Harvest of Stars
-
-
3.8 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
The virtual persona of a long-dead visionary entrepreneur threatens to incite a revolution from space that could topple Earth’s powerful and repressive religious-technological dictatorship in this ingenious science fiction classic
In the future, individual freedom is a thing of the past. North America is a police state controlled by the Avantist government, a despotic, techno-religious ruling order that promises an impending transcendence for the oppressed. Space, however, remains free, thanks to Anson Guthrie’s powerful Fireball Corporation. Guthrie’s corporeal self died many generations ago, but his essence lives on, preserved forever in a computerized state that enables him to inspire his loyal employees and adherents to keep reaching for the farthest stars. But now the totalitarian enemy, led by sadistic secret policeman Enrique Sayre, has gained possession of a Guthrie download, intending to subvert it to the Avantist cause, thereby breaking Fireball’s hold on the cosmos. The corporation is doomed unless ace pilot Kyra Davis can smuggle a still-unreconstructed version of Guthrie out of enslaved America and rocket him to the moon and beyond, where Fireball’s virtual creator can attempt to stoke the flames of revolution—and change the direction of his world.
A truly remarkable work from one of science fiction’s all-time greats, Harvest of Stars might be the most ingenious and ambitious novel of Grand Master Poul Anderson’s acclaimed and prolific career. Thoughtful and adventurous, rich in imagination and integrity, it offers definitive proof of the seven-time Hugo Award–winning author’s unparalleled mastery in the field of speculative fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though Anderson's ( The Boat of a Million Years ) latest offering bears the earmarks of a science fiction epic, the novel fulfills little of its promise. A future North America is dominated by the Avantist police state, while space is ruled by the vast Fireball corporation. Founded by entrepreneur Anson Guthrie, Fireball is devoted to a nearly libertarian ideal of individual freedom and laissez-faire economics, the antithesis of the Avantist policy. The original Guthrie is long dead, but his mind, downloaded into a computer, lives on to direct Fireball. When the Avantists capture a second copy of Guthrie, designed to travel with a probe to Centauri's earthlike planet Demeter, they have the power to destroy Fireball, using their copy to issue false orders and to force a crisis. Plucky Fireball pilot Kyra Davis and a host of other Guthrie loyalists race to avert disaster. The plot is flat, however, the tension deflated by trite, intrusive lectures on liberty and finding meaning in a high-tech world. Then Anderson introduces a bizarre development, when Guthrie decides to lead his followers to colonize Demeter. Despite Anderson's assemblage of all the elements of classic SF on a grand scale, the novel evokes more weariness than wonder.
