Ring

I absolutately flew through this book! It was amazing. The story seems predictable at first, though the reader will quickly find that this is not true. I read this book without realizing that is was part of a series (believe me I am going to be reading all the books in this series) and it stands alone just fine. All relative information needed is rehashed for the reader quickly. The imagination this guy has is truely... Read Full Review

I'll just say that I'm a hard core Clarke fan. And I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps the story is a little "jumpy" at the beginning, and perhaps, too, the characters are not as well developed as in other works. But still, this book has many of the attributes I look for in sci-fi: an epic view of the history of the universe, a look at humankind in this context, an effort to imagine other types of life, and a scientific support... Read Full Review

Science Fiction has fallen into a woeful state in recent years. A quick glance at the local bookstore will see the shelves chuck full of unimaginative fantasy noveles and long sections of Star Trek, Star Wars, BattleTech books. I have begun to stray away from this side of the bookstore, simply because I have begun to find is depressing. And yet, all hope is not lost! Upon a recent trip to the store I found a novel by Stephen... Read Full Review

Alright; the characters are sketchy, the writing is patchy and the pacing is interrupted by long info-dumps. Fine. If you don't like Hard Sf don't read this book. If you do like a rattling space adventure which not merely nods at science, but is actually inspired by it, then Ring is for you. Particularly impressive at the audaciouness of it all, the scope, the way Baxter reinvents standard SF tropes. A strangely gothic tale... Read Full Review

Hard SF the way it can and should be written. Baxter creates well-drawn and interesting characters and sets them loose on an adventure of truly mind-boggling scale. I haven't read any of his stuff before, but that's gonna change, now! "Ring" reminds me most of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars," which won a well-deserved Hugo Award. It's positively bursting with well-thought-out and captivating speculation and extrapolation,... Read Full Review