GregHowley.com

I've got mixed feelings on this book. While the science fiction is well-written, and it's basically a good story, the author's politics and attitudes are difficult to tolerate.

The main character begins the story working multiple jobs. He cuts and stacks wood, works at a grocery store, and due to an outlandish stroke of luck, he discovers an earthly commodity which is worth very little on Earth, but is near-priceless to aliens. This quickly makes him richer than all the governments on the planet put together. Thus begins the story of the self-made man.

Beginning when an alien-created disease killed off most of Earth's third-world population because they're lazy and underprivileged, the book started putting a bad taste in my mouth. When the main character comments sadly that the planet will be better off this way, it was difficult to continue. But I did.

From an incident where congress increasing taxes actually literally (albeit indirectly) threatens the lives of every person on the planet, to a scene where the main character commiserates with an alien about those damn liberals, the author makes no secret of his political leanings. There are no notable female characters in the book other than an African-American woman who expresses relief that she won't be subject to the alien disease that makes blonde women super-horny every month while ovulating. No, I'm not kidding. This is really in the book.

With all the complaints out of the way, I've got to say that the reason I actually finished reading is because the book has a lot of interesting stuff going on. The author obviously has a head for science. His space-going vehicles don't try to be aerodynamic, because... no air. His pseudo-science isn't ridiculous, and he does some very cool things with asteroid mining and distributed solar arrays.