Sin of Origin (Isaac Asimov Presents)

By John Barnes

Book Overview

Sin Of Origin by John Barnes released on Jan 25, 1989 is available now for purchase. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373303076
• ISBN13: 9780373303076
• Release Date: February 1989
• Publisher: Worldwide Library
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Past mistakes...

Set almost a melenium in the future, in a universe where man has left a ruined Earth and is stratified into three distinct sects (The Christians, Communists, and Arabs) and has yet to encounter an "equivalent society", Barnes spins a captivating yarn on the freshly discovered world of Randall. In the Christian sphere of influence a world has been discovered where there are three intelegent species living in symbios. This is a great discovery for those who study alien life, since nothing of the sort has ever been encountered, but for the church there are more impotant considerations--such as converting the heathen aliens and opening the world to settlement.Against what is a quite serious look at mankind's tendency to repeat his mistakes (It's been done before, yes, but Barnes does it quite well here) and a Resnick-like parable of 18th century European expansion (though focusing on the missionary aspect of it), Barnes has written an engrosing adventure novel that moves at quite a clip and is considerably more impressive than his first novel, The Man Who Pulled Down the Sky (not that that was a bad book by any stretch).My one complaint would be a somewhat hasty ending--and looking at his first novel and other Asimov Presents that I've glanced at, which all clock in at 250 pages, I imagine that may have been forced by editorial guidelines. And while I'm mentioning editorial stuff: DON'T READ THE INTRODUCTION! Asimov blows a revelation that Barnes does his best to disguise for 240 pages.Now go find it Barnes fans.