The plot never gets off the ground, as do the ragged astronauts’ frail balloon-craft. If I felt more kindly toward this book I might call it a page-turner Shaw has a lively sense of pace.īut I am not feeling kindly. The unthinkable must be thought of to avert this final disaster, and the unthinkable is a plan to emigrate from Land to its twin world, Overland. The human (although not quite human as we define ourselves) inhabitants of a planet called, simply, Land, are being driven nearly to extinction by a plague of-sentient hostile entities? Mere wind-blown chemical poisons?-called ptertha. I know I’m outnumbered but the driving force of all the plaudits still failed to make me enjoy this book. I would find this less dismaying (clunkers are, after all, a part of life) if I didn’t like and/or admire the work of all the authors quoted above. But “The Ragged Astronauts” is one of the worst books I’ve read in a long time. I cordially dislike reviewers who write as if theirs were the only possible opinion on the work they are reviewing hence the above. in the most jaded reader.” Gene Wolfe says, “It’s a hard book to put down.” This reviewer found it a hard book not to throw across the room. The jacket quotes on “The Ragged Astronauts” are exciting: Gregory Benford says, “This novel signals (Shaw’s) long-awaited major work.” Michael Moorcock says, “The Ragged Astronauts” (is a) story guaranteed to revive a sense of wonder.
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