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Title: The Last Starship from Earth
Author: John Boyd (Boyd Bradfield Upchurch)
Published: New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 181
Total Page Count: 115,110
Text Number: 335
Read Because: mentioned in Among Others by Jo Walton, borrowed from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
century_eyes
Review: In a society with strict class and career divisions, a poet and a mathematician cross specializations and break laws to fall in love, beginning a strange chain of events. The first line of my review notes reads, "Good my lord, what was that"—and I have no better way to summarize this book. A dystopia-cum-social commentary in line with Fahrenheit 451 or 1984, but plagued with vast inconsistencies of content, worldbuilding, and tone, it's hard to make much of The Last Starship from Earth. It's humorous in a flippant, almost whimsical way that largely serves to undercut its would-be serious content and it offers up a near-adolescent, vaguely problematic preoccupation with sex; its scope is ridiculously broad, leaving contradictions and gaps in its wake. On one hand, the premise aims high and the vast scope creates a constant sense of motion, and so the book is intriguing and quick; on the other, it seems to stumble into itself without forethought or proactivity, more interested in hitting a row of notes than making any sort of melody out of them. It's largely harmless, and has glimpses of potential, but there are better dystopias out there; I don't recommend this one.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: John Boyd (Boyd Bradfield Upchurch)
Published: New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 181
Total Page Count: 115,110
Text Number: 335
Read Because: mentioned in Among Others by Jo Walton, borrowed from
century_eyesReview: In a society with strict class and career divisions, a poet and a mathematician cross specializations and break laws to fall in love, beginning a strange chain of events. The first line of my review notes reads, "Good my lord, what was that"—and I have no better way to summarize this book. A dystopia-cum-social commentary in line with Fahrenheit 451 or 1984, but plagued with vast inconsistencies of content, worldbuilding, and tone, it's hard to make much of The Last Starship from Earth. It's humorous in a flippant, almost whimsical way that largely serves to undercut its would-be serious content and it offers up a near-adolescent, vaguely problematic preoccupation with sex; its scope is ridiculously broad, leaving contradictions and gaps in its wake. On one hand, the premise aims high and the vast scope creates a constant sense of motion, and so the book is intriguing and quick; on the other, it seems to stumble into itself without forethought or proactivity, more interested in hitting a row of notes than making any sort of melody out of them. It's largely harmless, and has glimpses of potential, but there are better dystopias out there; I don't recommend this one.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
