The Secret Library: The Sky People by S.M. Stirling

[Kris Johnson]

The April 2008 selection for The Secret Library is The Sky People by S.M. Stirling. The book is an alternate-history, science fiction, pulp story that takes place in late 1980s. Instead of stopping at the Moon, the Space Race has reached to Venus and Mars, both of which are teeming with life...including prehistoric creatures and humans!

There's a more detailed description of the book in the show notes for Episode 0008 of The Secret Lair. We anticipate discussing it on the podcast sometime in May.

[David Moore]

Ok, I made it through the book. Luckily I had listened to the Librivox.org version of Warlord of Mars, and most of the rest of the John Carter of Mars series. Otherwise, I would have been left scratching my head over the references that the main character and others use in their in-joke conversations. Comments which are supposed to be obtuse for one of the other characters, but end up being lost on the reader as well if they haven't read that other series.

The pacing was a little slow, with a lot of character interaction, but not much development, in the first half of the book. Lots of exposition to get the reader up to speed it seemed. The characters seemed kind of flat and more an outlet for talking about the history that got them to Venus, than actual character development. For instance, I found out that the main character was out of the relationship with his would-be girlfriend almost before I knew he was in it in the first place!

I hate to say it, but I could see this as a SciFi channel movie.

I would say that overall it was an ok book, but I don't know that I would pick up the sequel.