This was my first foray into Poul Anderson's work, and could well be my last. From other reviews it sounds as though his earlier works are much better, though. Well, this book is the subject at hand...

For about the first two hundred pages, I felt as though I was wading through background and would soon get to the meat of the conflict, but eventually found that the minor element of conflict mentioned early in the story really was the only point of contention. Then by page 500 I was looking for a major revelation to provide a suitable climax. And then the "story" ended.

This kind of seemed like an (excruciatingly) extended "what if?" sci-fi novel, but rather than reach any interesting conclusions, Anderson leaves you wondering why you had to read nearly 600 pages to discover absolutely nothing more than what was provided in the prologue. I was disappointed on so many levels, it's difficult to focus on any one aspect of the book.

The characters were flat, but stretched out to seem larger than life... the story is really just future history, and not even remotely plausible... many actions are taken without any apparent motivation -- or consequences... most ideas in the novel are based on the fad science topics of the time: chaos theory and quantum physics...only Anderson didn't seem to understand chaos theory (it simply must have sounded too cool not to tie it into some aspect of the story every 20 or so pages).

In short, avoid this waste of time at all costs (even the 50 cents I paid for a used copy was too much). Anderson combines the worst trait of bad sci-fi (flat, contrived characters) with that of bad fiction (highly questionable and/or misunderstood science).

This book was twice as long as it needed to be. As he got older, Poul Anderson seemed to need more words to say less. This book is like that. Still a good book for those who like science fiction and who like to think.

Late in his career, Anderson seemed to conclude that it is inevitable that eventually humans would become subordinate to man-made creations of artificial intelligence. Many of his books lead to this common conclusion. Anderson plainly views this as depressing, which makes this book a dark and unhappy vision of humanity's destiny. He may be right, but he seemed to be stuck in this groove and unable to think outside of this particular box, at least towards the end.

This book epitomizes another Anderson staple: distrust of government. It compares feudal society (the Lunarians) with the ultimate State (the machine-dominated Earth government or, alternatively, the Avantist government that supplants America's present republican form of government.).

Despite the above, this book is worth reading, especially if (like me) you are a big Poul Anderson fan. This book is entertaining and imaginative, and worth more than just a look.

This second installment in Anderson's H.O.S. universe takes place about hundreds of years after the first one. Now the world is controlled by benevolent and caring but stifling machine intelligences. Dagney Beynac, a descendent of Anson Guthrie's, and others go on a round the solar system jaunt searching for an elusive secret that she believes is the key to reigniting the passion for exploration that the majority of now-pacified humans had lost in their centuries of being coddled by AI beings. A secret that the AIs and their conglomerated consciousness, the Teramind, will do anything to protect. Really on par with Harvest Of Stars, which means a lot, unless you haven't read HOS in which case you shouldn't be trying to buy this book, because it is a sequel to an equal or better novel.

Poul Anderson's, "The Stars Are Also Fire," is a relatively good book. It's very difficult to give a summary of this book. It covers centuries and jumps back and forth every other chapter. The reason i gave it only 3 stars is because after reading through 600 pages you get to a climax that's not really a climax. It's more of a let down. The Stars Are Also Fire seems less like a science fiction book and more like a book on future sociology. The book is very entertaining- the characters come to life, the story is engrossing, and Anderson's future is intriguing. However, it was not what i thought it would be.

This book should have been split into two stories rather than relating both at the same time in alternating chapters. In such a case, I would have read one book and thrown away the other. The story of Ian Kenmuir and Aleka Kame was mildly enjoyable (if one ignores how improbable it is that humans would create artificial intelligence that they cannot control), but the story of Dagny Beynac infuriated me.

Her Lunarian children grow up completely alienated from her, form a feudalistic society and perpetrate several murders to rebel against their roots. Despite their lack of ethics, Beynac helps her kids rebel against Earth's government (a benevolent democracy) so that they may rule themselves as kings and queens. Whatever motivates her to do this is beyond my comprehension.

Overall, Anderson is unable to move beyond a shallow distrust of government and love for old-fashioned entrepreneurship to find any greater, revelatory truth. There comes a time when political meanderings grow old and a science fiction reader asks for some transcendant meaning or greater message. There is no such message to be found in "The Stars Are Also Fire."