Book review: Outward Bound
Mar. 10th, 2006 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigertoyToday's book review is Outward Bound by James P. Hogan.
This is a short YA novel set in the fairly near future. It explores some of Hogan's ideas about a better basis for society than our familiar money economy through a teenager's coming of age story. The bigger social ideas are somewhat interesting, but not really presented very compellingly. The examination of earth society seems rather trivial, and the story and characters are rather thin. This is one of those YA novels where the author has dumbed down every part of his writing for the YA market, as if suggesting that if he's only writing a YA book it's not worth bothering to do a good job, which is unfortunate. It's not a complete failure; there is some interest and some seeds of goodness. It is a quick read and it does avoid the stupid pseudo-science that nearly ruined The Anguished Dawn. But it's pretty disappointing on the whole.
5 out of 10.
This is a short YA novel set in the fairly near future. It explores some of Hogan's ideas about a better basis for society than our familiar money economy through a teenager's coming of age story. The bigger social ideas are somewhat interesting, but not really presented very compellingly. The examination of earth society seems rather trivial, and the story and characters are rather thin. This is one of those YA novels where the author has dumbed down every part of his writing for the YA market, as if suggesting that if he's only writing a YA book it's not worth bothering to do a good job, which is unfortunate. It's not a complete failure; there is some interest and some seeds of goodness. It is a quick read and it does avoid the stupid pseudo-science that nearly ruined The Anguished Dawn. But it's pretty disappointing on the whole.
5 out of 10.