  "I recommend RAFT by Stephen Baxter."

        Sunday, 11 PM, logging into Usenet, Chuq Von Rospach talks about: "...
   a fine first novel like RAFT (by Stephen Baxter, ROC.  If you're a hard SF
   junkie, grab it, especially if you liked RINGWORLD)"

        Thursday, 3 PM, chatting with a friend about books, he says: "You know
   what I really enjoyed recently?  RAFT ...."  "... by Stephen Baxter, right?"

        By this point, of course, I was convinced that RAFT had not only a
   perfectly constructed plot, marvelous multi-dimensional characters, and more
   ideas than Plato, Kant, and Olaf Stapledon combined, but also the cure for
   AIDS and the Mrs. Fields cookie recipe.

        It doesn't have the cookie recipe.

        Well, okay, it doesn't have the cure either, and it's not the greatest
   British novel since DAVID COPPERFIELD, but it is a very competently done
   hard science story a la Clarke and Niven (both of whom are quoted on the
   cover) and Clement and Heinlein (who aren't).  The back blurb gives you the
   premise in its first sentence: "Imagine a universe whose force of gravity is
   one billion times stronger than today's."  (Though clearly that last word
   should have been "ours," and is this an American billion or a British
   billion?)  Somehow a spaceship from our universe crossed into this one and
   got stranded many generations ago, and at the time of the story we have
   three distinct societies: the Raft, the Miners, and the Boneys.

        The plot is not all that original.  There is a menace.  The three
   groups, each of which hates and/or distrusts the other two, will have to
   learn to cooperate.  Forgotten knowledge will have to be relearned.  Our
   hero, a seventeen-year-old boy, will have many adventures.  Odd physical
   effects in this universe will amaze the reader, and so on.

        There are some intriguing ideas, but all have to do with weird physics
   or biology.  As far as sociology, psychology, or philosophy go, no new ideas
   are put forth.  The values are Heinleinian, as are the characters.  In fact,
   I would probably describe RAFT as what we would have gotten had Hal Clement
   and Robert Heinlein ever collaborated.  (The scenes with Rees carrying books
   of logarithm tables had me practically yelling, "STARMAN JONES!")  It also
   suffers from a section seemingly heavily inspired by George Pal's WHEN
   WORLDS COLLIDE, which was at times painful to read.  A derivation needs to
   vary from its source or it reads as a stock piece at best, or plagiarism at
   worst.  In this case, it is the former, since the original is far to well
   known for anyone to think it would be unfamiliar to the readers.

        Is this damning with faint praise?  I don't think so.  Okay, so RAFT
   won't win the Pulitzer Prize this year.  But I think it a not unworthy
   choice for a Hugo nomination.  Even with its flaws--and it is, after all, a
   first novel--it is far better than most of what I've seen from the past
   year.

   %T      Raft
   %A      Stephen Baxter
   %C      New York
   %D      January 1992
   %I      ROC
   %O      paperback, US$4.99 [1991]
   %G      ISBN 0-451-45130-9
   %P      303pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or [email-masked]