Galileo's Dream
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Product Description
Review
`A gleaming return to form for one of the world's best SF writers: thought-provoking and moving in equal measure. Robinson captures the joy of scientific discovery better than anyone else working today; the characterisation is splendid, with Galileo himself coming sharply to life, while the future-set sections feel neither superfluous nor clunky. Elegant, charming, funny and profound, Galileo's Dream is magnifico.'
--Guardian
--Guardian
Product Description
In a novel of stunning dimensions, the acclaimed author of the MARS trilogy brings us the story of the incredible life -- and death -- of Galileo, the First Scientist. Late Renaissance Italy still abounds in alchemy and Aristotle, yet it trembles on the brink of the modern world. Galileo's new telescope encapsulates all the contradictions of this emerging reality. Then one night a stranger presents a different kind of telescope for Galileo to peer through. Galileo is not sure if he is in a dream, an enchantment, a vision, or something else as yet undefined. The blasted wasteland he sees when he points the telescope at Jupiter, of harsh yellows and reds and blacks, looks just like hell as described by the Catholic church, and Galileo is a devout Catholic. But he's also a scientist, perhaps the very first in history. What he's looking at is the future, the world of Jovian humans three thousand years hence. He is looking at Jupiter from the vantage point of one of its moons whose inhabitants maintain that Galileo has to succeed in his own world for their history to come to pass. Their ability to reach back into the past and call Galileo "into resonance" with the later time is an action that will have implications for both periods, and those in between, like our own. By day Galileo's life unfurls in early seventeenth century Italy, leading inexorably to his trial for heresy. By night Galileo struggles to be a kind of sage, or an arbiter in a conflict ...but understanding what that conflict might be is no easy matter, and resolving his double life is even harder. This sumptuous, gloriously thought-provoking and suspenseful novel recalls Robinson's magnificent Mars books as well as bringing to us Galileo as we have always wanted to know him, in full.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good History, Poor SF,
By
This review is from: Galileo's Dream (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
A curious curate's egg of a book; Galileo's Dream is set in the 17th century in Italy and in the 30th century in the Galilean Moons (satellites of Jupiter). Galileo is transported between the two at the whim of a mysterious individual living in the 30th century but claiming to have come from even further in the future.
What we have is a mixture of historical fiction, relating the circumstances of Galileo's rise and fall and a science fiction story set in the future. I really enjoyed the historical bits; they seemed to have the ring of authenticity and I was carried along by the plot (despite knowing the outcome). I found the future story disappointing and naive. It reminded me of Edgar Rice Burroughs on a bad day. The plot was convoluted, lacked characterisation, and did not grip me at all. If Robinson had stuck to the history this would have been a fine book. As it was, I found it little better than mediocre. (And, yes, I normally much prefer SF to historical fiction.)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well executed but poorly conceived,
By techie@techie.f9.co.uk (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Galileo's Dream (Hardcover)
Robinson is possibly the greatest scifi writer of his generation, so it seems strange to be giving this 3 stars, but all I can do is agree with the many comments below- this is at times excellently written, and the characterisation and dialogue is mostly very succesful, but the 2 crossing plots just don't work very well. The entire sci-fi plot feels tacked on, some parts seem an obvious homage to golden age pulp SF but the main thing to note about golden age pulp SF is that it's fairly rotten. I totally agree with the many others who say that this could have been a wonderful fictionalised bio of Galileo rather than an odd mismatch of styles and scenes.
Still, it's worth reading, as is all KSR, but if you're new to him- start elsewhere. It doesn't really matter where! Mars remains his masterwork, 40/50/60 Days is also exceptionally good. Nothing I've read of his is actually bad but it does slump to this level sometimes.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hard going,
By
This review is from: Galileo's Dream (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Galileo's Dream is a book of two parts - one based loosely on the life of Galileo, which is a fair enough piece of storytelling, if a little tedious and long-winded. This thread is intermingled with a, to me, incomprehensible SF element which involves Galileo being beamed forward in time and across to the moons of Jupiter at various stages in his life. I'm afraid I can give little further detail than that because, despite having trudged my way to the end of the book, I still cannot comprehend the purpose behind these forays or what was supposed to have happened. Maybe those with greater literary insights can fathom what they were about, but they were beyond me.
I quite enjoyed the Mars trilogy, whose strong concept kept the book going despite KSR's turgid style, although I confess to not having read other KSR books aside from those 3 before this one. I'm certain now that I wont read another.
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