Breaking Strain

Venus Prime #1

by Paul Preuss, Arthur C. Clarke

When a team of scientists is trapped in the gaseous inferno of Venus, Sparta must risk her life to save them, unaware that her actions will help recover a mysterious artifact: irrefutable evidence of life on another planet. As the secrets of the artifact are revealed, Sparta uncovers a mystery that may lead her to the truth about her own identity.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction Fantasy, Short Stories, Audiobook, Thriller

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Paul Preuss is an American writer of science fiction and science articles, who also works as science consultant for film companies. He is the author of numerous stand-alone novels as well as novels in Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime series, based upon incidents, characters, and places from Clarke's short stories. (source: wikipedia)

Reviews

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Audiobook (short story) to while away the time whilst gardening. Enjoyable as ever from Arthur C. but only just scraped 4 stars.
Maybe I’ll add further thoughts this evening. 😬

This was published in 1949 and is sort of a detective story set in a sci fi environment, and as such is a really enjoyable story to listen to. There is a twist mid way through which I didn't remember from reading this many years ago, this made the story to me certainly worth buying. And it kept me entertained through an hour of mindless weeding.

[Chris Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Venus Prime Volume One is a science fiction thriller/crime drama that borrows so many elements from other genres that it feels disjointed, but that doesn't make it any less intense, philosophical, or intriguing. The author, Paul Preusss borrows heavily from an Arthur C. Clarke short story called "Breaking Strain," and the rest of the stories in the Venus Prime series similarly borrow from Clarke's fiction. The idea behind Clarke's original stories was to imagine human life on Venus, and in writing his stories he discovered challenges he had not originally imagined. Venus, for one, is too hot for human life and it's covered in acid, so people would need to invent special technology to survive there. But there may be some good reasons for people to want to go there - particularly for resources. Preuss's version of Clarke's original stories is an admirable work because of what Preuss adds to it himself, particularly the character of Sparta.

The woman, Sparta, was part of a secret project that sought to enhance human beings using biotechnology. This project failed and Sparta's memory was wiped, but she has since been subject to experimentation and examination by the government agency that started the project. That is, until her doctor decides, out of a sudden act of compassion, to reawaken her memories (minus the past three years or so). She escapes in dramatic fashion by flying a helicopter. Despite her lengthy containment away from the public, she seems to know exactly what to say and what to do to get what she wants. She is able to hack into any computer system using a USB-like device that extends from the tip of her finger. She is also able to break into a car in order to steal the sliver (credit card) from it and buy herself some food and other essentials.

After her escape the story turns to a plot with a wealthy woman named Sondra Sylvester who owns a mining corporation. She has purchased some robots capable of mining on the surface of Venus and wants them shipped there as soon as possible. The trouble is, the next ship to depart, the Star Queen, is still under repairs and the owners are scrambling to get it ready in time. Meanwhile, Sylvester is enjoying her time with her immature, but apparently alluring, partner, Nancybeth. She also has her eyes on a book, a one-of-a-kind item that is only the second-known copy to exist. It's called The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and is worth a good fortune. However, Sylvester is outbid by an old lover, which, frankly, pisses her off. The book becomes entwined in the plot when it is placed on the Star Queen in time for the voyage to Venus.

This stretch of plot is lengthy, and less interesting than Sparta's, and for some time I wondered if Preuss had forgotten about his star character. Fortunately, this is not the case. Sparta makes a life for herself and becomes involved in an investigation that, you might guess, is involved with the Star Queen. The second half of the book takes place on Venus, in Port Hesperus, though I won't reveal much what happens there, except that it turns into an intense police mystery, sort of a buddy cop kind of thing. It's easy to get lost in the details, but Sparta keeps things moving at a brisk pace, always several steps ahead of the audience - but even she makes her mistakes.

What starts out as a Bourne Identity-esque book, with a hero unsure of her identity but having no trouble with her enhanced training/powers, quickly turns into a business drama, and then a philosophical space thriller, and finally a mystery thriller. The best part of this is the third. This takes place on the Star Queen, where only two crew members were placed aboard, despite the customary rule of three. An accident happens, one that makes it impossible for the crew to survive the remainder of the trip. Preuss watches, with fascination, what these two men begin to think and how they behave. We see things from the perspective of the captain, Peter Grant, who makes assumptions about his crewmate, McNeil, that may or may not be wrong. Preuss wonders how a man, one who considers himself morally sound, would begin to act and think when his life is at stake. Two men, with the available oxygen supply, couldn't make the trip. But one - one would survive. How this plays out is intriguing.

But Sparta truly is the star of the show. Here is a woman who is a strong character, not just through technological enhancements, but through her confidence and her personality. It is fun to watch the way she asserts her authority over the case in Venus, making sure the man assigned to her, Viktor Proboda, knows she is in charge. Not that Proboda is your typical macho man; he realizes her competence and grows to admire her. Not only is Sparta competent in times of pressure, she is also very smart, much smarter than most everybody else. It's true she has some unfair advantages due to her tools and gifts, but the kinds of smarts she has come from more than enhanced technology. I enjoyed seeing Sparta's story unfold. She is the perfect sci-fi heroine, and she is the lead character of what has begun as an amazingly entertaining sci-fi series.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice combination of a crime thriller wrapped in a science fiction setting. Quite a few plots and characters are packed into this one but just when I started to wonder what was happening, I got a tidbit that led me to wanting to learn more about that particular subplot or character. That can backfire sometimes but here it balanced out nicely.

The lead character, "Sparta" proved to be an interesting heroine but this first book in the series barely scratched the surface of what she is about. Looking forward to reading the rest.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I sit down to write this review, the first question that comes to mind is: "why does this book exist?" That's not an encouraging start to the review, and may give a hint or two to my general impression. I'd also like to mention that it's the first of something like five books, and despite the fact that I got all of them in a Humble Bundle, this is the one I'll be finishing with. I've seen the tricks, I'm not impressed, I'm done.

Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Paul Nunes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.

[Justin Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, this is a strange book. In many ways, it should not work. This novel is one of a series of books inspired by and as a homage to Arthur C. Clarke’s short stories; utilizing the short stories as a base to connect them into one singular coherent storyline. This first novel in the series is particularly inspired by two different adaptations of the same story: Clarke’s original novella Breaking Strain and a canceled Hypertext(interactive text computer game) based on the novella that the writer of this novel had worked on as a scriptwriter. The novel is a mashup of two different genres: mystery, specifically whodunnit, which tend to work by limiting and being particular about the amount of information given to the reader so that the reveal of the murderer or criminal makes logical sense; and science fiction of the hard variety, which tends to give a wealth of information based on current scientific theories to give the reader a vision of the world they have crafted. And while these two genres are not diametrically opposed, it can be challenging to balance the two genres satisfactorily enough for fans of both genres. Thus one can see why I was skeptical of the novel. It is written not by Clarke, but by someone operating in his universe. Written more based on the Hypertext game he was working than the original short story. Merging together two genres that while not opposed to one another have widely differing goals. All of this feels like it should have gone off poorly. Yet, it does work. Not perfectly, for there are some major flaws with the story. But it works well enough to be an enjoyable read.

One of the things that I liked about the story was the character of Sparta. Now her character is somewhat of a cliché. When we are first introduced to her character, she is in an asylum suffering from amnesiac syndrome—amnesia. Especially anterograde amnesia since she cannot form new memories at first. We end up learning from the doctor overseeing her case that this condition was induced in her by a governmental agency that Sparta worked for with the use of special nanotechnology designed to cause such a state. That she was in a program, first created by her parents before taken over by the governmental agency, designed to explore the concept of multiple intelligences. The idea that intelligence is not simply mere retention of knowledge and its application but that it also involves the concept of interpersonal relationships, emotional, physical as also important aspects of intelligence. We also learn fairly quickly that she was modified with state of the art bionic implants designed to give her several abilities; chief one being the ability to mentally connect with and manipulate technology. The doctor, sympathetic of Sparta, ends up injecting her with an antidote that gives her back her memories. And she escapes from the asylum.

So already we are introduced to secret governmental plots; missing parents; a secret agent that not only has been trained from birth to be intelligent but also modified to basically be an information sponge and living computer, able to read people, places, and technology for her ends. And this is within the first five chapters of the story. What separates Sparta and this story from other stories similar to this one is the fact that care was taken to make Sparta feel like an actual person, rather than a blank slate. She is a vulnerable character, not a stoic one like many of the other protagonists in those other stories tend to gravitate towards. Thus there are times where we see her emotions. There are times where we see her emotions cloud her judgment. There are times where we see her break down. Yet she is still a capable, cunning character. A capable character who can protect herself very well. A cunning character who seems to be several steps ahead of others. And while she has been augmented with extrasensory and technopathic abilities, her intelligence and understanding of people are her most formidable assets. Thus we have a fairly capable female main character with a fairly understandable motive. She just wants to find out what happened to her parents and why they were taken from her. To this end, she seeks to become an investigator with the Space board.

Now this is where I start to have issues with the story. And all of the issues can be summed up with just one word: pacing. For the story does not follow Sparta going through her investigator courses or training beyond a brief moment where it appears that Sparta is questioning herself as to if she should continue due to how strenuous the physical aspects of the training are. Instead, we are introduced to the other characters of the story in such a way that the story feels disparate or discontinuous. As if one were reading a separate story altogether. And while these characters are important to the whodunnit aspect of the story, I somewhat question the wisdom of introducing these characters when the author did. For almost all of these characters are completely irrelevant to the mystery that drives Sparta, which is the disappearance of Sparta’s parents. And the whodunit portion of the story involving the spaceship freighter is completely divorced from this central driven force as well. This is not to say that the whodunit aspects are poorly done for the story does set up the main mystery as well. The story does create logical solutions for the main mystery concerning the spaceship Space Queen. Yet, I feel that by introducing the mystery of Sparta’s parents at the beginning and then introducing the mystery that the book is actually about of the spaceship halfway through the book, it creates the expectation that the two are related when they are not. This hurts the story by making the story feel busier than it should and does rob the story of some key character progression with Sparta. I almost think the story would have been better served to focus on Sparta going through investigator training and somehow work the mystery of the Space Queen into the story rather than how it was handled. And by the end of story, it does feel like it is rushing to a conclusion to the mystery of the Space Queen while still trying to setup for the main overarching mystery concerning Sparta’s parents. This makes the story’s conclusion feel like it goes on longing than it should and would probably be better served if they pared the ending down.

With all of that said, I cannot help but like the book and the character of Sparta. The science used in the story feels plausible. There is nothing that remotely stands out as an impossibility. The main mystery involving the spaceship freighter the Space Queen is quite impressive. The author is able to keep the mystery suspenseful with the use of twists without making those twists feel like a stretch. So I do recommend the story, even if it can feel hurried and busy at times.

[Raro de Concurso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro en principio menor de Clarke (aunque escrito a pachas con Paul Press), e inicio de una serie de 6 libros con el mismo protagonista. Y digo en principio menor, porque no ha sido reeditado desde hace años y no tiene la fama de otras novelas del autor.

Sin embargo, a mi entender, es un magnífico libro. No sólo de ciencia ficción, sino policiaco. En la parte de ciencia ficción los autores imaginan un futuro en el que la raza humana ha colonizado los planetas del sistema solar, pero basándose en hechos científicos de su época. Esa "manía" de Clarke ha hecho que muchas fantasías se hayan convertido, con el paso del tiempo, en realidades.

Y luego la trama policiaca muy bien resuelta, muy al estilo de Agatha Christie, pero con más chispa y ayudándose de la protagonista, una mujer biónica.

Por cierto, que la idea del principio del libro, mujer con cualidades y aptitudes extraordinarias, que no recuerda parte de su pasado, ni porqué tiene esos "poderes" y que busca quién es, es clavada a la trama de la serie de películas del "Mito Bourne", sustiyendo a la chica por Matt Damon y sus implantes electrónicos por un entrenamiento especial en la CIA.

[Alton Motobu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a compilation of five short stories - a combination of SF, superhero, and mystery - centered around a woman named "Sparta" (also known as Ellen Troy and Linda) in the late 22nd century. She is altered in some way to have super powers of sensory perception, and she can use these powers to solve problems. This one is a mystery about a space ship that is hit by a meteoroid on a trip to Venus; the oxygen escapes and there is only enough left for one of the two crewmen to survive, and when it reaches Venus only one man is aboard. Sparta is sent to figure out if it was murder. There is also a subplot is about the theft of a priceless artifact hidden on the ship.

This is the first of six books in the Venus Prime series. I do not plan to read any more. These were written in the 1980s and some of the predictions about the 22nd century are incorrect; the most glaring is about the Eastman Kodak company, which barely survived to the early 21st century. The plot line is infused with the author's thoughts about the future which interferes with the story line.

[Cian Beirdd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clarke's thing was to have a reasonable story in which the technology was necessary but not necessarily central to the plot. Which was neat, and usually well done. Paul Preuss tried to expand on that by writing in an umbrella theme about a secret society. That he failed in this is apparent. The need to write such an enormous backstory before even beginning the plot draws the reader away from the story itself, whereas a good writer would draw the reader in with the story and only introduce the umbrella theme afterward. As to the world he is writing in, that's Clarke's he is wise to stay within the boundaries set by the master, and so the science of the story is sound. As to the secret society, I admit to being curious about its motives. I wonder, though, if it will be of Clarke's making or Preuss'.

[S D Lawrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good story, keeps you going. Definitely has a feel of ACC, the damaged spaceship especially. "A fall of Moondust".

[Tomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Short Answer
A serviceable but unremarkable sci-fi crime thriller. Loaded with potential, the author never really figures out how to make all the elements work together. The combination of sci-fi and noir might have felt fresher in 1984, but having read books like Century Rain and Leviathan Wakes, or even the contemporary The Caves of Steel, this book feels kind of bland and uninspired.

Not recommended.

The Long Answer
Breaking Strain is loosely based off of an Arthur C. Clarke story of the same name. There is a chunk in the middle of the book about a spaceship in trouble, that is the original story. Everything leading up to it, and the investigation that follows, has been added on by the Paul Pruess.

In theory this could work well, and the bones of the book are solid. The characters are well chosen, the mystery makes sense, and the setting is perfect. However, it never really reaches its full potential. In part because there are huge pacing issues.

Pruess starts by giving us a new strong female protagonist named Sparta. She's been experimented on, and now she's escaped and has to build a life for herself and has become a space detective. We spend a bunch of time following Sparta's escape and subsequent establishment of her new life. This is actually really interesting and had me hopeful for the rest of the book. Unfortunately, it has virtually nothing to do with the main story. So little in fact that we then have to spend the next seventy pages learning the backstories of all the other players, and spending time on the space ship that is going to have an accident. All this time and Sparta is nowhere to be seen. That's a whole third of the book without your main protagonist!

This leaves just half the book for Sparta's investigation of the accident and the mysterious motives surrounding it. You know, the actual story the book is about. It's too bad, this should be the fun part of the book, but there's so little room left in the book we're presented with very little new information. We mostly just run around with Sparta as she tries to catch up to all the things we already know. What little she does learn we aren't told until the grand reveal at the end. There are a few well placed clues, but not enough to keep the story engaging.

Most baffling of all, despite us being told that a character is completely innocent, we spend a huge amount of time learning in great detail that they are in fact... innocent. Where as one of the most suspicious characters barely even gets mentioned after their setup.

A much better author would have started the book with the spaceship story, then woven all the other stories into the investigation. Learning all the details along with Sparta would have been much more engaging than waiting for her to catch up, or being left in the dark. Her whole escape scenario could have been slowly revealed this way too, or even left for a later book. Instead we get something that feels like a poor man's Expanse.

Overall a mediocre distraction at best. I'll probably read the second book because I'm very curious as to where the overall story is going, but without a drastic improvement that'll be as far into this series as I get.

[Robert Jenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still a Blast After 37 Years

This is a really fun book to read. It's partly a mystery novel, and it's one of those mystery novels that hide the answer in plain sight, misdirect you slightly with what the protagonist is expecting, and then hits you with the solution. What at first glance appeared intricate and complicated was actually fairly simple, but only in hindsight. Kudos to the author, Paul Preuss, for being adept at not only writing a banging SF novel but a clever mystery as well. The characters are well-drawn with personality and depth, and even some of the villains are sympathetic. In fact, written as it was in 1987, nothing in this book was dumbed-down for the so-called "modern audience" which is such a plague on modern genre fiction these days. I'd say it was refreshing but that's an incongruous word to use for a book written 37 years ago.

This is also a thriller, in the style of, for instance, The Bourne Identity. A partially amnesiac super-soldier with enhanced abilities embarks on a personal mission to recover her past and defeat the evildoers who put her in this position and may have killed her parents. Meanwhile she has lots of exciting adventures and her path collides with a sexy book expert she knew when they were children. This kind of story is very much a trope of genre fiction, but interwoven with all the other story elements being juggled, it adds a kind of depth that's greater than the sum of its parts.

Third, it recognizes that a lot of what science fiction fans love about the genre is, to put it crudely, gear porn. Spaceships, robots, space stations and advanced technology are in plentiful supply, and there's actually an "infopak" helpfully supplied at the end of the book illustrating many of the novel's technological set pieces, designed on computer by artist Darrell Anderson from when the Venus Prime project was originally conceived of as a video game. In fact the video game sensibilities and level of attention to detail permeate the entire story and really help create a living reality around the reader.

Fourth, it's fascinating on an intellectual level in Paul Preuss' vision of the future to see what came true, what came close, what was way off base and what we wish might have happened. Venus Prime's future solar system has problems, but at the end of the day it's a reasonably fun place to live in for 300 pages.

Fifth, Venus Prime incorporates a short story by the legendary Arthur C. Clarke, and it's fascinating to see the original story fleshed out, expanded, and some of its plot devices extended to a larger narrative. Finally, I was inspired to reread the Venus Prime series because it was recently greenlit as a TV series with Jonathan Frakes slated to direct. So it will be bittersweet to see how badly modern Hollywood drops the ball, but I'm certainly willing to be pleasantly surprised, if not optimistic about it.

In short, Venus Prime: Breaking Strain is exciting, interesting, a bit thought-provoking, even a little sexy, very readable, and above all, really fun.

[Timothy Darling · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had read this book before but could not remember it. It's even one of those rare stories that did not remind me of what was going to happen even as I worked my way through it. I doubt that it is such a forgettable story, I must have been in a particularly distracted or tired frame of mind when I read it the first time.

It's like a comic book in some ways, but not in others. The protagonist is certainly a super-hero type. She's augmented and smart and fast and strong, but not super human in some respects. She still has limitations. Linda, or Ellen, or Sparta or whatever you think you might want to remember her as is working on at least four levels, so some limitation might be forgiven. At the same time, her cyber-augmentation should make such a feat no problem, so we're back where we started.

Someone, I think it was Asimov, said that the mixing of mystery and SF is doomed to create a situation in which gadgetry solves the crime. This is that problem in spades. Read it if you like Ludlum, but don't expect Ludlum's expertise with the material. Preuss has the traditional military SF practitioner's fixation on the technology of his subject, but it only gets in the way a little, no more than hard science gets in the way of Clarke's work otherwise. Perhaps you can detect a little of Clarke in this story, but I suspect he only had a passing interest in it. Read it if you like spy novels, military sf, comic books, but don't expect the story to hang together. It's a little too enamored with its own twists.

[Steven Schwark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled on this book after hearing that Jonathan Frakes, frequent actor and director of episodes of various Star Trek franchises over the years, had signed on to direct an upcoming TV series adaptation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15440398/) of books based on a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, my favorite sci-fi author growing up.

Overall, this was an enjoyable story with plenty of twists and turns. Many slow, meandering plots ultimately converged into one grand finale in the last few pages of the book — a typical structure in this genre, but one that I appreciate. However, this book is also unfortunately a product of its time in many ways. The foundational short story was written in the late 1940s and expanded into this book in the late 1980s. Much of the story involves physical media, communications, and other situations that would be totally different if this had been written with knowledge of the Internet, smartphones, and the like. You can put yourself "back in time" and enjoy the story with these technological limitations, but there are even cultural/societal idiosyncrasies like pervasive cigarette smoking (even in sealed, oxygen-rich environments like a space station!) and wildly inaccurate estimates of future inflation/prices that made it a bit hard to become fully immersed. You're pulled out of the story by these inaccuracies.

I'm excited to watch the forthcoming TV series and will pick up the rest of the books in this series should the show delve into them visually.

[Bill Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the VENUS PRIME series almost 20 years ago when first published. It was so long ago (and I’m so old now :-) that I could not remember many of the details except a “final showdown” around Venus, a strong female lead character that I liked a lot and that overall, I liked the book very much.

Just noticed the VENUS PRIME set a few days ago, on my bookshelf, in the large CLARKE section and said, “self, you’re old and feeble, you can’t remember a damn thing, but you do remember that you liked this series a lot”. Then I stopped talking to myself in the third person because, well... THAT “ain’t” good :-)

Just reread book #1. Wasn’t disappointed at all. The only “miss” was how the Internet like network was accessed because nothing like a smart phone was in the story. But, in fairness, most authors missed smart phones in 2001, and even beyond.

Still enjoyed this reread very much. Finished it in two sessions. The last session finished at 4:15 AM. Couldn’t put it down.

Nice forward and afterward by Clarke and Preuss explaining how this series is modeled after previous published stories by Clarke. Nice touch, that.

I’m on to book #2 now.

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted it to be more. Almost the whole book seems to be a prelude to other books. So much time is spent fleshing out characters with not just hints of more but full explanations that do not come to bear in this first novel. It was distracting since I wasn't aware this was a series until going to write this review. Most series try to sell you on the first books with hints of more to come but this one is too busy explaining three books in to be bothered with what you need in this one.

Those negatives aside the book was okay. The plot was twisty enough to keep you going and wondering while being unique and interesting though a large lull in the middle further detracted from the book.

I got this in a humble bundle and I don't regret reading this book but it didn't leave me searching for the next in the series.

[Elijah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Breaking Strain, the first novel in the Venus Prime series, takes the reader through the world of a not-so-distant future where the people of Earth have expanded out to form colonies within our solar system. It follows the stories of several characters throughout its five parts but centers around the story of Sparta, a young woman suffering from memory loss who has had technology implanted within her that allows her special powers.

Though Sparta's story starts and ends this novel, I found the most interesting parts to be those which followed its side characters. Sondra Sylvester's contentious bidding war for a rare book is thrilling. Peter Grant and Angus McNeil's moral conundrum leaves the reader contemplating what they would do in the same situation. To me, these two parts showed a greater depth of thought than the action-pack story of Sparta.

I would recommend this book to fans of action and mystery. It is fast-paced and an entertaining read.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3395861.html

This was part of a Humble Bundle that I got in 2016 because of various Zelazny-related items. It's an expansion of "Breaking Strain", a 1949 story by Arthur C. Clarke, and the first in a series of six volumes by Preuss featuring the mysterious Sparta, whose memories of her own origin are unclear and unreliable, and gets mixed up with a very weird plot involving the transport of a first edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom to the planet Venus. It started a bit clunky but developed well enough and kept my attention to the end; not Great Literature but a step or two ahead of the pulp stories which it is rooted in.

[Achtung Englander · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think Jason Bourne meets Ghosts In The Shell meets a murder mystery meets Arthur C Clarke and that is Venus Prime 1. Written as a co-venture, Paul Preuss has added murder mystery meat to the bones of Arthur C Clarke's SF short story Breaking Strain.

The book is written in the late 80s and in places reads a little dated (in just under 40 years) but that is to be expected. Faxes and wires instead of email or instant messaging is just one example. This however does not get in the way of what is a solid science fiction story and some good character development. The main plot is a little ropey but I never felt the need to put it aside.

It ends with a discovery that leads into volume 2.

[B. Barceló · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puede que esta sea una de las sagas menos conocidas del autor, pero me parece una gran obra. En esta historia no tenemos solo una ciencia ficción "realista" como le gustaba crear a Clarke, sino también una parte policíaca y llena de intriga. Nos alejamos de las aventuras espaciales y del encuentro con otros seres para centrarnos en el accidente de una nave de mercancías y de la muerte de uno de los tripulantes así como la búsqueda de un pasado olvidado y lleno de peligros por parte de la protagonista, una mujer que ha sido sometida a pruebas biotecnológicas y la que no consigue recordar su pasado.

Una historia muy recomendable y que se aleja de ciencia ficción habitual.

[Marin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Several stories merged into one, with almost no threads connecting them. Perhaps each story in itself would not merit an entire novel, but that's no excuse for skipping scenes like that.

I think it would have been far more effective if different we were to follow different characters in their own storylines from the very start of the book and eventually see how their paths coincide in an unforeseen, but natural way. Author, however, decided he needs a (super)heroine origin story, so all other characters simply fade into background.

[Kinkaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encanta esta saga de novelas. Mezcla la novela negra con la de ciencia ficción. Y además los conceptos científicos que se abordan son muy rigurosos, como cabe esperar de algo que lleve el nombre de Arthur C. Clarke. Pero tampoco hay que quitarle mérito a Paul Preuss, quien realmente ha reescrito y actualidado todo.

Además, es una de las pocas colecciones en las que la protagonista es una mujer inteligente, fuerte y muy humana (a su modo). Esto resulta muy atractivo y raro, teniendo en cuenta el año del texto.

[Todd R · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preuss really writes an intriguing novel based on a short story of Clarke's. I own the original novella as part of a short story collection, but my first exposure to Breaking Strain the novel was around 1990 when I read the Venus Prime series.
I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed it now...probably more as my appreciation for straight forward sci-fi has grown over the years. Granted this is a bit of a Detective story and nothing in the way of new tech is displayed; it still kept me reading every word to the last period.
And I'm on to volume 2.

[Gary E · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not a terrible book but it was not great either. It biggest failing was just that it did not flow well . . . the story just did not grab me and then not let go.

At times it was intriguing but it just never lasted. Even at the end of the book which should have been quite exciting . . . it was still kind of blah.

It is an interesting premise and a descent storyline but it was just not executed particularly well.

[Paul Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read from the mind of one of the best science fiction writers of all time. The plot is full of twists and turns as Paul Preuss takes you through the adventures of Sparta. I would highly recommend this book and the other five novels to any science fiction fan out there who is looking for a book series worthwhile of reading.

[Jiri Eischmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scifi classics. It's interesting to read old scifi novels to see how they envisioned the future. The humankind would populate the space in a few decades, but at the same time music would still be played from magnetic tapes.
This novel is a combination of scifi and detective thriller, not particularly an excellent one, though.

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whodunit on the spaceship with a broken air handler... Awesome. And what if it inspired the airlock transfer from the Pod Bay in 2001? But it didn't, right? this was much more a psychological thriller where you suddenly realize You're not the smartest person in the room (that you thought you were).

[Charl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. I hadn't read Clarke's story, so I can't judge how well it was meshed into the novel, but it stood on its own just fine. An interesting character, and an interesting mystery/thriller. I'll be reading the next one, at least.

[Harry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1987 from a 1948 novel by Arthur C. Clarke, this a remarkably prescient sci-fi novel. It is a crime novel and it presents the moral delimma of 2 men on a lifeboat when only one can survive. Good character development and a compelling story.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very enjoyable mix of space opera and detective fiction, very heavy on the hardware and the technology, but they did not get in the way of the storytelling. I have three more of this series to read and look forward to so doing.