Stopping at Slowyear

By Frederik Pohl

Book Overview

Eager for a home of their own, the crew of Nordvik, an antiquated trading ship, decide to set up camp on Slowyear, a rarely visited planet whose population must live underground during bitter winters... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553294873
• ISBN13: 9780553294873
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Spectra Books
• Length: 151 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Simple Novella from a Science Fiction Master that is a Bit Light in the End

This was an oddball find from Frederik Pohl; I have read much of his work, and this one is a bit out of left field in some ways. Yes, it contains Pohl's trademark satirical take on future civilization, but in the end it doesn't do much and doesn't go very far; which kind of fits the title. Slowyear is a one of the planets colonized by mankind, and backwater one at that. The planet draws its name from the fact that it takes more than nineteen standard Earth years for it too make a revolution of its sun. Much about Slowyear makes it an obscure planet including that it is a bit out of the way for the trade routes. This is why the merchant ship Nordvik - a backwater ship in its own right that cannot compete in the hustle and bustle of the busier planets - visits Slowyear. This short novel is the story of this visit to Slowyear by the Nordvik and the intermingling of the crew and the planet's inhabitants. Not much happens here in the end; but in the end, there is a twist. >>>>>>><<<<<<< <br /> <br />A Guide to my Book Rating System: <br /> <br />1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper. <br />2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead. <br />3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted. <br />4 stars = Good book, but not life altering. <br />5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.

A remarkable short novel

This is an impressive late work by the celebrated SF master Frederick Pohl. It's a remarkably simple story; a standalone work of less than 150 pages in which relatively little actually happens.The crew of a sort of interstellar tramp steamer/trader, unable to compete on the major trade routes, visits an obscure and out of the way planet called Slowyear because its year is equivalent to almost 20 Earth years. The population of the planet and the ship are introduced to each other, and in the process to the reader. A startling twist at the end makes the story deeply memorable.