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Helix
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Synopsis
Helix is a fast-paced action adventure novel following the plight of four humans when they crashland on what they think is a desolate, ice-bound planet. Daylight brings the discovery that the planet is one of thousands arranged in a vast spiral wound about a central sun. They set off to discover a more habitable, Earth-like world and come across strange races of aliens, and life-threatening perils, on their way.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
There is so much wrong with Helix but there is also much to like. The central conceit of the story - that there is a huge, helical structure that houses thousands of cylindrical worlds - would lead one to expect a 'hard' SF novel but that isn't the case. The titular helix is a feat of imagination and not one of engineering and Brown clearly has no idea (or concern for) how or why it was built or even why the structure is a helix rather than any other shape. His characters are lazy constructions that rely on silly coincidences to generate personalities. The background stories pad out the tale to no effect. Pages of set up regarding Hendry's daughter all come to nought. The Kaluchek/Olembe dynamic is played out over 500 pages and then negates itself when the basis of their conflict is discovered to be false. These are all faults that could have been resolved with some editorial direction and the excision of a hundred or so pages.
The curious thing is that, even with all these gripes, Helix is enjoyable. It's fast paced, cinematic and wondrous. The reader is carried along at such a rate that faults are smoothed over due to the sheer speed of the narrative. Read as Space Opera (as opposed to Science Fiction) it is entertaining and engrossing.
www.derekspace/blogspot.com
The curious thing is that, even with all these gripes, Helix is enjoyable. It's fast paced, cinematic and wondrous. The reader is carried along at such a rate that faults are smoothed over due to the sheer speed of the narrative. Read as Space Opera (as opposed to Science Fiction) it is entertaining and engrossing.
www.derekspace/blogspot.com
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
In the future, humanity destroys the Earth with their constant wars and by ravaging the land without giving anything back. Earth's end is in site. The European Space Organization (ESO) secretly builds a vast colony ship (named the Lovelock), trains key personnel to crew it, and readies over four thousand coldsleep pods for the humans chosen to begin life anew on another world. Terrorists object to anyone leaving Earth, thus ESO must keep everything as secret as possible. With only minor interference, the Lovelock launches, taking with it the only real hope the human race has for survival.
Five hundred light-years later (one thousand years standard Earth time), Lovelock is torn apart by a series of explosions. A skeleton crew is awakened from coldsleep and they must scramble to save the frozen colonists by crash landing on the nearest possible location: a polar section of a Helix - a vast, spiral construct of worlds, wound about a G-type sun. While most of the colonists remain in coldsleep, the four surviving crew members of the Lovelock proceed up-spiral in search of a habitable section. They will encounter extraordinary and vast landscapes, alien races, and begin unraveling the mystery of who created the helix.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on another tier of the helix, a race resembling lemurs has been under the control of the Church for millennia. The Church is all-powerful and makes all decisions for the people. Ehrin Telsa, owner of Telsa Dirigible Company, mans an expedition of the western plains for usable resources. Of course, the Church sends a representative with them, Elder Cannak. When they come across an alien (not human), the people on the expedition are amazed to learn that the Church already knew of the aliens and their strange technology, even though the Church swears no other race and no other world exists. Elder Cannak and the Church are hiding many secrets. While Ehrin wants to learn, Elder Cannak and the Church begin their well planned genocide of all alien races.
*** This novel begins with Joe Hendry on Earth as he is recruited by ESO. From then on, the book continues to follow (mainly) Joe for the entire story. The sections following the lemur-like race follows (mainly) Ehrin. However, the author does not do a good job of describing what Ehrin's race looks like for the readers until Joe's crew actually meets them, pretty far into the book. This caused me, as the reader, some confusion since I had already made my own mental image of the aliens and am suddenly forced into changing that image.
There was strife between two of the four surviving bridge crewmembers. When all became clear to me, I could not help but believe that the strife sections probably made for a sub-plot in the story during the author's writing, yet so much had to be cut (due to word count from the publisher?) that it ended up weak. All-in-all, this is a decent read. Not the author's best by far, but worth your time and money. ***
Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.
Five hundred light-years later (one thousand years standard Earth time), Lovelock is torn apart by a series of explosions. A skeleton crew is awakened from coldsleep and they must scramble to save the frozen colonists by crash landing on the nearest possible location: a polar section of a Helix - a vast, spiral construct of worlds, wound about a G-type sun. While most of the colonists remain in coldsleep, the four surviving crew members of the Lovelock proceed up-spiral in search of a habitable section. They will encounter extraordinary and vast landscapes, alien races, and begin unraveling the mystery of who created the helix.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on another tier of the helix, a race resembling lemurs has been under the control of the Church for millennia. The Church is all-powerful and makes all decisions for the people. Ehrin Telsa, owner of Telsa Dirigible Company, mans an expedition of the western plains for usable resources. Of course, the Church sends a representative with them, Elder Cannak. When they come across an alien (not human), the people on the expedition are amazed to learn that the Church already knew of the aliens and their strange technology, even though the Church swears no other race and no other world exists. Elder Cannak and the Church are hiding many secrets. While Ehrin wants to learn, Elder Cannak and the Church begin their well planned genocide of all alien races.
*** This novel begins with Joe Hendry on Earth as he is recruited by ESO. From then on, the book continues to follow (mainly) Joe for the entire story. The sections following the lemur-like race follows (mainly) Ehrin. However, the author does not do a good job of describing what Ehrin's race looks like for the readers until Joe's crew actually meets them, pretty far into the book. This caused me, as the reader, some confusion since I had already made my own mental image of the aliens and am suddenly forced into changing that image.
There was strife between two of the four surviving bridge crewmembers. When all became clear to me, I could not help but believe that the strife sections probably made for a sub-plot in the story during the author's writing, yet so much had to be cut (due to word count from the publisher?) that it ended up weak. All-in-all, this is a decent read. Not the author's best by far, but worth your time and money. ***
Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
The glowing reviews by Stephen Baxter and Peter Hamilton led me to expect modern space opera. Instead, I kept being remined of Stapledon, Rice Burroughs, and even Wells. Despite the occasional sex scene - rare in SF but tastefully done here and integral to the plot development - my overwhelming sense was of a 1930s scientific romance.
This didn't spoil my enjoyment; Helix is a perfectly good read and the notion of the Helix itself, one step up from Ringword, is a nice conceit. But I didn't ejoy it as much as Niven's Ringworld nor did there seem to be the same breadth of imagination.
The use of two narrative voices, from different species, was good though again nowhere near as well developed as in David Brin's brilliant second Uplift trilogy. The characters were reasonably well sketched but I didn't really care what happened to them - not that I ever doubted that it would all be alright in the end.
So, to sum up. Helix is a perfectly adeqaute novel, a good read, but probably not one to keep on youur library shelf and read again.
This didn't spoil my enjoyment; Helix is a perfectly good read and the notion of the Helix itself, one step up from Ringword, is a nice conceit. But I didn't ejoy it as much as Niven's Ringworld nor did there seem to be the same breadth of imagination.
The use of two narrative voices, from different species, was good though again nowhere near as well developed as in David Brin's brilliant second Uplift trilogy. The characters were reasonably well sketched but I didn't really care what happened to them - not that I ever doubted that it would all be alright in the end.
So, to sum up. Helix is a perfectly adeqaute novel, a good read, but probably not one to keep on youur library shelf and read again.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Charmingly simple and old fashioned science fiction.
Helix is my first Eric Brown novel although I have had Kings of Eternity on my wish list for some time. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Willy Eckerslike
Muddles along
The central concept of the book appeared to be a Ben Bovaesque tale spanning the start to end tale of a colony ship and its delivery of its charges on a new world. Read more
Published 11 months ago by D. J. Ketchin
Gets better as it goes on
I thought this had a slow start. There was only one character you really cared about; the others didn't seem that interesting. Read more
Published 15 months ago by SteveBex
A great and exciting space adventure!
This was a marvellous read, and as a previous Reviewer has said; this, unlike many other SF and Fantasy novels does not contain the numerous unpronounceable names one usually... Read more
Published on 17 Mar 2008 by FAMOUS NAME
Stereotyped adventure with weak ending
A fairly boiler-plate sci-fi novel of an accidental landing on a strange extra-terrestrial structure. Read more
Published on 5 Feb 2008 by Alan Young
Great idea - but too short and a bit rushed at the end
If Peter Hamilton wrote this it would have been a trilogy .. the whole idea of a Helix comprised of planets/habitats could have been explored in much more depth and so much more... Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2007 by A. J. Sudworth
Superb
*no spoilers in this review*
I picked this up without high expectations, knowing nothing of the author and without reading any reviews. Read more
I picked this up without high expectations, knowing nothing of the author and without reading any reviews. Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2007 by Ben
Space adventure rather than science-fiction; disappointing
From the cover blurb and illustration I expected Helix to be fairly hard-core Sci-Fi. That'll teach me to judge a book by its cover! Read more
Published on 9 Oct 2007 by Rowena Hoseason
Enjoyable mish mash
We start with Hendry, living life in a world devestated by disease and climate change. Much of humanity has died. Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2007 by DanBeale
More adventure and mystery needed
Helix wasn't the book I was expecting. Not enough adventure and too much time wasted on a pedestrian and predictable first contact with a pre-age of reason alien race. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2007 by Chairman Paulo
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