Poul Anderson - The Enemy Stars (aka We Have Fed Our Seas) (1959) One of the nominees for the 1959 Hugo Awards, Anderson's The Enemy Stars is a mix of more contemplative and more nuts and boltsy science fiction which is considerably more enjoyable in one of these modes than on the other. The science bits of the story can get slightly dull, but it's the character's psychology, meditations and stories which really stand out here. The story takes on a kind of pessimistic view of space exploration. Again, space is empty, you go crazy and often you die, the point of doing is somewhat obscure and often it feels like hubris more than anything. In this novel, there are no faster than light ships, what was developed was a mattercaster, something like a Star Trek teleporter that works at long distance. This allows crews to teleport back and forth from earth to avoid what would have otherwise been really long, generational, space missions. But then the mattercaster on a ship breaks down... there are no supplies, not enough pieces for repair and the 4 crew members start clashing and desperately trying to survive against all odds. So yeah, space isn't comfortable. There's a cool final twist that feels like it should have been further developed (which it was in a short story that was inclueded in this edition, but I could have had more. 3/5 #poulanderson #citizenofthegalaxy #scifi #sciencefiction #book #books #bookish #bibliophile #bookgram #bookstagram #bookporn #bookworm #booklover #bookcover #hugoawards (at Lisbon, Portugal) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8J0_zUFwAY/?igshid=ou6wt593d0hf
