Book Review: Murasaki : A novel in six parts

Reviewed By: Marisa Exter

Murasaki : A novel in six parts     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Robert Silverberg , Poul Anderson , Greg Bear , Gregory Benford , David Brin , Nancy Kress , Frederik Pohl
Class/Genre:   Science Fiction   [Short Stories]
Publisher Bantam Books,May 1992

Muraksi is a "shared world" anthology. The stories included were written on invitation by various hard sci-fi "greats". All of the stories are set in the Murasaki star system, an actual star system which in this fictional universe includes a binary planet pair, each of which contains it's own very unique geology, chemistry, flora, and fauna, including a number of probably sentient species. The stories span the course of several decades of human exploration (and in some cases, possibly exploitation) of the two worlds. Illustrations included provide another dimension to the descriptions of alien fauna, all styled to look like field notes, or perhaps napkin-scribbles of the authors as they created their shared universe. The stories are remarkably consistent and dove-tail in to one another, making the anthology flow well. As is often the case with hard sci-fi, the human characters could perhaps use a bit more depth, but the alien characters are juicily alien. The appendices go into further detail into the nitty-gritty details which make this such a well-flushed out universe, explaining the astronomical basis for decisions made about the nature of the planets as well as extreme detail on the biology, sociology, language, dietary habits, and anything else you could possibly want to know about the aliens and their worlds, as well as further detail on the humans and the technology they used in the book.

Marisa Exter

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Marisa Exter

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