Sean Randall reviewed Golden fleece by Robert J. Sawyer
Review of 'Golden fleece' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I've enjoyed many of Robert J. Sawyer's novels, he's one of the few authors I like to reread. So I happened upon a reference to Factoring Humanity online, couldn't remember much about it, so pushed it out to read it afresh. And I noticed in my collection of works, Golden Fleece. A title I couldn't remember hearing about? How intriguing!
Golden Fleece is, of course, Sawyer's first published fiction novel (released 27 years ago). You can imagine my glee, therefore, at now having read it when I hadn't managed to do so before. Even though I read some Sawyer before cataloguing on Goodreads, I recall clearly that I began with Flashforward, calculating God and Frameshift - the earliest of which was published a further 7 years into Sawyer's writing career.
It's interesting that I read Fleece just after a re-read of Factoring Humanity - several of the themes, most noticeably …
I've enjoyed many of Robert J. Sawyer's novels, he's one of the few authors I like to reread. So I happened upon a reference to Factoring Humanity online, couldn't remember much about it, so pushed it out to read it afresh. And I noticed in my collection of works, Golden Fleece. A title I couldn't remember hearing about? How intriguing!
Golden Fleece is, of course, Sawyer's first published fiction novel (released 27 years ago). You can imagine my glee, therefore, at now having read it when I hadn't managed to do so before. Even though I read some Sawyer before cataloguing on Goodreads, I recall clearly that I began with Flashforward, calculating God and Frameshift - the earliest of which was published a further 7 years into Sawyer's writing career.
It's interesting that I read Fleece just after a re-read of Factoring Humanity - several of the themes, most noticeably first contact and how it might work technologically and scientifically - are repeated, and I found that quite telling (if something still holds water half a decade on, especially something "new", you must be doing something right).
Fleece, comparisons aside, was a brilliantly written story, a masterpiece of the robot-as-menace stories so clearly scorned by asimov 8 years previous to its publication and yet so compellingly gripping, mainly I suppose because of the protagonist. JASON doesn't become a lovable character by any stretch, but he is certainly interesting to observe, and with that, along with the setting, I can see why when people read this as a debut they hungered for more.
Well, they've certainly got it - Fleece is the 18th of Sawyer's books to grace my read shelf on Goodreads. Sawyer was in joint 7th place with Brandon Sanderson and James Follett in the "most-read authors" bit, and he's now sliding up toward Jim hogan with 21 books.