Dragon's Egg (Del Rey Impact)

Pretty good for science fiction

Robert L. Forward is a physicist turned novelist who, like Niven, was intrigued by the idea of neutron stars. Like Integral Trees he postulates the development of a civilization on/in such a milieu and throws time domain differences into the mix. Fairly old, but it's the scientific extrapolations that keep you interested.

This book will make you see your world in a whole new perspective. It will affect how you view the human race. Dragon's Egg is a neutron star that is formed, and begins to develop plant and then organic life. Time passes a million times faster than on earth, so one of their days is equivalent to hundreds of years on earth. Humans notice the star and send scientists up in space to observe it, and...more

This book will make you see your world in a whole new perspective. It will affect how you view the human race. Dragon's Egg is a neutron star that is formed, and begins to develop plant and then organic life. Time passes a million times faster than on earth, so one of their days is equivalent to hundreds of years on earth. Humans notice the star and send scientists up in space to observe it, and communication eventually develops, but the main focus of the book is on how the cheela, Dragon's Egg's inhabitants, emerge, develop and learn. You will become strangely attached to the cheela, and almost admire them. By the end of this book I felt like I was saying goodbye to a friend. There's a sequel, but I haven't read that yet!   hide

Technical, but a good read

Pretty intense and sometimes hard to follow, very heavy on science and technical stuff, but very much worth pushing through to the end.

I think of this book every day. It's the most fantastic piece of litterature I've ever read. That includes the sequel, "Starquake".

Hard Science Fiction. What kind of life might exist on a Neutron Star?

I really enjoyed this book. It was something very out of the ordinary, even for sci-fi.

Robert L. Forward is one of my top-5 favourite hard-core SciFi writers. Forward's main theme is how alien life could "believably work". So no little green men. Dragon's Egg is maybe his best. Here he explores the idea of life on a neutron star, which would run a million times faster than ours. So human observers can literally watch the history of the neutron-based aliens fly by. Forward's...more

Robert L. Forward is one of my top-5 favourite hard-core SciFi writers. Forward's main theme is how alien life could "believably work". So no little green men. Dragon's Egg is maybe his best. Here he explores the idea of life on a neutron star, which would run a million times faster than ours. So human observers can literally watch the history of the neutron-based aliens fly by. Forward's writing can sometimes be a bit heavy on physics (no formulas though!), but that did not stop me from loving these books.   hide