Excellent concept, disappointingly rendered. Hard sci fi doesn't have to be this bland, Greg. ( )

This is a short book in which climate change is greatly accelerated by Earth's near miss with two passing black holes, which adjusts the Earth's orbit so that summers become much hotter. It's an interesting concept that kept me reading; much of the story takes place on a floating fish farm that starts heading to Antarctica with a bunch of refugees once the global warming starts. However, I found all of the characters to be flat and very same-same, distinguished only by their nationalities, and the conflict outside of survival wasn't terribly exciting. The end was also very abrupt and felt like just putting off the inevitable extinction of the species. So this was just okay for me. ( )

If you think Greg Egan isn’t to your liking – too dense, too much math, too much science – Perihelion Summer is the title for you. With hardly any science inside, this novella shows yet another side of Australia’s most reclusive science fiction author.

While it may have a difficult world in the title, the fact that Tor published it is an indication of its accessibility. Length is another argument to give it a chance: its 214 pages offer a short, smooth, engaging read. While every online bookstore or professional review I’ve consulted seems to consider this a novel, Egan himself calls it a novella on his own website. That classification does matter, as I’ll explain below.

(...)

Fullr review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It ( )

Black holes are scary. Even small ones. Even near misses are bad. ( )

Very disappointing in a way. It's an interesting premise and the take on global warming and its consequences isn't terrible per se, but it just didn't work well for me. ( )