- Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; New Ed edition (2 July 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 185798787X
- ISBN-13: 978-1857987874
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 291,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Salt (GollanczF.)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The publishers of Salt, the debut SF novel by a British author, compare it to Frank Herbert's Dune--and certainly the harsh beauty of the planet Salt makes arid Dune seem cosy and lush. Here are great deadly deserts of salt-crystal dunes, "seas" that are supersaturated lakes scummed over with hard salt, free chlorine in the air, inedible salt algae, a corrosive wind called the Devil's Whisper and a sleet of cancer-spawning radiation from the sky ...
Ill-assorted groups of Earth colonists were lured across space by misleading survey reports--or did Salt change during the long voyage? They build their makeshift cities around the salt lakes, struggling to tame this dreadful world. Unfortunately two of the settlements are desperately incompatible, hardly able even to communicate. Senaar city has a rigid, disciplined hierarchy with every person in their place, ordered like atoms in crystalline salt; Als is a leaderless anarchy where anyone might tackle any job, all as fluid as seawater. (Yes, Roberts loves salty metaphors.)
The viewpoint alternates between Petja of Als and Senaar's leader, Barlei, whose non-communication escalates into a war for which Senaar has been prepared all along--although Barlei has hypocritical justifications for everything, including oppression of his own people and Orwellian rewriting of history. Meanwhile, against all his Alsist principles, the gentler, poetic Petja hardens into a charismatic terrorist leader. Their entwined stories are grim, sad and bitter as salt. (Roberts does sometimes overdo the metaphors.) Salt is a skilful, intense, gloomy novel. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Two narrators tell the story of the simmering tensions between their two communities as they travel out to a new planet, colonise it, then destroy themselves when the tensions turn into outright war. Adam Roberts is a new writer completely in command of the SF genre. This is a novel that is at once entertaining and philosophical. The attitudes and prejudices of its characters are subtlety drawn and ring completely true despite the alien circumstances they find themselves in. The grasp of science and its impact on people is instinctive. But above all it is the epic and colourful world building that marks SALT out - the planet Salt rivals Dune in its desolation and is a suitably biblical setting for a novel that is powered by the corrupting influence of imperfectly remembered religions on distant societies. From the early scenes set on a colony ship towed by a massive ice meteorite, to the description of a planet covered in sodium chloride, to the chilling narrative of a world sliding into its first war, this is a novel from a writer who shouts star quality.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Most notable for what it doesn't say.,
By
This review is from: Salt (Gollancz S.F.) (Mass Market Paperback)
Adam Roerts' _Salt_ is a sparse and harsh book just like the planet on which it is set. It doesn't allow much sympathy with the main characters - both are basically war criminals who end up being responsible for the deaths of thousands. It also paints scarcely any picture of the world in general outside of the particular situations faced by the colonists, and gives almost no background for its characters. Basically, it doesn't give us any soil with which to foster a more comfortable experience with the narrative. Its aridity is the factor that shrinks it down to 250 pages.This doesn't mean that as several previous posters said, the characters are undeveloped. On the contrary, the characters are very completely developed. It's just that the complexity of the characters isn't spelled out for us. To get a complete understanding of the characters you have to read deeply into the limited material available. Take Barlei's weird obsession with his lieutenant jean-Pierre, which reminds one of Achilles' affection for Patroclus and along with remarks made in the final chapter suggests a radical interpretation of his behavior. Or the references in both narrators' accounts to combat and war being analagous to musical compositions, which seem to suggest that our two protagonists are similar in some deep way. It's possible as well to use the few references to Earth to figure out that the world left behind isn't exactly the kind of world we live in now. References to the New Vatican States and the World Ecclesiastical Union (or somesuch) paint a picture of a world divided again on religious lines, where the main impetus for space travel is escaping persecution and colonist fleets are privately funded. The group of colonists on Salt seem to be not a wide sample of the human race, but an assemblage of a few Eastern European religious sects that presumably felt that the political consolidation of religion left them little freedom to practice on Earth. (It is never stated precisely which church the colonists belong to but mandatory male and female contraception points to it being radically different from any on Earth today.) Because Salt has been pared down to its essentials, it reads as carefully structured and highly concentrated prose. You have to work a bit to get what you want out of it, but once you do the book os pretty rewarding.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A decent book worth a read,
By
This review is from: Salt (Gollancz S.F.) (Mass Market Paperback)
It's obvious that some people hate Salt and some love it. This is an effect of the way the book tells the story. The whole point is that you see the flaws of both sides and don't get a one-sided view of the events. This isn't a goodies-and-baddies book, and that seems to have been the objective. Since this is fairly new, it makes the book a fresh read, and I'm very glad that I read it.Having said that, I found it difficult to get into at first. The reason for this is that I found myself hating both characters for their hypocrisies and dodgy reasoning that I'd just get annoyed with them and have to put the book down before it went flying out the window. On the comparisons with Dune...? I don't get it. Well, yeah it has a heavy political component but its implementation is much simpler. Dune was a baroque galaxy-spanning feudal empire, and Salt is not. If you want another Dune, go and read Iain M Banks' The Algebraist. I don't think this was trying to be like Dune, and the comparisons would have both Herbert and Roberts scratching their heads and frowning. So, then, a decent book? Yep. For everyone? No.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A stimulating sci-fi read.,
By
This review is from: Salt (Gollancz S.F.) (Mass Market Paperback)
THE STORY:Several colony ships head to a new world full of promise. However, upon arrival they discover their surveys were wrong and the world gains the nickname 'Salt'. Two groups of colonists rise to prominence, but their strongly opposed philosophies inevitably lead to a terrible war. WHAT'S GOOD: WHAT'S BAD:
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