Alien

Review: Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward

Dragon’s Egg is a fun, clever look at life evolving on the surface of a neutron star, where one hour of human time is the equivalent of hundreds of years on the alien star.

While the extreme physics of the story may be accurate, Dragon’s Egg contains some of the most stilted dialogue I’ve come across in a long time, especially in the beginning. I found myself thinking that author Robert L. Forward must have talked to a human woman at some point in his life, but if so, that knowledge did not find its way to his book.

However, this is not a story you read for its character development. Dragon’s Egg is all about examining an alien race evolving on a sphere with a gravity of 67 billion Gs, and living at a million times the speed of humans. The story is most believable when it’s dealing with aliens, and it’s still a fun ride.

Recommendation: Get it at the library. Power through the first chapter and you’ll be fine.

Dan

View Comments

  • It was a fun read, but not a great work of literature. But it did inspire an episode of the Simpsons.

Share
Published by
Dan

Recent Posts

Review: <em>Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia</em> by Jason Pargin

Author Jason Pargin has made a career out of hilarious and fast-moving books with surprisingly…

1 year ago

Review: <em>The Tusks of Extinction</em> by Ray Nayler

The Tusks of Extinction is a short novellette/novelito (smaller than a novella) where mammoths have…

1 year ago

The Best Silkpunk Books

There are a couple of science fiction books in this list, but right now, most…

1 year ago

Review: <em>Venomous Lumpsucker</em> by Ned Beauman

In the near-future world of Venomous Lumpsucker, everything has continued to get worse, to the…

1 year ago

The Best Dark Science Fiction Books

Calling a book "dark" can mean many things, and the books on this list mean…

1 year ago

The Best Science Fiction Books with Gas Giants

Gas giants are wonderfully weird, mysterious, and incredibly dangerous. It's surprising there aren't more gas…

1 year ago