Flare

by Roger Zelazny, Thomas T. Thomas

As the Titan Cartel brings two hundred trillion tons of liquid natural gas down to Earth, maverick astrophysicist Hannibal Freede searches for signs of strange phenomena on the sun.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

344 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1992

About the author

Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American fantasy and science fiction writer known for his short stories and novels, best known for The Chronicles of Amber. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nominations) and the Hugo Award six times (also out of 14 nominations), including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad (1965), subsequently published under the title This Immortal (1966), and the novel Lord of Light (1967).

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a somewhat uncohesive collaboration, and I wouldn't have guessed Zelazny to be one of the authors were it not for his name on the cover. There are several themes and sub-plots that ebb and flow in importance and the whole thing never really gels. There are some very interesting bits and pieces, but the book as a whole needed some strong editorial intervention.

[Alazzar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I normally don't give one-star ratings to books I didn't finish; the way I figure it, they may have gotten better toward the end. So the worst rating I'll usually give such a book is two stars.

Flare is a notable exception.

First, I should point out that although Roger Zelazny's name is on the cover, that doesn't mean he did any of the writing here. According to Chris Kovacs's well-researched biography "And Call Me Roger" in The Road to Amber, Zelazny had virtually no hand in this book. And it shows.

I made it forty pages in before experiencing crippling despair. But then I suffered through another twenty pages anyway, because apparently I hate myself.

After making it 60 pages into the book, all I know is that there's 50 pages of solar flare dissertation and about ten pages of talking-head scientists who may--may--be interested in getting a plot going at some point. And every time we think they're about to start moving the story forward (or, rather, actually starting the story), we're interrupted with a friendly message from the You Need To Know Literally Everything About the Life of This Proton scientific committee.

When I gave up on the book, I skipped to the last chapter and saw that it was only three pages. My thought was that I'd just read that final bit of story and see how things ended.

Unfortunately, I couldn't even make it through one page.

[mark monday · Rating 1 out of 5]

boring. too much science, not enough of anything else. did zelazny even have a hand in this? a non-senescent hand, that is. these kinds of writing legend-meets-hack author combo-efforts always make me nervous; this time for good reason.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a name like that, is anyone surprised to learn it is about the sun?

Roger Zelzany is one of my favourite authors and some of my most beloved books are by him. Thomas I had not heard of, but I bought this book of the strength of Zelazny.

Flare is hard science fiction - surprisingly, as Zelazney is better known for speculative fiction - and it starts with the hardest, hitting the reader at once with astrophysics and solar physics, describing the molecular composition of the sun. At the centre of this description is a race of beings, plasmotes which live in certain parts of the sun's – Surface? Corona? Plasma?

Now the book consists of six parts, in small instalments, each distinct so that the experience is almost like reading a whole heap of completely disconnected stories. It is VERY information dense in the best possible way and these snippets are clearly building toward SOMETHING but you just have to read along to find what.

The first story is one million BCE and for quite a while they were on a linear timeline, though that changed eventually.

The reoccurring theme, is of course, the sun and in 2081 Dr Freede is aa astrophysicist who earns the disparagement of his colleges by studying solar science. He has built a solar research vessel called Hyperion and is circling the sun to learn more about solar conditions. In 2081 mankind are spreading through the solar system, solar research has become a sideline of science, with no one interested after solar flares stopped occurring. Consequently most of the communications networks and a lot of the solar expansion lack proper radiation shielding - which we know will not end well.

Well, a solar storm occurs and we learn the repercussions from many points of view;
Gina who works at the Luna luxury resort gets hit while taking a group of tourists on a moonwalk.

We see what happens to a fully virtual reality stock exchange when all the electronics are fried (with people jacked in at the time getting fried too). A gamer, inside a virtual reality game does not fair better.

We get into the cockpit of the aeroplane of the future, the semiballistic SCramjet, where pilots sit in a fully virtual pod to guide the craft, based on it's electronic feedback – and suddenly there is no electronic feedback! This segment was genius.

It seems to me that the authors were fascinatedly exploring all the major ways in which different structures, engineering feats, communications signals and installations could be affected by such an event. and it is a lot of fun and a lot of science.

This book is a lot – I loved the reading experience but I had to concentrate on the science, usually, so it was a book that required my full attention and concentration, nor was it a fast read because it had so many small segments and so many point of view changes. There is a linear theme throughout the book, but not really following a main character nor a more traditional novel theme. It is more of a whole heap of small stories, from a whole heap of different people all over the world and solar system, all of which experiences meld together to make the story.

The ending of which is a gentle nod to evolving intelligence – and not from the Earth perspective but from the solar one.

It is an unusual science fiction by any standard, I enjoyed it a lot.

[Daryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the 41st book I've read in my (re-)reading of the Zelazny canon, and easily the worst. His first collaboration with Thomas, The Mask of Loki, seemed to contain very little of Zelazny. This novel had even less. I'm guessing that the basic idea probably came from Zelazny and Thomas wrote the book. And the basic premise is not bad and would probably make a decent short story. Set in the year 2081, the sun has not experienced sunspot activity, in its usual 11-year pattern, since the 1990s (the book was first published in '92). Suddenly a sunspot begins to appear, leading to a massive solar flare which wreaks havoc with computers and all kinds of electronics throughout the solar system. Early on we're introduced to a plasmote, a weird plasma energy being that lives in the sun - this is the only other good idea in the book - and we revisit it once or twice later on, then it vanishes completely (not that we're told of its fate or anything, we simply move on, never to see it again). Farewell, only interesting character! Most of the book is composed of 3- to 10-page segments dealing with some person's reaction to the effects of the flare. Some of these vignettes are interesting, but ultimately lead nowhere. Most of the characters appear once and then never again. I get the idea behind seeing the various effects of the flare, but a couple of these would suffice, not the dozens upon dozens we're subjected to. I think I was about 2/3 of the way through the book before I came upon a character that I thought, Hey, I've seen this character before. There are lots and lots of scientific (and other) details here that instead of contributing to the story, only serve to bog it down. It's boring and made it a huge chore to get through the book. Zelazny did a lot of collaborations late in his career, some more successful than others; this one has to be at the bottom of that particular barrel.

[Blind_guardian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Someone really needed to teach Thomas T. Thomas not to head-jump so much. In the first 60 pages or so, we get more than two dozen PoV characters, many of which we jump into once, and then never see again. Especially when he's skipping across millenia of human history to fast-forward to a future where people are stupid enough to go out into space without protection from solar activity, just because there was a long period of low sunspot activity. There are barely a handful of these PoVs that are actual characters in any way, most of them just happen to be around for whatever weird idea TTT wants to explore, then the story moves on and never looks back.

From what I've heard, Zelazny had almost nothing to do with this book, which makes it weird that they gave him top billing. Clearly they were trying to bank on his name to sell the book; if I were Mr. Zelazny, I'd be suing to have my name taken off of it. There's a few neat ideas and exciting scenes so it's not a total 1-star, but it's pretty lousy.

[Mhhollomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know most of the reviewers panned this, but I liked it. It is definitely NOT a standard novel with a single plot (or multiple plots that finally coalesce). Instead it takes a very reasonable premise and considers how it would play out in several scenarios.

Premise: the sun settles down for a good long while (in human time) and humans build tech that assumes that steady state. For those that think this wouldn't happen - you haven't been paying attention to the way businesses work. If I carry shielding and you don't, you make more money if the shielding isn't necessary.

Scenarios include a neural interface game that depends on reliable, long range wireless communication; remote controlled space tankers that do the same, etc.

A masterpiece? No. But definitely not awful either.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many story threads, not all very compelling. It did present and interesting variety of spacefaring ideas and corporate endeavors.

[Geir · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite incoherent, and it failed to give me my Zelazny fix. My main problem was far too many POV characters, and threads that went nowhere...

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I put it down 86 pages in. The problem is similar to why I put down Brian D'Amato's In The Court of the Sun. It became clear on page 1 that a lot of research was done, and that one of the authors (I'll assume it was Thomas because Zelazny's voice was nowhere to be seen) really wanted to share it all. I have a relatively decent understanding of astronomy, and it was too much for me.

One thing I did find interesting was that the book was laid out chronologically, which makes a lot more sense when you see the book.

[David Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flare, a sci-fi novel by Roger Zalazny, describes the folly of depending on a variable. In 2081, humans have colonized the solar system, braking it to their will. The Sun has been inactive for over a century, so no one gives a second glance when Dr. Freede announces that a solar flare may occur soon. Dr. Freede, however, knows that something is brewing deep inside the star humans call there own... and it is about to change how humans think about the Solar System. This is an interestingly formatted novel that I suggest to anyone who enjoys some very realistic sci-fi.

[Freyja · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another re-read. Imagine Earth hasn't seen a sunspot in over a century. Then, two large ones appear on the Sun. Prominences and flares tend to occur with sunspots, and a flare does leave the Sun, causing havoc in the Solar System. No one thought to shield anything electromagnetic since it wasn't needed for at least one hundred years. People have forgotten that the Sun is a variable star. Add to that, since when do sunspots appear alone? They come in cycles, and it's looking like the cycles are back...

[Charles Griswold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flare is a disjointed, rambling mess, with a couple of weird alien species that add absolutely nothing whatsoever to what little plot is present. The only reason I can see for much of the content is to hold the covers of the book apart.

If you ever find yourself with this book in your hand, do yourself a favor; put it down and walk away. There are much more entertaining ways to waste several hours of your life.

[Alistair Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking specifically for a Zelazny because you like his other books, style, etc., this probably isn't the book for you - it isn't, for want of a better phrase, Zelazny-flavored. What it is, on the other hand, is a good examination of human responses to unforeseen and thus complacency-inducing crises, and the science in it is suitably hard, so if that sounds more your thing, you should read it on that account.

[De Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

- 1.5 Stars (for the effort).
- Zelazny? NO!
- Too much science
- Boring
- Some good ideas, lousy writing
- Bad storytelling
- Avoid this one
- Treat yourself with The Mask of Loki (Zelazny? YES!)

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting look at human tendency toward complacency before an apocalypse.

[Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first time Roger has let me down. There are several cool ideas of future tech and politics described, but as an interesting book it is a failure on many levels. My advice is to avoid this one.

[Morgan Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting sci-fi disaster story, but it was easy to get lost in the several-dozen character viewpoints.