Book Report: Delta_V & Critical Mass

TL;Dr: Delta-V and Critical Mass were fun in a rather clinical way. Nice work Daniel Suarez

I’ve been on a cyber-punk/sci-fi kick recently. Wanting to have some of those Snow Crash/Necromancer vibes. Surely there is a broader genre?

Daniel Suarez’s books Delta-V and Critical Mass come up on a fair short list of options.

These are one story spread over two books, basically about the commercial exploration of space and asteroid mining. If that sounds a bit dry, well… Yeah.

Dont get me wrong – there are some real tear-jerker moments in both books. But they are primarily documentary novels: this is what happens when you go to space.

I like the big ideas, and there are a few on board. The big one is around: space exploration (and exploitation) as a means of avoiding financial collapse. I’ve not really considered this in the past, watching these characters work it out was really illuminating. It reminded me a lot of Ministry for the Future, a book I liked a lot.

And there’s plenty of ‘hard’ science fiction. The name of the first book is related to navigating in space. I learned some from this book, but much more from Seven Eves.

Lots of other interesting tidbits, mostly focused on the benefits and costs of human space exploration (as opposed to robotic).

In places plot lines get lost (a partnership develops between space titans, then goes nowhere. The rescue of colleagues is the premise of a book, but then occupied the briefest part of the end of the book.).

Over all, I’d give these a B or B-. Enjoyable page turners with some hiccups.