400 Billion Stars [Kindle Edition]

This had some unique and intriguing ideas which I thought the author struggled to bring out. The book took a long time to get going properly and Yoshida's issues seemed to be overly and repetitively reproduced. A reasonable read and recommended.

Some people seem to believe interesting should mean 'wham, bam', but this story gradually unpicks a million year old mystery, methodically and with great care. Dorthy is a damaged 'talent' who is able to find out why the encountered aliens are so xenophobic. But will that help?

To find out you need to read the sequel, 'Eternal Light'. (Not on Kindle!)

This book won the Phillip K. Dick award, and deserved it. It's unbelievable that two people have given this a mere 2 stars. This is excellent science fiction, realistic and thought provoking. Paul McAuley extrapolates his science fictional elements as far as they'll go, and he presents them through believable characters with a humanity that grips the reader's sympathies and doesn't let go. If you're ready to believe in and love the main character, and you're ready for an emotional journey that will be tough and will make you think, then give this novel a chance.

In all honesty, in a world where 5 stars are reserved for the best of science fiction, such as The Stars My Destination (S.F. Masterworks), The Forever War (S.F. Masterworks) and indeed Fairyland by Paul McAuley (his best, in my opinion), then I might have rated this novel with 4 stars. But I simply can't believe people have rated it so low, and I had to balance things out with some sense. Once again, it won the Phillip K. Dick award. It seems obvious that only excellent books win the Phillip K. Dick award, and if you buy this one, you'll see why.

I was disappointed with this book. It was very slow moving and in hindsight it seemed to have been padded out. The heroine of the story is a 'talent', i.e, she is telepathic. Her talent is suppressed for most of the time, however, and she takes a counteragent when she wants to make use of it. She arrives on a planet with a military presence. One the way down she senses an intelligence that is so powerful it knocks her out. When recovered, she mopes around the base camp for a while. Then goes off in a team to study the 'herders' which are a life-form which seem to be non-intelligent but which could be the 'enemy' (they are apparently fighting a war at somewhere called BD 20).

It took me a long time to read this book, I just didn't get into it. The dialogue seemed stilted and the story seemed long-winded and didn't really get anywhere in the end. However, it did win the PKD award so it must have something going for it. McAuley is a biologist and uses his knowledge to give the SF an authentic air - perhaps that is the reason.

If you like the idea of people exploring an alien planet and studying aliens, written in a descriptive, but slow, style then perhaps this is for you.

While Paul J McAuley would go on to become of the leading lights of modern British sf, Four Hundred Stars bears all the marks of a difficult first novel. The set-up is reasonably interesting, as a military / scientific expedition sets out to discover whether the seemingly unintelligent natives of a terraformed world are connected to the mysterious ‘enemy’ attacking humanity on the other side of the galaxy. Unfortunately the novel then slows to a snail’s pace as the expedition observes the planets flora and fauna. This pacing is the real killer here, with the over-extended travelogues making a relatively short novel (250 pages) seem like a hard slog, whole the denouement is rushed out infodump fashion in the last few pages.

None of the characters particularly appealed to me, and the manner in which the Shakespeare quoting lead’s back-story was unveiled seemed a little clumsy, while the prose is at best functional.

This is the first of three novels (plus short stories) based in the same universe, though compared to other sf series McAuley’s given background thus far seems fairly generic and unmemorable – hopefully the series will improve.

A few good ideas, but far too clumsy in execution to recommend to anyone other than McAuley completists. A shaky start.

This is a highly imaginative novel. The first chapter is instantly enthralling. It draws you into the story with a mixture of high tech detail and immediate identification with the main character. From there things move with considerable pace into a world full of surprises. McAuley's background in biological research shows through very effectively in his assured depiction of wildlife on a world where nothing turns out to be as it at first appears. The setting for the story spans what feels like an entire ecosystem in a way that makes it almost tangibly alien.

I have read only one other novel by this author (The Quiet War) which, I have to say, I did not enjoy as much. 400 Billion Stars is far more engaging and involves the reader more closely with the main characters. The arrival of humans, and one in particular, triggers a sequence of changes in the native fauna on a planet human leaders believe is key to a war they are in danger of losing. The plot is satisfyingly anti-establishment and anti-military.

The author has ensured that the internal conflict in the mind of telepath Dorothy is realistically and sympathetically portrayed as she moves forward in both solving the riddle of the alien planet and towards her own self-realisation. Over the last 45 years I have read a great deal of science fiction and I can say with the conviction of someone who also writes science fiction, this is a very enjoyable and compelling read.