Literary Significance and Reception
The Magill Book Reviews said in 1990 that "the societies and science in the book are very well-researched. It is, however, a "hard" science fiction novel, and it has the weakness endemic to that genre – the individual characters are never satisfyingly drawn, so that the reader is somewhat distanced from them."
The Library Journal said in 1987 that "the alien topography of this sequel to The Integral Trees serves as a fascinating contrast to the persistence of humanity's adventuring spirit".
Read more about this topic: The Smoke Ring (novel)
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or reception:
“Plato—who may have understood better what forms the mind of man than do some of our contemporaries who want their children exposed only to “real” people and everyday events—knew what intellectual experience made for true humanity. He suggested that the future citizens of his ideal republic begin their literary education with the telling of myths, rather than with mere facts or so-called rational teachings.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“The hysterical find too much significance in things. The depressed find too little.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)