Sunspot
by Garth Jones
(FrontList Books, £not advised, 307 pages, paperback, published
2003.)
Review by Ann Moore
 Plot:
2001 meets Jurasic Park.
This is well written. A bit heavy on the sex and violence and with
more characters than necessary and ultimately rather pointless, lacking
in tension. Derivative.
The story centres on an artificial space station, which is intended
to prove the ultimate luxury holiday resort. It is set in a solar system
not unlike our own and the usual norms seem to apply. The computer controlled
part of the station is being built off the orbit of an inhabited planet,
Pirismus, and it is intended to fly it to the orbit of another less
hospitable but beautiful planet, Morasmus, where the main part of the
hotel system is being built, and join the two together.
However, the firm managing the work is run by a man, Warren, who has
risen above his level of competence, who is more used to hands on work
and thinks that the computer sections do not really do anything. Things
start going wrong.
The sub plot centres round the sexual proclivities of young man called
Forba, who is the nearest there is to a hero and over whose delights
the women are fighting.
The second sub plot concerns a gang of "storm surfers" who live on
Morasmus, general no-goods who occupy themselves robbing tourists and
riding the storms on the planet on the equivalent of surf boards.
Warren, his wife and various computer staff leave Pirismus with the
half of the space station and travel out to Morasmus to join the other
half. Malcolm's law supervenes and the conclusion is inevitable and
predictable.
Analysis -- plot not up to the quality of the writing, but better than
some I've read, will occupy the odd journey.
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