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Imagine you and your family are taking a walk and a little boat with six dwarfs and who-knows-how-many Gremlins on it, is docked right in front of you. The dwarfs invite you aboard and take you on a magical journey of incredible adventures. This is what happened to Professor Asiling and his two daughters Miranda and Cassandra.
I think that "The Voyage of the Basset" is an incredible story. In my opinion, this book takes the best qualities of fiction, which are mythology, fantasy, adventure and imagination and then combines them into the best book I have ever read! And I have read at least 1,000 books. I believe that "The Voyage of the Basset" will capture the hearts and imaginations of children everywhere.
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There is also a little twist in the first contact theory. Humans carry some advantages that aren't often represented in most scifi stories. I also enjoyed the switching between POVs during the initial encounters, judgments that are made about each side.
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What I wanted to point at is the various similarities between this book and the famous Matrix movie.... really makes me wonder if the brothers read this book, there are a few elements in this book which have been used in the movie, which would make it too much of a coincidence.
highly recommendated
My sole complaint was with a few glaring problems with continuity that spoiled the story for me somewhat. (It's hard to give an example without giving away the storyline, but watch for references to the characters' eyes.)
Despite the technical goofs, I still enjoyed the book, as I've enjoyed nearly all of Alan Dean Foster's works.
Our protagonist is is pulled into a struggle between light and dark by a tribal wise man. I do not wish to give away any of the plot, but our heroes must fight "demons" from the other side who are trying to enter our world.
The story appears to be very well researched (except the author seems to think that glass eyes are functional and not merely cosmetic (the only real flaw in the story)). Into The Out Of was followed by Foster's Maori, after which the author seemed to leave the dark continent for good (although he did revisit horror with Vanishing Point).
Truely a good book.
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The book is action packed through out, you like the main characters, and the plot is simple, making for a nice easy read.
The book begins with a silly bar game, but moves on to the life of the main narrator, a 'nobody' salesman, Ethan F. Fortune. He is assigned to a city named Brass Monkey on the frozen world of Tran-ky-ky (a native name) to vend modern heaters (the inhabitants are maybe 800 years behind us). But instead he bumbles into a kidnapping along with a 'nobody' teacher. The kidnappers force the unfortunate victims into the lifeboat, but the bar guy had been tossed on board earlier in a drunken sleep. Plus they fail to leave before the kidnappers' bomb detonates and careen to the human-less outbacks of Tran-ky-ky. Now the party of 6 (Ethan, the drunkard - Skua September - , the schoolteacher, a wealthy industrialist, his overweight and sarcastic daughter, and the weak kidnapper - Skua kills the powerful one) must cope with the fascinating but hazardous planet.
Here are some things you'll read about:
--a *valuable* volcano
--a scholarly but dangerous monastery
--a feudal island, an old baron and his coquettish daughter
--a titanic, vacuum-cleaner ice slug
--hairy dragons, nocturnal carnivores, and alien ice plants
--a clipper-ship sled!
--violent sections involving marauding barbarians (the bulk of the story)
The whole thing is served up with clear, understandable writing that's so lifelike it sometimes gets raunchy. This isn't a book you would read more than one chapter at a time of, but the adventure story really does grip you. The science-fiction bits are great, too: the native "tran" (see "Barlowe's Guide to the Extra-Terrestrials") really are believable. So if you want to sit back and read about knights and castles on an ice world, well..... you'll love this novel!
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But this book never gets too serious (how can it, when the characters visit an alien capital city named "Alvin"?) And as they go from civilization to civilization, Foster makes his point that even aliens and their world are likely to share a lot of characteristics with Earth and its people.
A pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
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The descriptions of the planet of Prism are innovative and enticing. They prove beyond a doubt that nothing is ever what it seems and there is no possible way to prepare for the unknown.
When Evan Orgell was placed on Prism, he was outfitted with a state-of-the-art, impenetrable survival suit; impenetrable, that is, in predictable conditions, like earth, but on a new and incredibly different world, anything can happen. Be ready to be surprised.