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Product Description
Book Description
A seminal feminist SF novel of the highest literary quality, comparable to the works of Joanna Russ and Ursula K. LeGuin.
Product Description
The Styths, a powerful and aggressive mutant race from the Gas Planets, Uranus and Saturn, have been launching pirate raids on ships from Mars. Earth's Committee for the Revolution has been asked to mediate, to negotiate a truce between the Middle Planets and the Styth Empire. The task of conducting the talks falls to an intelligent, resourceful and unpredictable young woman, Paula Mendoza. Her initial meetings with the Styth warlord and his unruly band of bodyguards and advisers are not promising. But then Paula adopts a less conventional approach. The consequences for her are considerable and she finds herself on the Gas Planets, the only tenuous link between Earth and the Styth Empire . . .
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First Sentence
'These people were giants,' Tony said. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
'These people were giants,' Tony said. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Last year "New Scientist" magazine had an article where famous scientists named their "favourite forgotten SF masterpieces" and this was one of the books mentioned. The fact that there were only seven reviews prior to this one but they were all five stars would seem to confirm the said famous scientists opinion, but I'm afraid I have to differ. I've never enjoyed an SF book less. I found the plot confusing and disjointed, and except for the heroine (and not always her) I couldn't understand the motivations of the characters (of which there were too many).
For me the book didn't read like a novel but rather as a treatment for a lurid, violent, sexually explicit SF soap opera, and to be honest, if it were ever made I would probably watch it!
For me the book didn't read like a novel but rather as a treatment for a lurid, violent, sexually explicit SF soap opera, and to be honest, if it were ever made I would probably watch it!
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was so hopeful when I read Floating Worlds, having seen it compared to the work of Ursula LeGuin, amongst others. I was deeply disappointed. It is one of the very few books that I have started and then thrown away. The characters are one-dimensional and there is, perhaps deliberately, no sense of personality, environment or introspection to explain their actions. Anyone familiar with speculative fiction will know that different philosophies, societies and technologies are represented with greater panache, verve, enthusiasm and insight elsewhere. There is none of that impression of internal consistency, of the author's creation being a real world, that is evoked by other celebrated authors of both SF and fantasy. Floating Worlds is a polemic, inspired, I think, by the disillusion of the 1970s and stuck in its time in ways that stories by Jules Verne, HP Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, Ursula LeGuin, Larry Niven and, perhaps, even Iain M Banks are not. It's certainly not the future, but it doesn't really seem to be the Twentieth Century either. The anarchist Earth, totalitarian moon, synthetic and technological Mars and the barbarian Styth are all unconvincing, their inhabitants ciphers rather than characters.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm astounded at the high marks this book has been given. It is one of the few books I found actively unpleasant to read, and in fact it took me 2 attempts to finish it.
The reader is asked to sympathise with a woman who collaborates with a group of racist, violent slavers who inhabit the moons in the Outer Planets of the solar system. Written in the 70s, it wants us to excuse them as they are somehow 'sticking it to the Man', but what this actually means in the book is that anyone who vaguely went against the main protagonist ends up being murdered, enslaved or brainwashed.
If it was some kind of study on the effects of slavery, both for the slaves and the masters, I could see a point to this book. It isn't.
Definitely a book of its time, but not one I could recommend
The reader is asked to sympathise with a woman who collaborates with a group of racist, violent slavers who inhabit the moons in the Outer Planets of the solar system. Written in the 70s, it wants us to excuse them as they are somehow 'sticking it to the Man', but what this actually means in the book is that anyone who vaguely went against the main protagonist ends up being murdered, enslaved or brainwashed.
If it was some kind of study on the effects of slavery, both for the slaves and the masters, I could see a point to this book. It isn't.
Definitely a book of its time, but not one I could recommend
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Simply great
All the reviews so far have said how good this book is - and it is.
They have all said it is shamefully overlooked outside the small SF world - and it is. Read more
They have all said it is shamefully overlooked outside the small SF world - and it is. Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2009 by Ruzz
Absolutely brilliant.
I own three copies of this in case it goes out of print again and I lose it; it's that good. This book has everything. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2006 by Fluffycakes
really good read
I recently came across this in a second hand bookshop and nearly didn't buy it due to the slightly dodgy cover with a semi-naked woman on the front. Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2004 by L. Chapman
A hidden gem
It takes an outsider to make you truly see what you take for granted. To the best of my knowledge, this is the author's only foray into science fiction. Read more
Published on 26 July 2004 by Russell
Extremely under-rated novel
This is one of the best sci-fi novels I have ever read, and it's a travesty that it is not better known. Read more
Published on 23 May 2001 by iantrevor@iwon.com
One of the best science fiction books I have ever read
This book moves along at a great pace and takes you with it - it is hard to put down once started. There are no clues as to what will happen next, and the content is always... Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2001
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