Wall Around a Star

Cuckoo Saga

by Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson

HE WAS A RELUCTANT PASSENGER ON A VOYAGE TO SAVE THE GALAXY...

Butterflylike aliens had brought Earth into the galactic culture. But she was a poor relation, valued only for the living human bodies she rented out for whatever purposes her nonhuman customers desired.

Then Cuckoo was discovered. Millions of miles in diameter, less dense than air, it had a solid surface that was home to many races - including a species of Man. And that was odd, for Cuckoo was from another galaxy!

Suddenly one human, a linguist, became very important. If Jen Babylon could solve the mystery of Cuckoo's records he might raise humanity's standing among the older races - but he might also save the galaxy!

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Collections

275 pages, paper

First published January 12, 1983

About the author

Frederik George Pohl, Jr. was an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy magazine and its sister magazine IF winning the Hugo for IF three years in a row. His writing also won him three Hugos and multiple Nebula Awards. He became a Nebula Grand Master in 1993.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson collaborated on several novels, and while Pohl's collaborations with Cyril Kornbluth are better remembered, this pair produced some fine, entertaining works. Wall Around a Star is a sequel to Farthest Star, written about a decade earlier. It's not a direct sequel with the same characters, but discusses the exploration of Cuckoo, a Dyson-sphere habitat with many intriguing alien races. The plot isn't too captivating, but it's a fascinating travelogue kind of book, in old-school hard-sf sense-of-wonder style, and the characters are quite interesting. It was fun, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Wall Around a Star" is a direct sequel. Almost forty years ago I read "Farthest Star" by Pohl and Williamson. I was intrigued by the tachyon transmission of duplicates of people as a method of exploration. I was somewhat intrigued by the various aliens created for the novel. I was sort of interested in the "artifact" that the explorers were sent to. Months after I finish the novel, I read a review and discovered, since the reviewer used the term, that the artifact was a Dyson Sphere. This made it much more intriguing and I have felt stupid since I read that review that I did not recognize a Dyson Sphere from its description. I recently reread "Farthest Star" and then, finally, almost thirty years after the sequel was published (and purchased by me), I read the sequel. Now I feel bad for feeling bad all those years. It is really not evident that Cuckoo (the name of the artifact) is a Dyson Sphere. There is a lot going on in. You need a scorecard, I'm thinking. In these two books, Pohl and Williamson try to do too much. They explore some of the repercussions of tachyon transmission copies. They use a Dyson Sphere as a setting. They create a whole new universe of aliens. On top of this, we have an invasion of Earth and a major theological revelation. It is a little confusing to read. And it almost works. Almost. I still find their tachyon exploration technique fascinating.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The aliens are interesting. That is about all I can say for the book.

Fascinating description of new life forms, and some light discussion of future tech and how it will change society. However, the plot is non-existent and the characters rather annoying. Last, the pacing is bizarrely inconsistent - you either are buried in tension or spend chapters trapped in an apartment.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

You can cut and paste my comments from the first book on this one.

I really wanted it to be great, but it was just wasn't there.

[Al Onia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than the prequel, holds up well some 4 decades after its release. Introduced many now familiar cocepts in SF. Too bad the authors never pursued a third book with the even bigger task proposed at the end.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was supposed to be a sequel to Farthest Star, which I really enjoyed, but it was disappointing. The writing style is different, the plot from the orginal book is dropped and replaced with an amateurish invasion story. My guess is it was ghost written by a hack amateur and the original authors put their names on it and pocketed the cash.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay.

[Steven]

Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson