I like many of Harry Harrison's books but not all. This one was hard to judge. If I had read it in 1980 I think I would have liked it better. Much of this book does not age well.

It's a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's early books in that it deals mostly with things that may be possible in the near future. This story is a good one and a good idea but I practically skimmed the first 100 pages trying to find reasons to finish it. Eventually it got better and I became interested.

As with many of Harrison's books he gets a little preachy about whatever social ills he was concerned with when writing. This was a 1970s book so he makes lots strong references to racial and sex discrimination that are right out of the 60s-70s. These don't ring true in the 21st century. Nobody looks sideways at a woman or black person in a pilots seat or a lab jacket. Harry assumes that 20-50 years in his future nothing will have changed.

"Make Room Make Room" was a much better book and for fun reading try "The Stainless Steel Rat" ( )

Interesting premise of the high pressure situation in space. Gender politics very dated and hard to read in places. ( )

The answer to the world's energy crisis is to harness the energy of the sun. A Soviet (see how old this is)/American joint venture aims to do this with Prometheus. But catastrophe results. ( )

I liked this book as a fairly quick read and written a few years after the OPEC oil crisis so the answer is harvesting the energy of the sun through a satellite launched to collect the energy and beam it down to the Earth.

The characters are quite stereotyped... the astronaut team is 3 men/2 women... 3 Russians/2 Americans... and one of the women is a Black American substituted for a sick doctor at the last minute. So Harrison touches on gender issues, issues of color and Russian/American issues which seem to be quite cordial... then again when it comes to space flight in general there seems to be good co-operation in reality.

There are issues of devious mildly corrupt politicians on both sides. So Harrison touches all bases but does not investigate them too seriously.

I liked the book. It has its faults technically but so does "Alas Babylon" By Pat Frank in his novel about an atomic attack on the USA. The book is a bit on the juvenile side but still worth a read IMHO ( )

A book from different times; minorities in space! The horror! For a look in a past is it a nice book, the story itself is mwah. ( )