| Author: | Joan D. Vinge |
| Copyright: | 1978 |
| Date Reviewed: | 10/7/84 |
| Rating: | 5.5 |
Synopsis: Captain Bethe commands the Starship Ranger which is on a peaceful mission from Morningside to Heaven Belt. Morningside is in need of aid and it is hoped that they can trade with the prosperous inhabitants of Heaven Belt. The Ranger arrives at Heaven Belt and is attacked without provocation. The ship escapes but looses five out of the crew of seven.
Bethe soon learns that Heaven Belt is poorer than Morningside, following a Civil War two and a half Gigaseconds ago. The Ranger picks up two passengers (actually they were try to hijack the ship with a can opener) and with their help and through the rest of the novel they visit the three remaining nations of the Heaven Belt the Demarchy, an anarchistic government based on some asteroids, the Grand Harmony, a totalitarian government based on a small planet, and Lansing, the former capital of Heaven Belt, now facing death without water.
To escape from this system, they need hydrogen fuel. They first approach the Demarchy but are denied fuel and barley escape. They reach the Grand Harmony and steal one thousand tons of hydrogen, agreeing to give 800 tons of it to the water starved people of Lansing. At Lansing, the two more powerful nations attempt to take the Ranger but through the efforts of negotiator Wadie Abdhiamal, they are allowed to return home with the agreement that they will return and open trade.
Review: In several respects this novel reminds me of another I read this year, "Destination: Void", by Frank Herbert. That novel was terrible, this one is simply bad. Three quarters of the novel are talk between five people aboard a starship. The theme here is that Heaven Belt is dying. We are reminded of this fact over and over again. I suppose Joan Vinge is trying to impress upon us the hopelessness of the situation. However I got that at the very beginning, and I didn't need to hear it again so many times.
Her style of writing is very poetic and this too tends to get boring after a while. "Her eyes met his and ..." or some variation on this theme happened many times through the long voyage. A deeper explanation of the various types of governments in the system may have made things more interesting but they were simply glazed over with emphasis going to personal problems. The climax of the novel was interesting. I liked the way the two powers cornered the Ranger, even though the final outcome was very predictable.