THE WORLD IS ROUND (del Rey Book)

I recently re-read this book after having originally read it in the early 1980s. My memory of it was as one of the best SF novels that I'd ever read, but it didn't hold up that well on re-reading. There are many enormous holes in the plot, and the plot is really just a way to deliver a few "shockers" about the main character (the giant planet). Still, the writing is quite above average for hard SF, and there are a lot of original hard SF ideas in here. If you enjoy Larry Niven or Hal Clement, this book is for you - just don't expect another Ringworld.

This is one of my favorite books. I just finished re-reading my copy from 20 years ago. The pages are yellowing, but the story is as good as ever, in spite of my knowing what was going to happen.The book deals with a small band of explorers who have some to a mysterious planet in search of metallic hydrogen. Their ship crashes and they are forced to assimilate themselves into the native cultures in order to survive.But all is not as it seems! The planet is as astrophysical anomoly. First, it's year is 1000 standard days, while it takes 750 standard days to rotate. Or, as one character expresses it, "In a few months it'll be noon."The world's size is an even bigger (pun intended) mystery: at 600,000 km in diameter, it is almost as large as it's star, yet the surface gravity is "normal".But as I indicated before, the story is a good read even if you know the solution to the mystery. The plot is interesting, the characters are both alien and believable. The only disappointment that I have is that this is the only fiction that the author has published. Tony Rothman was an astrophysics student when he wrote this book, and since graduating he seems to have confined himself to textbooks, and one autobiography (of a sort). But if he ever publishes anything else, you can be sure that I'll be first in line to buy a copy.

The World is Round combines two of my favorite science fiction themes, the planet of mystery and the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Along the way some of the characters experience spiritual growth in a non-didactic manner.The planet of mystery is huge and has an extremely unhospitable climate caused by its year long day--its name in the native language translates to "Freeze-Bake". A group of adventurers land on the planet searching for metallic hydrogen and have a more than interesting time.The two "native" races provide an interesting cultural dichotomy--one is organized on military lines, the other on communal principles. In spite of the density of ideas, there is an exciting plot involving discovering the secret of the planet and survival on a world whose temperatures range between -200 and 200 degrees.I read it when it came out. My paperback copy is almost used up. Easily one of my favorite SF books of the past forty five years.