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4.0 out of 5 stars
Working to Make Dreams a Reality, 16 Feb 2009
Before she turned almost exclusively to fantasy novels, Ms. Norton wrote some very excellent science fiction. Though she rarely introduced new ideas, her handling of some at times near-cliché's brought life and vigor to the concepts. Just so with this novel.
The situation is pretty standard. The world is now governed by an organization called Pax, who have two goals: remain in power, and violently exterminate any form of resistance, which they see as mainly coming from those few scientists still remaining after a world-wide purge of these individuals in reaction to the 'Great Burn', when satellites were used to rain destruction on most of the world's cities. What makes this book different is how Norton makes this scenario personal, focusing on the brother of one of the last remaining expert biologists, and how his personal efforts help make the grand goal of leaving Earth and its Paxmen and traveling to the stars a real possibility.
There's not much real science here, just the usual hand-waving of force fields and blasters, and almost no hint of the actual technology used to power a starship, but she does use the concept of cold sleep effectively, and touches on another talent that would later be heavily used in her works, a strong empathic (near telepathic) contact with animals. When I first read this book way back when, these concepts were very new and intriguing to me. Reading the book today, these ideas still have power, though not, perhaps, the great thrill they gave me back then, as they have been used by other authors again and again since.
Thematically, the book drives home points about the corrupting effect of power, the blindness that religion (of any type) invokes upon its followers, the need for recognizing any intelligence as worthy of respect and appropriate treatment, and the necessity of having dreams beyond just surviving, themes that Norton would return to in many other books, but quite effectively presented here.
There is some definite dating to this book, as its beginning scenario derives directly from the Cold War, and the shown computer here definitely missed the mark in terms of predicting what would happen in that field. But at the same time, Norton very presciently forecast our first steps into space and exploration of the nearer planets, and our subsequent retreat from that grand frontier. When this book was written (1954), and the conditions that existed then, must be kept in mind while reading.
An excellent adventure, perhaps a little too dated to be classed as top-flight sf, but still well worth the time to read, and a very good example of just what Norton was capable of.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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