Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Noumenon

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018

I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found it fairly engrossing, and I generally enjoyed the story. About two-thirds of the way through the book the tone then changes dramatically and not for the better. Frankly, it was abrupt enough that I had to go back and check to see if I had skipped something . Once I reached that point, I lost most of my investment in the book and started getting annoyed by some of the more questionable plot decisions.

The editing also fell apart in the last third of the Kindle edition. I found incorrect names ("Anton Gaudi"), mis-used words (("strenuous" instead of "tenuous"), and other similar issues. It almost seemed like the editor got tired and gave up.

32 people found this helpful

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Zachary A Cochran

What's the point here?

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2018

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Without any interesting direct story or cogent backstory this novel assumes the reader should care about generations (apparently? it's loose on its own chronology) of one dimensional characters strung together through poorly investigated societal(?), scenic(?), thematic(?), changes. So many questions... What's the point when a story line is ditched the minute you get interested in anyone? What's the point of buying into the next deep time dystopia if there's no coherent thread to set it up? Is it important the characters are clones and not say... frozen and reanimated? How have any of them earned my trust as a point of view? Or have they not? Who knows? But maybe if it's vague enough we can get a trilogy out of it.

27 people found this helpful

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How would one travel the galaxy?

Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2018

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How would one travel the galaxy?
Noumenon is a gem of a space opera. It asks one of the confounding questions of deep space travel: How would a people travel the galaxy? Black holes, Cryogenics, Artificial Intelligence, Bio-Artificial Intelligence, Virtual reality, Cloning, or other exotic means. The problem is time versus distance versus the human condition. Well, not to belabor a challenge, Ms Lostetter adopted the Cloning method in conjunction with an interesting sub-dimensional (SD) quantum type of travel to defeat the difficult Einstein distance vs time challenge. I’ll allow the author to better define her parameters but in the end she does a better than average job with the deep space travel conundrum. The story revolves around genetic cloning to insure proper crewing of deep generational space ships. Although clones are exact duplicates of the original, small differences do creep in and grow to large differences over time. This is the heart of the story as Noumenon spans eons of space travel for the ships of Convoy 7. Fascinating story with terrific insight in the multi-faceted human condition.
Character development is the heart of Noumenon and is done in vignette style with recurring basic clone genetic lines. These vignettes are all wrapped in an intriguing story of very long deep space travel to a strange star, LQ Pyxidis, thousands of light years from earth. The entire roundtrip from earth will take thousands of earth years and about half that in SD faster than light quantum travel.
No gratuitous sex, violence or language. Just interesting writing.
This is the first book in I guess a possible trilogy. Book #2 comes out in August 2018 and is entitled Noumenon Infinity. Book #3?? A fun read about very deep space travel and how it could possibly be done. Yes I know, there are lots of proposals this is just one person’s supposition. Ms Lostetter does a fine job and will keep the reader engaged. Overall a strong recommend if you like Space, the Final Frontier!!

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NS

Dumb Plot Device - Gets in the way of the storytelling and is completely illogical.

Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2018

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I had high hopes for this book based on the reviews, but it has a STUPID underlying plot device, and it gets pretty boring as you get deeper into the book. In addition, the actions of the characters are so implausible to make the book unreadable.

[DETAILS - WITH SPOILERS - WHY I DIDN’T LIKE IT] The whole concep that they would initially use clones of real people (with the same name and “character traits” as their Earth-bound “parent”) to crew an interstellar spaceship is a stretch at best....but the whole underlying plot device — that there is no breeding among the crew during a multi-generation ark ship, and that each individual clone would each be replaced with their identical (ie, clone) replacement....and that the new clone will take over the same job as the prior clone after a pre-determined number of years (whereupon the older clone is simply euthanized) — was so illogical, and became so unbelievable as the “generations” went on, that I simply gave up and stopped reading the book about 2/3 of the way in.

Overall, the concept had promise initially, but the author took an interesting idea to an extreme, making it beyond believable (and at that point, it just becomes dumb). I gave it two stars, instead of one, because it started out OK and even has potential...if the author were to go back and modify it significantly.

26 people found this helpful

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C G Olson

Short Review

Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2017

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This book has some excellent and engrossing elements. The book has distinctive timeline jumps that carry new characters and unique focuses. For example, the discovery, the planning, the journey stage 1 etc. The Dyson Sphere plot element is similar to Pandora's Star by Hamilton but I enjoyed and preferred the way Noumenon handles the journey and the mystery - it gave me the same feeling as the initial discovery in Star Tide Rising or the alien ship in in the original Alien (before they ruined it with awful extrapolation in Prometheus).

Most of these timeline chapters are enjoyable and thought provoking. However, the Pit/Warden is a tangent shift to far for my tastes. It's like the old Sesame St game "one of these things is not like the other ...". It adds little to the main story arch and is painfully dumb - I cannot believe that the highly educated characters would make the awful decisions thrust upon us.

My advice, buy the book and skip the Pit/Warden part, as it will leave a bitter taste in an otherwise enjoyable tale.

14 people found this helpful

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A non-BDO, BDO book. 🙃

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2021

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Big Dumb Object (BDO):
In discussion of science fiction, a Big Dumb Object (BDO) is any mysterious object, usually of extraterrestrial or unknown origin and immense power, in a story which generates an intense sense of wonder by its mere existence. Often exhibiting extreme or unusual properties, or a total absence of some expected properties.

I usually like BDO books. I enjoy the sense of wonder and mystery they provide, and the thrill of discovering something new. And at first, that’s what Noumenon was. A distant star is displaying unusual activity, so a mission is launched to travel to said star to investigate. This caught my interest, as I myself wanted to know what was going on with the star. It’s one of the reasons why I like books such as Rendevouz With Rama and Project Hail Mary so much.

But then the book went in a different direction, a direction I usually don’t like. It became more about the journey than the mission.

But how could I not like that? Everybody knows that any good journey isn’t about where you’re going, it’s about how you get there.

The reason I don’t like this is because I like having an end goal in sight. I don’t mean this in a sense of knowing how it ends, just knowing what it is that our characters are trying to achieve. Having a clear objective makes it easier for me to mentally get onboard with whatever is happening, because I know it’s happening for a reason. But when a story decides to focus entirely on the journey rather than the destination, I find myself asking the age-old peer review question: Where are you taking me?

But Noumenon took a different approach, it focused entirely on the journey, but only after establishing the purpose of the journey. And it’s because of this established goal that I didn’t mind my focus being diverted elsewhere. In fact, Noumenon focuses so much on the journey that I honestly don’t remember what the discovery ended up being, and in hindsight, I don’t really care, because it’s about the journey. Now, I know that sounds like I’m going in circles, but remember, a characters goal and the overall plot of the story don’t need to be the same thing.

In it’s third act, Noumenon took yet another approach that’s not seen very often.

One of the most interesting things is the passage of time. This is a multigenerational story being told over hundreds of years. You could say it’s told in a series of vignettes, with each chapter jumping forward several years, often decades, each one being its own self-contained arc influenced by the ones that came before. And while hundreds of years have gone by for the crew, thousands have gone by on Earth. Upon their return, they don’t get the celebration or ticker tape parade that usually seen for the return of a long voyage, instead, they’re met with skepticism and indifference by a society that has evolved far beyond even verbal language, and find themselves trying to adapt an Earth that is literally alien to them.

There’s a lot more nuance to this book than what I talked about here, but I wanted to put a focus on how perfectly structured it is.

Noumenon, I tip my hat to you 🎩 You made me appreciate what I normally don’t 👏

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PrimordialStar

Very interesting!

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2017

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This is a very interesting take on a generation starship novel. The crew encounters a lot of moral and ethical questions about cloning, as well as many about what it means to be human and to be an individual. I really enjoyed it, and my only concern would be that this is probably not okay for kids under 15 or so, no matter their reading level, just due to some of the situations encountered. There's nothing sexual, but there are a lot of things that might bother younger readers, so parents, if this is for a younger kid, please read over it first to make sure it won't bother them. I would seriously recommend this to anyone who likes the science fiction storylines where they delve into the human experience at the same time as they question the unknown!

9 people found this helpful

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Stretches the imagination to the limit and beyond

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2018

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At its best, science fiction stretches the mind to its limits and beyond. Classic works such as Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker and Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy roam throughout the universe, spanning millions or even billions of years and offering a glimpse of humanity's ultimate potential. In more recent years, contemporary sci-fi authors have ventured into the same unknown space with what I term visionary science fiction. They tend to bring a more nuanced view of the distant future. Marina J. Lostetter's extraordinary novel, Noumenon, is a brilliant example.

A brilliant example of visionary science fiction
Noumenon opens in the closing decades of the 21st century as the human race prepares to probe the stars. The fleet after which the book is titled is one of seven expeditions sent in different directions far beyond the solar system. Each carries a crew of 100,000. We observe the men and women of Noumenon and the ten generations that follow them as they reach their distant destination and return, more than 2,000 years later in Earth time.

Nothing is predictable
Nothing is predictable in this truly inventive tale. The members of the crew are all clones of Earth's top scientists, engineers, social scientists, and other specialists, chosen for their ability to work comfortably in a crowded social setting. The events that unfold over the hundreds of years during which the fleet is underway are surprising to a fault. What they discover at their destination meets none of their expectations. And what they encounter upon returning to earth is shocking. No matter how imaginative you might be, you won't guess any of these things.

Marina J. Lostetter has written two science fiction novels that appear to be the beginning of a series. She followed Noumenon with the publication of Noumenon Infinity.

3 people found this helpful

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AndreaGS

Multi-generational story with big ideas!

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2017

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I really enjoyed Lostetter's Noumenon. I listened to the audiobook and thought the production was great.

It starts with humanity sending out seven generation ship convoys to explore various phenomena. The convoy we follow in the story, Convoy Seven, is heading to a distant, anomalous star. Like so many stories, it's the journey here that really matters (although what they find at the end is also exciting!). The characters on the convoy are selected to form the perfect society. As in most utopias, reality doesn't quite meet expectation.

The decisions the characters make--sensible decisions you could see anyone making--reverberate throughout their society, creating lasting, permanent changes. Watching this play out over generations made for a compelling read. The AI is there throughout the entire book, and is its own fully fleshed-out character providing a stable touchstone over the vast passages of time in the book.

Would highly recommend this book! I listen to audiobooks while I'm running or cycling, and having this book made me eager to exercise again :)

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RAR

Need to Read all three books to make sense of this book.

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2021

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Interesting series about multi-generation ships going out to explore, with the divisions and learning, following the messy precedent of world history. Meanwhile, earth has retreated into a comfortable lifestyle with no interest in the rest of the galaxy. They are disturbed by the return of the Noumenon and want nothing to do with what they learned. As one gets further into the series the timeline gets steadily more confusing, despite the timeline given in an appendix of the last book. However, it is a good series that looks at the universe as a whole, with some interesting physics concerning other (or sub) dimensions. The timeline of the inhabitants, both indigenous and non, of the planet Noumonon is particularly intriguing. The last book must be read to make better sense of the first two books.

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5 star		42%
4 star		28%
3 star		17%
2 star		10%
1 star		3%

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