Here's some quick comments by Bryan Young...
Comments on "Higher Education" (spoilers avoided):
First off, is this the start of a series? It says a "Jupiter Novel", and in the page of adulation it says that it's the publisher's series. I looked on the Tor webpage and couldn't find anywhere what the Jupiter Series will be about. I assume from what I've read that the next novel will not be by the same authors, but that they had the idea for the series and did the first one themselves. Not sure what to expect here at all.
Now the novel itself... I thought it was a kid's book at first. Until I got to the sex scenes. They're not vivid, and I'm not a prude, but I keep wondering even now what the intended target age for this book was. In many ways it reminds me of those Heinlein books of the 1950's, where a young kid (just barely out of his teens) ends up in space and is forced to become a hero.
The science was adequate, and I couldn't find faults with anything there. However, I also couldn't learn anything new, either. To understand all the science in this book, you simply have to make it past about grade 9 or 10. The characters were, in my opinion, really "dumbed" down a lot, and had to learn an exorbitant amount of really basic, common-sense stuff. It might have been more interesting if they were not so dumb, but then the authors would have lost the point they were making about the state of our education system.
It was worth reading, but I'll never reread it. It might be a good starter book for anybody who wants to start reading SF and is looking for an easy introduction into hard SF. I'd rather have bought this used instead of spending the 7 bucks on it, however.
Bryan
