false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174547933m/416329.jpg 416329 2 In his excellent novel <I>The Wreck of The River of Stars</I>, Michael Flynn looks back on the romantic Age of Sail: the second, high-tech Age of Sail, when spaceships with vast magnetic sails rode the solar winds across the immense ocean of space, and the greatest of the luxury spaceliners was <I>The River of Stars</I>. But the second Age of Sail is dead: the magnetic sails all were struck, and the spaceships all were retrofitted with the new Farnsworth fusion drive. Once a legend, <I>The River of Stars</I> is now a tramp cargo freighter, plying the outer planets with a scanty crew of men and women with questionable pasts, private agendas, and more than a little interpersonal friction.<p> When a bizarre failure disables the Farnsworth engines driving <I>The River of Stars</I>, the crew has a problem no Earthly sailor ever faced: their ports don't stay put. If <I>The River of Stars</I> doesn't arrive on schedule, Jupiter will be somewhere else in its enormous orbit. That means the damaged ship will speed out of the solar system and drift forever among the stars. The crew's only hope appears to be the magnetic sail. But recreating a long-gone high-tech sail isn't the worst problem this motley crew faces. To survive, they must achieve something even more herculean: they must overcome their own intricately entangled fears, hatreds, power struggles, and romantic disasters. <I>--Cynthia Ward</I> 405497 2003 The Wreck of the River of Stars total:46|5:9|4:16|3:19|2:1|1:1| 46 169 84 12 4 0 false false Sat Sep 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 14 07:14:56 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 10 12:58:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Oct 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 16:36:07 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 16:41:23 -0700 2009
It's a novel about the final voyage of an interplanetary, old, vessel as it nears Jupiter.

There is little or no "action," such as that often found in...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 29 14:39:25 -0800 2007 Sat Jan 19 13:23:10 -0800 2008
This is hard sci-fi, but mostly it's a character study. The author used the Myers-Briggs personality types to create 15 disparate characters and placed them on an interplanetary spaceship - a former luxury cruiser now serving...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 18:29:19 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 18:37:52 -0700 2008
But...the 'ship' happens to be an interplanetary tramp freighter plying the 'seas' between the middle planets of our solar system.

The story could easily have oc...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Feb 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 15:50:03 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 15:54:26 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jan 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Dec 14 13:26:14 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 08 19:29:21 -0800 2009
Flynn explores many of the themes of space adventure and flips them on their head: a disaster in space, a rag-tag crewing working to fix it, people acting like heroes. But nothing comes out quite right.

Very ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 12 08:14:18 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 15 20:31:38 -0700 2009 3 0 false true Sun Sep 21 21:25:39 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 21 21:25:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon May 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 18:43:47 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 18:44:30 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jun 03 07:29:25 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 07:34:24 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon Mar 03 05:19:40 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 03 05:21:26 -0800 2008 Yawn. I gave it up about 100 pages in as too much work for too little enjoyment. ]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 17:30:35 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 01 16:57:24 -0700 2008
Hey, it made me cry. That's all I can ask for in a book.]]> 0 0 false false Sun Nov 29 11:38:10 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 11:38:10 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Nov 22 12:53:00 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 22 12:53:02 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Nov 13 19:35:38 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 13 19:35:38 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Wed Nov 11 17:07:55 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 17:07:55 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 07 07:20:36 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 07:20:36 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Mon Oct 12 07:30:53 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 07:30:53 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Oct 09 16:52:34 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 16:52:34 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Oct 07 18:12:41 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 18:12:41 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=416329