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It took me like six months to read this book due to external circumstances, so this review might be patchy in places, but I liked it enough to pick it up again!
Firstly, Dragon's Egg is diamond-hard SF. It has humans discover a neutron star that's going to swing by the Solar System (the titular Dragon's Egg, as it came from the direction of the constellation Draco), and they mount an expedition to it. We get to see the neutron star's first discovery, and the later expedition to it. We also get to see things from the POV of the neutron star's inhabitants, from the first plantlife to first contact with humans and beyond, and the neutron star's sentient lifeforms – the cheela – are definitely a huge draw.
The cheela's living environment of the neutron star affects their culture and locomotion, in that there's an easy direction and a hard direction to travel in, caused by the neutron star's magnetic field. Their culture is also a product of where they inhabit, and their biology and social mores delightfully nonhuman.
My favorite character is Swift-Killer the Renaissance woman soldier-turned-scientist; I might request her for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
space_swap and prompt for how she got the beginning nitty-gritties of first contact started. Alternatively, the sciencing of Super-Fluid and Helium-Two.
The one caveat is that this was written in the 70s, and it is weird about breasts. (Thankfully, most of it is about the boobless cheela.) Women do participate in everything equally – tasks we see human men do, we also see human women do, and tasks we see male cheela do, we also see female cheela do – but: weird remarks on boobs. Perhaps under 5 of them, but still.
Firstly, Dragon's Egg is diamond-hard SF. It has humans discover a neutron star that's going to swing by the Solar System (the titular Dragon's Egg, as it came from the direction of the constellation Draco), and they mount an expedition to it. We get to see the neutron star's first discovery, and the later expedition to it. We also get to see things from the POV of the neutron star's inhabitants, from the first plantlife to first contact with humans and beyond, and the neutron star's sentient lifeforms – the cheela – are definitely a huge draw.
The cheela's living environment of the neutron star affects their culture and locomotion, in that there's an easy direction and a hard direction to travel in, caused by the neutron star's magnetic field. Their culture is also a product of where they inhabit, and their biology and social mores delightfully nonhuman.
My favorite character is Swift-Killer the Renaissance woman soldier-turned-scientist; I might request her for
space_swap and prompt for how she got the beginning nitty-gritties of first contact started. Alternatively, the sciencing of Super-Fluid and Helium-Two.The one caveat is that this was written in the 70s, and it is weird about breasts. (Thankfully, most of it is about the boobless cheela.) Women do participate in everything equally – tasks we see human men do, we also see human women do, and tasks we see male cheela do, we also see female cheela do – but: weird remarks on boobs. Perhaps under 5 of them, but still.