Fun and entertaining

This author really likes educating his reader about science and the moving parts that go into making up possible theories about the world from justified true beliefs and lays the ground work for explaining how science really works while telling a passable sci-fi story.

One also gets a peek into the angst that defined the 1970s and how at times we thought there would never be a future. The Russians are still the Russians in the future he describes and are a super power to be reckoned with. Oh yeah, he did something that Time Magazine used to always do in the 50s, he used the expression while describing someone as "Mediterranean looking" and "swarthy looking". With Time they would always say that when describing an Italian because they just didn't seem to like Italians (for whatever reason, I have no idea why). In this case for this author, I'll just say that we are always victims of the world we are thrown into and sometimes we are that world, but fortunately, we move ahead.

This book does propose one of my all time favorite theories regarding religion. According to a possible interpretation, all previous religious beliefs with their accompanying superstitions were enabled by aliens so that humanity would progress at a snails pace and not be a threat to the aliens when they return in the future. That explanation just cracked me up.

I once was talking with a neighbors and one had mentioned that Mars might have a fossil of a fish on it's surface. The other neighbor had mentioned that would be impossible, but I wanted to illustrate that science is always underdetermined by the facts, that there is always more theories possible than the known facts and one always bump up to the Quine Duhem thesis and not know it. This book with its alternate theories could fully explain the phenomenon of a fish on Mars.

4 people found this helpful

Fan of Inherit the Stars? Dont bother w/ this one

What did you like best about Giants' Star? What did you like least?
I first read Inherit the Stars 35 years ago... and I can honestly say that it was one of the inspirations that lead me to become a scientist. In a fit of nostalgia, I bought the audio book (along with the two direct sequels to the trilogy). 35 years ago, I found this installment so convoluted that I never finished it... and even in audio book form, I had a hard time finishing it. Of the three books, this one is VERY dated and very sexist. I rapidly slides into a mire of pysdo science-new age phooey. Enjoy the first two books of the trilogy and skip this one. The narration is passable at best.

3 people found this helpful

Decent, but not great

The first two books of the Giant series were far better than Giants Star. I tried reading through it years ago, but could never finish. The audio book did the trick, but only because I was persistent with it. Others who point out the sexist nature of the dialog are correct. Also, the narration was overdone. John Pruden overemphasized the character voices to such a high degree, that many characters sounded like winey little kids. Certainly not how I imagined them. Think of the old silent movies where actors would overemphasize their acting because you could not hear them.

2 people found this helpful

Disappointing Finale to the Trilogy

Like the first two novels in the Giants trilogy, Giants' Star featured a lot of scientists sitting around discussing the mysteries the plot is based on. Ordinarily this would be fine for me, but I found myself often bored for the 12.5 hours this book ran. And to think, I picked this for my vacation road trip. Rather than helping keep me away on the endless highway it bored me to death and irritated me.

In the trilogy finale, the seemingly solved mysteries of the first two books were regurgitated and presented with stranger and more preposterous explanations. New aliens were introduced, and we find out that they have been instrumental in tweaking the history of Earth's humans from the day they showed up (yes, they just showed up - no evolution (it's a long story)) and now have been found out and the battle for the galaxy is on. Some of this was fun for this old atheist- the aliens gave old timey prophets and miracle workers special powers to keep early humans religious and entrenched in supernatural thinking which stunted their scientific progress and delayed their development as a race.

But overall, this was just boring and the goings on grew more and more ludicrous as the hours dragged on. By the end I had lost all interest but I'm a completist and I had to find out how the author was going to wrap this up. I thought back to the simple and interesting plot of the first book and how it the second book expanded on it in a good way - only to have the finale go completely off the rails and devolve in to a convoluted mess. Didn't like it.

1 person found this helpful

Good science discussions with probable concepts

Although this was written in the 70s, it is filled with small concepts that today still come up in alternate human evolution discussions that range from outlandish concepts to truth that I can imagine will one day be proven and accepted as correct. The story continues the journey and delivers the same thought provoking ideas that were enjoyable in the series.

1 person found this helpful

Douglas Smith

I first read this series years ago... just as good as I remembered. loved it!!

1 person found this helpful

A great read.

If you don’t have a short attention span, like other authors like Heinlein, aren’t “woke” and thus unable to handle others who don’t think exactly like you, and you love traditional science fiction then this is an excellent read. Quite enjoyable.

The end is not great

It may as well just have ended with “it was all a dream”.
It is not really possible to make much of a comment without ruining the story but all o can say is the ending was really a surprise twist that you won’t see coming because it makes no sense.
For an hour after the book ended I was still annoyed at all the logic flaws and plot holes.

Overall, a good ending to the trilogy

All in all, I enjoyed the entire series. A decent story. With this third and final book, near the middle, there is a lot of talk about genetics. That seem to get a little too scientific and was difficult for me to follow. But I slog through that portion And the rest of it was decent.

Boring!!! Boring!!! Boring!!!

There is no imagination in this book and it’s not creative. This book is a bunch of misogynistic men meeting up to try to outsmart each other. The most exciting thing that happens is that iSomebody will have an idea that somebody else has thought of. The main character is the biggest misogynistic pig. At one point he even refers to the woman as “little girl” at the same time, describing her performing sexual favors to gain information that helps them.
The narrator speaks for most of the characters with a nasally voice like Bert and Earny. Very hard to listen to.