Conference noted::sf

952.0. "Voice of the Planet by Micheal Tobias" by TINCUP::KOLBE (The dilettante divorcee) Mon Feb 04 1991 14:24

The first things you see on the cover are a recommendation by William Shatner
and the notice that this book will be a major new mini-series this fall on TBS.

Well, this will probably be a great tv show with stunning special effects. As a
good read it falls short. It's a bit preachy and two thirds of the way through
I just lost interest. 

The premise, a Tibetan monk creates a computer in a monistary that becomes the
voice of Geia. (I can't remember the spelling for sure). She can break into any
computer in the world and uses that to intice a scientist to come to Nepal and
be her partner in saving the world.

In the course of showing him the realities of human pollution and destruction of
the planet she transports him through time and space to prove her points. As I
said, this will make a great tv show. It reminded me of the PBS show on Global
Warming 2000 where they did a similar thing. If they do it right this could be
the special effects event of the decade. That's part of the problem with the
book. It reads like a series of descriptions of special effects. The story got
lost. 

I feel quilty for being bored by this book. I'm belong to Greenpeace, the Sierra
Club and the National Wildlife Foundation. It seemed like my patriotic duty to
read this and I just couldn't stay interested. liesl

    Didn't Ted Turner offer some enormous prize for an SF novel that 
    addressed these themes?  Could this have been the winner?