Dragon’s Egg is hard SF for serious connoisseurs of hard SF, including a series of appendices at the back that go into considerably more detail about the physics and ‘biology’ of life on the surface of a neutron star, complete with scientific references! Not sure if I would recommend reading these before, after or during the reading of the story itself; I did a little of each!
As alluded to above Dragon’s Egg is the story of first contact between humanity and the inhabitants of a neutron star that has been discovered making a moderately close pass to the solar system. A mission is sent out to investigate the neutron star up close and duly arrives to begin its observations, eventually realising that there are intelligent creature living on the surface. Now this is where things get a bit crazy and I, for one, must trust in the knowledge of the author here, which is probably reasonable as he is both a physicist and aerospace engineer, yet at the same time the book was written back in 1980 so it’s likely our knowledge of the physics of a neutron star has moved on somewhat since that time. So, with that caveat, the key elements that impact the story are, in the words of Forward himself:
“The atomic nuclei that make up the cheela do not have captive electron clouds to keep them isolated from each other, but instead share a “sea” of free electrons. Because of the resulting close proximity of the nuclei, it is as easy for cheela nuclei to exchange neutrons as it is for human atoms to exchange electrons. The nuclei couple into “nuclear bonded molecules” by neutron exchange. Since the cheela use nuclear coupling instead of molecular coupling in their bodies, their rate of living is about one million times that of humans.”
What this means is that over the duration of the story the humans spend a few days observing the cheela on their neutron star and, during that time, the cheela evolve from Stone Age equivalent to far outstripping human technology. Something of a challenge from the storytelling point of view! Of necessity most of the action takes place from the cheela perspective as much, much more is happening in their timeframe! Which is fine because it is an intriguing world that Forward describes. However, again, due to the timescales involved for them in which many thousands of generations pass, we never get too close to any particular characters; this is very much a plot and science driven book, rather than a character driven one.
Within those constraints Forward has managed to tell a story that is both fascinating and even gripping at times. One that I simply loved. I would be immediately leaping on to the sequel except the word seems to be that it is a great disappointment, failing to live up to its predecessor. Sad but I might still be tempted to give it a go. This one, however, I recommend unreservedly to anyone who loves their SF with some pretty intense hard physics along the way.
5/5 stars
As alluded to above Dragon’s Egg is the story of first contact between humanity and the inhabitants of a neutron star that has been discovered making a moderately close pass to the solar system. A mission is sent out to investigate the neutron star up close and duly arrives to begin its observations, eventually realising that there are intelligent creature living on the surface. Now this is where things get a bit crazy and I, for one, must trust in the knowledge of the author here, which is probably reasonable as he is both a physicist and aerospace engineer, yet at the same time the book was written back in 1980 so it’s likely our knowledge of the physics of a neutron star has moved on somewhat since that time. So, with that caveat, the key elements that impact the story are, in the words of Forward himself:
“The atomic nuclei that make up the cheela do not have captive electron clouds to keep them isolated from each other, but instead share a “sea” of free electrons. Because of the resulting close proximity of the nuclei, it is as easy for cheela nuclei to exchange neutrons as it is for human atoms to exchange electrons. The nuclei couple into “nuclear bonded molecules” by neutron exchange. Since the cheela use nuclear coupling instead of molecular coupling in their bodies, their rate of living is about one million times that of humans.”
What this means is that over the duration of the story the humans spend a few days observing the cheela on their neutron star and, during that time, the cheela evolve from Stone Age equivalent to far outstripping human technology. Something of a challenge from the storytelling point of view! Of necessity most of the action takes place from the cheela perspective as much, much more is happening in their timeframe! Which is fine because it is an intriguing world that Forward describes. However, again, due to the timescales involved for them in which many thousands of generations pass, we never get too close to any particular characters; this is very much a plot and science driven book, rather than a character driven one.
Within those constraints Forward has managed to tell a story that is both fascinating and even gripping at times. One that I simply loved. I would be immediately leaping on to the sequel except the word seems to be that it is a great disappointment, failing to live up to its predecessor. Sad but I might still be tempted to give it a go. This one, however, I recommend unreservedly to anyone who loves their SF with some pretty intense hard physics along the way.
5/5 stars
