Review: Earthlight (no spoilers)
May. 27th, 2010 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalFinished another re-read of an old book I own. This time it's Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke. I recalled this one being kinda dull even when I read it as a kid and it hasn't really improved.
Anyway, 200 years in the future an accountant named Sadler is shipped up to an observatory on the Moon by a shadowy intelligence agency to investigate who there is sending classified information to the Federation, a coalition of outer planets who are peeved at Earth because apparently heavy metals are in seriosuly short supply Out There and Earth has been stinging handing out stuff to her former colonies.
I'm afraid the Zeerust is heavy in this book. It's designed to give a sense of wonder about living on the Moon, but as a travelogue it's lacking. Sadler is a passive observer, events happening around him (and he's not even the one who get a front seat at the climatic battle) rather than too him. And a look at a shiny future Moon is hard to take seriously when the observatory's computers are described as being big hulking calculators with clacking printers.
Anyway, 200 years in the future an accountant named Sadler is shipped up to an observatory on the Moon by a shadowy intelligence agency to investigate who there is sending classified information to the Federation, a coalition of outer planets who are peeved at Earth because apparently heavy metals are in seriosuly short supply Out There and Earth has been stinging handing out stuff to her former colonies.
I'm afraid the Zeerust is heavy in this book. It's designed to give a sense of wonder about living on the Moon, but as a travelogue it's lacking. Sadler is a passive observer, events happening around him (and he's not even the one who get a front seat at the climatic battle) rather than too him. And a look at a shiny future Moon is hard to take seriously when the observatory's computers are described as being big hulking calculators with clacking printers.
