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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph Coyote: A Story of Interstellar Exploration

Discussion in 'Archive: SF&F: Books and Comics' started by JediTrilobite, Mar 19, 2006.

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  1. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    $23.80 later and Frontier is in my hands. Started reading. Physics. Starbridge. Hidden technology research. It's all good.
     
  2. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    All done with Frontier. I won't go into spoilers but I'll give it a thumbs up. Now, what to say about it...

    The Starbridge. Good: One thing I always wondered about was how you set up both ends of a wormhole. I wondered if you opened up one end if the other end would just be there, kind of like focusing one point onto another. And who knows, it might actually work that way one day. What Steele does is use the idea that you have one mechanism on one end. Then you have to get another mechanism to the destination you want to go to the convential slower than light way. So they had to take 50 years to get the other end set up around Coyote, after that the travel time was mere moments. Expanding throughout the galaxy would be a slower process intially since you have to go to one star system at a time and know that you want to go there in the first place. That sounds like a backstory for Carl Sagan's Contact.

    Starbridge. The Bad: One end does a start up and the other recieves. The thing is that in the set up for any model I've seen for a wormhole is that once you imbue the needed energy(which is very high) the tunnel will stay open, you don't need to do a star up each time when you want to send something through. Once open you could look through the mouth and see your destination and step or fly through. Not a big deal though, I'm just griping.

    Ok, one cool spoiler. Avert your eyes if you don't wanna see it. Leslie Gillis saw what he thought was a spacecraft of some sort when he was woken up on the Alabama in the first book. He was correct, and it wasn't from Earth.

    Steele left room for more in this series and I hope he continues it because I would certainly like to read more.

     
  3. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

    Registered:
    Nov 17, 1999
    Damn, I'm going to go out and pick up that book now.
     
  4. droideka27

    droideka27 Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 28, 2002
    well i skipped through all the discuss in detail of the books, but the first posts make this trilogy(?) seem quite interesting. it is going on my to-read-list!
     
  5. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    I'm not sure I'd call it a trilogy. It's three books, with an overall storyline, but the structure of the first and second books are serialized, collections of short stories in an overall novel.
     
  6. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    Just picked up Frontier, I'll get to it tonight.
     
  7. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    Aaaand, finished Frontier - Man, I went through it way too fast.

    Amazing finish to the trilogy, and I'm glad that he kept the same sort of format with the stories. Loved the return to Earth, the Stargate (heh) and the confirmation that there was alien races, although it seemed a bit of an add on at the end - I really hope that he returns with more stories with that bit.
     
  8. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    The only thing that kept the "discovery" of intelligent life on other worlds from being an add on in my own mind was the nice clever(mysterious) introduction of them in the first book as a sighting by a man possibly going insane. Gregory Benford's Jupiter Project was a tacked-on alien ending, and the last book in Bova's asteroid series had what I would call a tacked-on alien ending--and a very bad one too.
    I would have liked a non-humanoid alien, but I thought the "heshe" was funny, and at the very least a little different.

    The one thing I would have really enjoyed was a telling of the story of the journey involving Susan Montero, Castro the Savant, and the guy who was one of the people who threw the Savant into the river in the second book.

    Query: How do you picture the Savants? As general Grievous? As Sunny from I, Robot? Or something in between?

    Query2: If you were at the end of your life and your only option for going on was to have your mind uploaded in a a robotic body like the Savants, would you do it or just go ahead and pass on?
     
  9. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    It felt like an add for me despite the reference in the first book, and the mention in the third, about the ship. Just happened so suddenly.

    I see Manny as somewhere between the two.
     
  10. Raven

    Raven Administrator Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Oct 5, 1998
    Unlocked on request.
     
  11. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    Thank you - Just finished Spindrift, which is set in the same universe, but explains the alien encounter at the end of the last Coyote novel.
     
  12. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    Is this a new novel or a short story? Is it a sequal?
     
  13. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    It's a novel, and it's a straight through story, not a collection of short stories.

    Overall, it wasn't a bad novel. The first half or so was just really fun reading. The second half, when they have the first contact situation was interesting, but it wasn't anything special and a bit of a letdown.
     
  14. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jul 20, 2002
    Unlocked.
     
  15. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    There are two further Coyote books coming - the first is to be released next March. I believe it's being called Coyote Twilight.
     
  16. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    Well although it has been months now I am hooked so of course I will read them. When last we saw our intrepid colonists they had met alien beings so I assume we will go off into some kind of galactic introduction.
     
  17. JediTrilobite

    JediTrilobite Jedi Grand Master star 7

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    Nov 17, 1999
    That's sort of taken care of with Spindrift, which unfortunately, doesn't really come up to the Coyote books in quality. I think these two new books are more about the planet, rather than the galaxy.
     
  18. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    Well that's what I meant by intro, I don't think it will get too far away or anything but a picture will come about as to what the community(if there is one) of the galaxy looks like. It appears that intersteallar travel is difficult which prevents immediate domination of one group over another.
     
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