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The Dark Beyond the Stars A Novel Frank M Robinson Books

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The Dark Beyond the Stars A Novel Frank M Robinson Books

After tearing through "The Power," I had to read all of Robinson's major works and came to TDBTS next. Fantastic! Just the kind of sci-fi I love--visual, suspenseful, atmospheric, epic conflicts, questions of cosmological import, and characters with whom you can deeply identify. Robinson uses imagery ingeniously to convey the irony on board the Astron. Nothing is as it first seems, and the layers of truth are expertly peeled away to reveal mysteries and surprises in a thrilling way. The ambitious scope is also satisfying. Over hundreds of generations in the backstory and many more during the course of the action, we gain a unique, vividly-imagined telescopic view of human life. This is a hugely underrated classic. I don't know why "The Dark Beyond The Stars" is not more widely known and recommended.


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The Dark Beyond the Stars A Novel Frank M Robinson Books Reviews

One of the best SF novels I've read in a long time. If you like SF even a little bit, you will love this book.
Looking back on the book I can't recall why i thought the opening was slow because, in light of the evolving plot, the opening now seems just as fascinating to me as the rest of the book. This book is like an artichoke multi-layered, each layer different, with a spiky flower lying at its core. It's a tale of a fascinating, life and death quest of discovery by an amnesiac on a generation starship. A few seeming inconsistencies don't spoil my joy in this discovery. It's been a long while since Frank Robinson has written anything, so take your time with this one, and savor every sentence.
Glad I read the book before I read these reviews. Found this book in the corner of my local library, piled up in no order with pulp science fiction. It's been over a year since I read this book, and I still think about the story sometimes.
There seem to be two main subgenres in SF action packed or meditative.
This work belongs to the second and has many merits but, after reading a couple of them, I really begin to think they hardly make for good reads their quality may differ -here it is definitely high- but in the end they always end by being gloom, bleak, depressing; the evil innate in human society is usually a relevant theme.

In this book plot is tight, writing fine and always to the point; a perfectly believable social structure is outlined and peopled by magnificent characters, extremely well rounded.

A collateral but interesting aspect of this novel is the description of sexual mores on spaceship Astron sex is considered an ideal way to release the pressure of a monotonous life; every member of the crew feels free to mate with anyone else on bord and the gender of the occasional companion is not an issue. More permanent relationships may involve two, three or even small groups of people.

These colourful details aside, after finishing this book I was left with nothing but a deep sense of sadness. If you love hard SF at his best you cannot miss it; if you look for pure entertainment just skip it.
This is a very good book but not quite what I was hoping for. The character development isn't as good as it could have been. I had a hard time liking Sparrow but learned to. I wanted to know more about the other characters though. Also, I had to skip over some of it because I got tired of the repetition of descriptions of science, people, & the ship. The ending was great & very unexpected! Now I want to know what happened next. I wish Mr. Robinson had gone on with the story in another volume although that wasn't done much when he was writing this book or even later ones. It is definitely worth reading.
The late Frank M. Robinson has been described by professional-level reviewers as a "master stylist." I could not agree more. He had mastery of a lean but colorful and evocative prose that is rare. In "The Dark Beyond the Stars" he is in prime form. My first introduction to him was in "The Power," the story of a group of scientist seeking to find a "superman" of the darkest sort. Made into an excellent 1968 movie with George Hamilton, and the late Suzanne Pleshette and late Michael Rennie (Klatuu in "The Day the Earth Stood Still"). The "Dark Beyond the Stars" harkens back to more classic space opera in its story of a "generation" starship long before made famous by writers including Robert Heinlein. And yet with a fresh breath of originality. Mr. Robinson also did an impressive amount of scientific research, more so than most writers in the genre, to give an edge of accuracy to the sci-fi. I am surprised this book has not been made available in format; it certainly should be. Written in 1991, it is still holds a fairly high ranking. Still plenty of cheap paperbacks like the one I bought still around, but a format and even a new reprint would both be nice.
This is a classic book, and not just in the sci fi genre. When I first read this in the early 90s, I found the most amazing POV change effect at the heart of the book, which made a lasting impression. Now that I wanted to read this again I was sad to see this book out of print, out of even... but re-reading it makes me appreciate the skill of Frank M. Robinson all the more.
The novel is about a generation star ship running down after 2000 years of journey, something is not quite right about the mission. The crew has developed its own culture and history over those 100 generations, and crew members spend a most of their days immersed in a virtual reality version of the ship, and what we'd maybe call immersive VR theater productions (terms not yet coined in '91) punctuated by the exploration of yet another barren planet every few years.... so the book is also about perception and the operation of belief, the nature of experienced reality, and the degree to which we construct our own experience from our preexisting conditioning (to be Buddhist about it our karma determines our experience). This book deserves to be published on , as does much of Robinson's other work.
After tearing through "The Power," I had to read all of Robinson's major works and came to TDBTS next. Fantastic! Just the kind of sci-fi I love--visual, suspenseful, atmospheric, epic conflicts, questions of cosmological import, and characters with whom you can deeply identify. Robinson uses imagery ingeniously to convey the irony on board the Astron. Nothing is as it first seems, and the layers of truth are expertly peeled away to reveal mysteries and surprises in a thrilling way. The ambitious scope is also satisfying. Over hundreds of generations in the backstory and many more during the course of the action, we gain a unique, vividly-imagined telescopic view of human life. This is a hugely underrated classic. I don't know why "The Dark Beyond The Stars" is not more widely known and recommended.