Wednesday 30 May 2012

FACTUAL REVIEW: The Science of Avatar - Stephen Baxter

Release Date: 03/05/12

SYNOPSIS:

James Cameron's Avatar is the biggest movie of all time. Now the movie's legendary director has leant his support to an exploration of the world of Pandora with bestselling science-fiction author Stephen Baxter. From journeys into deep space to anti-gravity unobtanium, from Pandora's extraordinary flora and fauna to transferring consciousness, Baxter and Cameron reveal that we are often closer to world of Avatar than we might imagine. Stephen Baxter is the master of 'what-if?' science fiction. In THE SCIENCE OF AVATAR he's written a book that will appeal to fans of both science-fiction and popular science. THE SCIENCE OF AVATAR will offer fans the unique opportunity to explore the spectacular world of Pandora, from the creator himself.


REVIEW:

To be honest this is a book I’ve waited quite some time for as it originally appeared on my radar a couple of years ago. Sadly due to constraints its taken its time to come to the fore but now its released I was left wondering if the wait was worth it or whether its more of a cash in than anything else.

What this book does more than anything else is explore the believability of Cameron’s world and whilst at times it has problems with the creation, what Stephen does is bring the complexities of world building to the reader whilst picking out what does and doesn’t work on a basic level. Its interesting, its presented in an easy to understand manner and of course for me as a reader I love to find out what has real possibilities. Likewise if you are a writer, setting out to create your own world, this is a useful guide to help you work out what does and doesn’t work for you to help make your own world ideal fantasy/sci-fi fodder.

All in a solid book and whilst it won’t appeal to everyone, it’s a great title to own if you’re interested in believability as well as how you’d go about constructing something special. Great stuff.



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