: Orion
Though Bova’s one of my favorite SF authors, I somehow missed out on his Orion series. It’s a difficult story to describe, especially without spoiling it. It involves beings who are described as gods, and they can do supernatural things, which is my biggest problem with the novel. Since none of that is explained very well until the end, the story felt groundless and I just drifted along without any way to frame my opinions. If these really were gods, that felt odd because they have limitations and aren’t all-powerful. The actual plot seems to be full of holes as a result, since gods should be able to deal with the obstacles. By the time I understood what was going on I liked the novel a little better, but it still feels awkward and doesn’t sit well. I feel manipulated. The plot itself is redundant, but has its interesting moments. The basic story is a man named Orion who discovers he’s a creation of a god who has programmed him to hunt down and kill a rival god. The story begins in the modern world, and then moves back through time into different points in history. Each time, Orion’s task is the same: find his enemy and defeat him. Their battles are each different and the solutions interesting and not always what you’d expect, but it still felt too much like Sisyphus and his rock, an endless tale of death and rebirth, throughout which Orion must always defeat the same foe over and over and over. What’s the point of all that? Though I liked many aspects of the story (there’s a love-relationship that’s also key and that was intriguing), the very nature of the repetitive story turned me off and I was bored and found reading tedious. I just wanted it to end and it goes on and on and on. There are more in the series, but I’m not certain I want to explore them. It’s possible they’ll have a different feel to me now that I understand what’s going on, so I might give one a try, but right now I’m tired of the Orion universe and want to move on to something else.
Topic: [/book] |
