Steven Thomas

Points for ingenuity, but that's about it. The characters were love'em or leave'em... I liked Alex, from Texas, and occasionally Barry, the main character... but pretty much everyone else was either portrayed as perfect or out to ruin the world. Completely unrealistic. Of course, the premise was also kind of unrealistic, but what would realism do in a sci-fi book?? The addition of a bad-guy when the earth was already pulling apart at the seams (literally) was more confusing than anything. Granted, I did feel a lot of anger towards the eco-terrorists, but I think it was more for interrupting my regularly scheduled programming than for plotting against BioSphere. The presidential aspect was neglected at times... patents came from no where but god forbid scientists and politicians not yell at each other over the phone for two seconds. The background information on political, scientific, financial, etc. aspects (and the characters feelings about each) was always well-explained but often seemed unnecessary. The climatic fight scene, which consisted mainly of two brief but well-written perspectives followed by a summary of everything else, left a lot to be desired. In all, it was a great idea that left me feeling slightly disappointed.… (mais)