Rich Man's Sky

Written by Wil Mccarthy

Narrated by Catherine Ho

A NEW NOVEL OF REAL SF FROM WIL McCARTHY

Space: a tycoon's playground. From a space station full of women to a monastery on the Moon, from a Martian reality–TV contest to a solar shade large enough to cool the Earth, the dreams of a handful of trillionaires dictate
the future of humanity. Outside the reach of Earthly law and with the vast resources of the inner solar system at their disposal, the “Four Horsemen” do exactly as they please.

The governments of Earth are not amused; an international team of elite military women, masquerading as space colonists, are set to infiltrate and neutralize the largest and most dangerous project in human history. But
nothing is that simple when rich men control the sky, as everyone involved is about to discover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705024553

Reviews for Rich Man's Sky

[antao-3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Word of warning: this review won’t be a wee bit spoilery…As an example of contemporary SF close to science but using Woke stuff, this novel is a good example. When I became aware in 2020 that this novel was in the works, I was sure when it was released, myself & my assorted classmates (physics/astronomy/planetary science) would be going thro it with a fine tooth-comb. There would doubtless be much hand-wringing & head-teasking, flavoured with a tinge of Awesome (I hope). The space science, yeah ok it is (but there isn’t much of it anyway), but because this is a Near-Space SF novel you won’t get far-fetched things like the Alcubierre drive (science-wise it is an untested, yet fascinating theory, as are some very new, exciting, but seemingly impossible things that in fact work) or the EmDrive (well, the EmDrive certainly doesn't work: it really is the most ridiculous nonsense. Me and my assorted classmates might like to amuse ourselves with the 'theory' paper. Contemplate, for example, the hilarious consequences of a frame-dependent thrust (eq. 9)). Are you expecting the sort of SF where the launch device blows up, yes, in one of the most shameless bits of manufactured drama you've ever seen? And the ship exploding in a fireball, all being lost, only for the narrative to pan to the left and reveal that they'd actually built a feckin' IDENTICAL spare one, and it's just sitting there idling on the tarmac and ready to roll...? (btw, if you've managed to avoid “Contact” for 20 years, and it's not been spoiled by me in one of my reviews, Richwoods or Mr. Garrison of South Park, keep up the good work). Nope. Nothing like that in here. Well, 'thrilling' is a subjective judgement, I suppose. “Rich Men’s Sky” took some amazing locations and characters, reduced them to bumbling lowest-common-denominator status, and used them to tell a pretty obvious story of personal redemption yadda yadda. Me, I'd rather watch NASA TV. I'm not sure what “Rich Men’s Sky” was trying to be - some sort of semi-new-age technomenphobic fable of self-discovery and symbolic rebirth (in Space, no less)? The main character appears to be trapped in the type of nightmare in which you stand up in class and suddenly realise you forgot to put your clothes on. To add insult to gender-reversed-stereotyped injury, Alice’s narrative deliveries are utterly dependent upon Obi-Wan Kenobi style guidance… I have no problem with Woke stuff; what I have a problem with is self-consistency, which applies to all genres (I love Chris Brookmyre's discussion of the "bullet deadliness quotient" in "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night"). I have no problem reading about planets being used as projectiles in the Lensman books, but would have a wee problem if they were used in Neuromancer)