Conference noted::sf

491.0. "FTL: Further Than Life, by ??" by TSG::KELLEHER (Hail Muse, et cetera!) Fri Jun 19 1987 10:38

    Okay, gang...
    
    	Anyone read "FTL: Further Than Life"?  (uh, my apologies, I've
    forgotten the author, but it's very recent.)  It's the sequel
    to "Martian Spring" (which I haven't read).  I thought FTL was
    amazing, and very odd.  It suggests that there ARE martians, but
    because the planet goes through a 60,000-year Ice Age cycle, they
    are only out of hibernation for 600 years every 60,000.
    
    	Last time they were "awake," they had sent a several starships
    to...to Epsilon Eridae?...to some fairly nearby star.  As the book
    begins, they and human beings have met and begun intermingling
    their cultures, and (having broken the light-speed barrier) are
    sending out another ship to the same star.  The only message they
    ever got back from the first expedition (received and recorded
    during their 60,000 year slumber) was a garbled "...further than
    life..."
    
    	The author KNOWS his science, and that's great.  But he also
    writes in a weird way.  I want to say his style is weird, or the
    tone is weird, but those don't summarize it.  It's a dense book,
    and the characters are marvelously drawn and distinct, and the
    author sends the reader some killer punches, and does not pull the
    punches at all.  One character, one of the main characters and one
    of the most admirable and engaging, goes through some stuff that
    left me gasping "how could an author DO that..?"  It was great.
    
    	Any comments?  Has anyone else read this one?
    
    			Tom Kelleher