Published in 1978, the first Proteus book, SIGHT OF PROTEUS, featured a popular seventies' idea, biofeedback, carried to bizarre and implausible extremes. In the future, "form change" machines will enable the human will to mold the human form via biofeedback processes. The hero of the novel is Bey Wolf. As an agent of the Office of Form Control, he looks for "unauthorized" and dangerous forms in the multitude of shapes humanity has taken for fashion and profit. Sheffield continued the series ten years later with PROTEUS UNBOUND, and PROTEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD is the third and latest in the series though it is not really necessary to have read the earlier books.

Wolf is now retired and developing form change technology himself. However, a distant relative, Sondra Wolf Dearborn, asks him to help her solve a crucial puzzle. All human children are given "humanity tests". If they can consciously and deliberately alter their form they avoid being sent to the organ banks. However, some defi

the proteus books are probably sheffield's best. great characters, compelling locations, dynamic storylines, interesting science. what's not to like? i fail to see the "implausible" aspects of these books referred to in an earlier review (after all, sf is supposed to be a little aggressive in the science department - and this series is more about the _effects_ of the science than about the science itself). they're just plain cool.

I really enjoyed the book, as I enjoy Heinlein books as an adult, but it is obviously geared toward the juvenile audience. Great. However, it is not finished and we are left hanging in space (pun intended) with the story unresolved. Heinlein didn't do that. I hope Mr. Sheffield continues the story line, but he has so many irons in the fire------. Well, we'll see.

I read this book a number of years ago (I was still in high school) and liked it very much. It may have been the first collection of short stories that I could read through in its entirety without losing interest. It seemed that each story revolved around a specific idea (as most, especially sf, stories do); nearly every one of these ideas struck me as very original, and interestingly depictedand played out. Two particularly struck me: one where a physicist dies and how his childhood friend steals his theories, and one about teams of engineers composed of cloned people throughout history (and the dynamics between them, whether they were geniuses on account of nature/nurture etc.) I remember being quite pleased at the blend of hard science and humanity.

That said... looking back, perhaps tainted by over-literary reading, I see something very 'dilettantish' about these stories, as though the author were merely playing with ideas, maybe only on weekends; and the same goes for the writing itself. My biggest criticism is that the book as a whole lacks development, rumination; I can still see entire blades of grass, unchewed, poking through the text. Sometimes this roughage lends interesting texture or charm, and can even be desirable (letting the reader (re)write/create). Often, however, it is a burden; after each story, the reader is left holding a loose and scattered group of ideas to be assembled later. In certain short stories (Joyce's, Kafka's...) which give hint of a hidden unity and demand numerous readings, this sense of an 'incomplete reading' is good/necessary/intentional; the reader starts the story over to decipher the code, uncover its meaning, or to reenter its spell. With this book, I never really got this feeling or urge to reread, or even think deeply about, any of the stories. Thus, the problem may reside in the depth of the stories; what you can glean from one reading is about all you are going to get. This lucidity and plainness is great for pure entertainment, but it seems these stories are trying to do something more cerebral at the same time; they give an illusion of depth, making its absence all the more aparent.

And that said... I give this book four stars not only for my first reading (which, I repeat, was very interesting and fun), but also because I still think that it is a very solid book, with solid writing and solid ideas. Some of the stories have stuck with me, and it is perhaps this sort of test of time which points towards a books true worth.

Hidden Variables is a collection of Sheffield's short stories. I love Sheffield's stuff and I found most of this book utterly fascinating. These include some of the chapters you can find in "The Compleat McAndrew," a unique perspective on time travel, a short but well-written piece on one man's conversion after a murder, and a very nifty murder mystery involving a special friction-reducing chemical. For those stories, I would rate the book a solid 5. However, he also wrote a few stories involving pigs in order to prove a point or satisfy a bet of some sort. I think the book would have been better off without them. But the rest were well worth reading. I recommend it.

Many people would agree that humanity is currently on the path to its own destruction. The problem is, no two people would agree on how to get us off that path. The fourteen stories in this anthology provide some ideas on how this can be done. The nice thing about these stories is that they provide what may be feasible soltuions, while also demonstrating the complications that would arise from them. Some of these stories introduce concepts that are downright disturbing, and most of them are enjoyable.

A series of short stories centered on the adventures of Arthur Morton "McAndrew", Physics Genius and Jean "Jeanie" Pelham Roker, Space Captain.

Makes you want to embrace and explore the unknown. Language syntax a little outdated and offensive at times but all in all a fun book.

this book kept me going for the three full days it took me to read it. the only thing that i have to say bad is i didn't like the ending. sheffield needs to do a sequil. kinda left me hanging and i wanted to read more.

This book is essential an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's to a science fiction setting. Instead of a pirate treasure, they are looking for an interstellar drive. There is a Long John Silver character, although he has benefitted from improvements in medical technology. It's not a bad read, but it's surprisingly shallow for someone of Sheffield's talents

A very well done takeoff of the RLS masterpiece with science used cleverly.

This is the first book I read by this author, and it is still my favorite. It combines mystery, adventure, and the coming-of-age of a character you really get to care about. Definitely recommended!

This book seemed to be a reprise of Golden age science fiction, in a world where technology is the saviour of all, people are ethical, honest, hard working, updated with a dash of cyberpunk mentality, with hard edges, drugs, lies and the accompanying details.

Unfortunately, the visions did not meld well, leaving the story as a mishmash of ideas, with various sub-plots spawning off in various directions, and seemingly never wrapping up properly. In addition, I don't feel that sufficient detail is given to the elements of the story to make them believable. There are too many glossed over details to draw the reader in properly.

The main plot (at least it seems the main plot) itself represents an interesting idea - the mind pool - but it is lost in the noise.

Nevertheless, it is a somewhat interesting story, and a unique vision. It's just very hard to read.

The Mind Pool tells the story of a future in which humans have encountered only three other intelligent species in the explored universe. The explored universe is essentially an ever exapanding sphere that radiates out as probes continue to move out through space and everything within this sphere is easilt reachable using "Mattin Links."

What I find intiguing about this story is the description of three very different alien species and how they are thrown together with humans, the only "aggressive" species, to form a team. However, I felt that this particular plot point wasn't dealt with in an engrossing manner. The whole novel felt somewhat pieced together and was shorter than it should have been. The catalyst for the story, the Morgan Construct that poses a threat to the universe and the teams are sent to find, felt almost forgotten and I was unclear what role it served in the story except as a launching point.

I enjoyed the story, but there were so many aspects to this universe that I would have liked to learn about and I felt like none of them were really explored in any depth. There was a subplot that was apparently left out of the original version of this story, called The Nimrod Hunt, that I felt was a hinderance to the story rather than adding anything and the author added back in merely because he was fond of it. The ending was somewhat confused and just seemed to stop and I wasn't really satisfied. I think I will pick up another of his books that isn't a rewrite of an earlier story and see how I like it.

Charles Sheffield's The Mind Pool is a rework of an older novel, The Nimrod Hunt. Centered around the hunt for a renegade artificial life-form, the novel paints a mixed picture of the future, with humans living in harmony with alien species, genetic engineering rampant and uncontrolled, a divided, violent, and irrelevant Earth, and a militaristic outer system.

This is a difficult book to get into. Initial chapters are tedious and there are a lot of key characters who inter-develop as the the book continues which devolves quickly into a confusing mess. Sheffield's humour barely holds the story together as empathy with the main, distant and too many, characters seems close to impossible, and the reader is expected to take in a little too much, from different technologies to the behaviors of three wildly different species. The book, initially, also seems to live up to its back-cover synopsis, which in science fiction can be a bad thing, especially if the synopsis seems to be written to appeal to John W Campbell.

The novel is saved by a number of factors: Sheffield's humour, naturally, helps. Certain characters become fleshed out and sympathetic. Some time about half way through the novel the pace and understandability of what is going on becomes quicker and easier. And then there's an absolutely beautiful twist concerning the very subject of the novel - and I say beautiful not just to describe the twist itself but the subject matter and the novel at that point, which just turned my opinion of the book on its head.

This is a flawed novel. You should read it anyway.