The Ganymede Club

I don't read a lot of science fiction, and what I have read was mostly Azimov-era adventure type stories with little hard science. This book was bought on a whim and turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It's an easy and entertaining read with enough science to keep the purists happy, judging by the other reviews. Definitely a worthwhile book, but maybe a tad predictable.

It's five years after the Great War that killed nine billion people in the Solar System, but violence hasn't ceased. It's just returned to the traditional forms of individual murder for profit and paranoia.The targets in question are haldane Lola Belman, a therapist trained in the aracana of the mathematical underpinnings of the brain, psychotropic drugs, and medicine, and her patient who seems to be suffering a severe bout of false memories. Unlike its prequel _Cold As Ice_, there are not a lot of neat scientific concepts here. The plot is not driven by scientific exploration and corporate and political intrigue but mostly by the suspense of the characters trying to figure out things the reader knows already, specifically who's trying to kill them and why. And those characters are generally a more interesting lot than those in the earlier novel. The only overlap in the cast is with the best character: the Bat, an obese and extremely private genius who delights in solving all sorts of puzzles from scheduling conflicts in the spaceship transportation network to murder. Here we see him twenty years earlier in his career.Essentially, if you like a good, suspenseful science fiction tale with a bit of hard science, this novel is for you. Sheffield has created, in these books, a universe of adventure, discovery, and intrigue about 90 years in the future. Each stands alone, and the books can be read in any order.

This is one of the better science fiction books I've read in a long time. It weaves alien symbiosis, Solar System-wide war, personality transference, and psychiatric sleuthing into a great whodunit. It's marred only by the unreasonable choice of setting it in the period A.D. 2040 to 2070. It took me half of the novel to put that in the back of my mind. A.D. 2340 would have been more appropriate. Other than that, it was an outstanding read. I don't think they come any better than Sheffield.

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were varied, the plot intriguing and the writing was clear and literate.