The other redeeming quality of the book is its scope.

Sadly, most of the dialogue is bland and wooden, and the scientific bits are rather dry & boring.

There’s some redeeming qualities to the book though: occasionally Anderson shows a real command of language, and manages to write poetic sentences here and there – really way above average.

Tau Zero is about 50 people trapped on a spaceship hurtling through space, I’ll buy that gladly, but the group dynamics that unfold are ridiculous at times.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the social sciences are science too, and it would be nice if more authors would write social stuff that is realistically conceivable.

As I read some of these critical reviews prior to me starting the book, they seriously handicapped my enjoyment: I didn’t take Anderson’s science seriously, and was left empty handed. The problem with that approach is that I’ve also read quite a lot of reviews claiming Anderson’s understanding of relativity/physics is shaky at best. People still seem to like this for the science – everybody admits characterization is off.

There’s a fair amount of positive reviews for Tau Zero online, written in the last 10 years.

I’m having a hard time coming up with a solid angle for the remainder of this review, so I’ll just do a quicky, and use a bulleted list. Sadly, Tau Zero was a bit of a letdown on either front.

Similarly, the predicament the protagonists find themselves in potentially offers an examination of some fundamental questions about the purpose and significance of human lives. All and all, the setup is great, and Anderson has plenty of building blocks for an exciting story. On top of that, they are subject to time dilation. But naturally something goes wrong, and the ship can’t perform the planned deceleration during the second half of the journey. Tau Zero follows the crew of a colonization vessel launched from Earth, aiming to reach a nearby star, without FTL. Moreover, I hadn’t read any Poul Anderson – both a science fiction as a fantasy Grand Master and winner of numerous awards, most notably seven Hugos and three Nebulas. In my attempt to read a decent sample of the classics and enhance my understanding of the history of science fiction, Tau Zero was a logical choice, as it is heralded as one of the prime examples of hard SF.

Tau zero