ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER
Reviewed 9/19/1996
ENCOUNTER WITH TIBER
Buzz Aldrin & John Barnes
New York: Warner Books, 1996 |
High
|
| ISBN 0-446-51854-9 |
560p. |
HC/GSI |
$21.95 |
Errata, Nitpicks and Irreverent Comments...
...in which I wax enthusiastic, didactic, sarcastic or pseudo-sarcastic by turns.
| Page 19: |
RTLS
(abort) |
The text defines this as "Return To Landing Site". |
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S/B: "Return to Launch Site" |
| Page 41 &c.: |
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The use of the term "HT" for hydrogen tank. |
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This is apparently a conscious avoidance of our current usage "ET" for External Tank. |
| Page 55: |
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A white-haired man is described, but not given a name. The text implies that this is a real person. |
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Who is the white-haired man referred to? I thought first of Walter Cronkite, but the text says he's an actor, so that can't be right. James Doohan? I'm probably a light-year off. |
| Page 57: |
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"...ShareSpace Global was underway..." |
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S/B: "under way". But why use two words when one will do? Now I must make myway up the highway, and learn to do things the otherway... |
| Pages 79, 81, 90: |
96 meters |
It's never clear from the text what the wavelength of this Tiberian signal is. Page 79 says "96 meters", which is certainly not "millimeter wavelength" (see page 81.) And on page 90 there is a reference to "0.96 mm". If this is what's intended, it is awfully high in frequency (312.5 GHz). |
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This was resolved by John Barnes himself. I e-mailed him the question, and he replied on 9/19/96 that 96 meters is correct. Also, the length of the dipole antenna is a dead obvious tipoff, which I missed. Mea culpa. |
| Page 85: |
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"...and tended to drift to the end of the tether, or to wrap around the girders." |
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Nitpick: Seems like this line ought to read "wrap it around the girders." |
| Page 86: |
0-9, A-F |
A goof on hexadecimal numbering. The text says "...there are sixteen digits (1-9, plus A-E, representing 10-15 respectively)". |
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S/B: "0-9, plus A-F" |
| Page 89: |
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A car is used to illustrate Doppler effect, rather than the usual railroad train. |
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Interesting choice |
| Page 177: |
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The passage near the bottom. |
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This passage reminds me strongly of the "kingdoms" on Mote Prime. |
| Page 256: |
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The Nisuan narrator refers to their home planet by its human name, Tiber. |
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Oops! |
| Page 303: |
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The Nisuans exit their lander Gurix on Earth (Setepos) apparently unprotected, and apparently without having tested the air. |
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Actually, I think the robot probes gave them this data. And a later page mentions "disposable encounter suits". |
| Page 460 &c.: |
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References to the "LEO ports Glenn or Shepherd". |
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If this is supposed to commemorate Project Mercury astronauts John Glenn and Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (as seems intended), somebody's editor needs educating. |
| Page 464: |
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"...the Japanese, the Chinese, the Russians, and ESA" |
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I would hope that by this time South America would have gotten into the act. (Just MHO.) |
| Page 470: |
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"They had a volunteer program going so that a lot of engineers and professors were 'retiring' into teaching in the public schools at increased pay." |
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It's a miracle! (I thought this was science fiction?) <G> |
| Pages 474-5: |
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"And, he said, if we accepted the little indicator at the upper right corner of some of the Great Volume frames as a date..." |
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How does Nigawa (or anyone else on Earth at this time) know the Tiberian artifact is called the Great Volume of Knowledge? |
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Copyright © 1996-2024 Christopher P. Winter. All rights reserved.
This page was created in 1996. Its contents were last modified on Monday, 2 September 2024.