The Colors of Space Book

Yes, the characterisation is wafer-thin. The world-building is dodgy-as, the narrative is held together with coincidence gum and deus ex machina wire, and the plot point that is the fulcrum of the whole story is one of the more ludicrous bits of pseudoscience in Space Opera history. Nevertheless, I am giving this five stars.

You see, I read this book when I was very young, so I could visualise the scenes with the vividness of the very young, so the enthusiastic descriptions of the beauties of space have sunk deep into my marrow and become part of my being:

Swirling past the ship, gleaming in the reflected sunlight like iron filings moving to the motion of a magnet, were the waves upon waves of cosmic dust- tiny free electrons, ions, particles of gas; free of the heavier atmosphere, themselves invisible, they formed in their billions into bright clouds around the ship; pale, swirling veils of mist. And through their dim shine, the brilliant flares of the fixed stars burned clear and steady, so far away that even the hurling motion of the ship could not change their positions.

One by one he picked out the constellations. Aldebaran swung on the pendant chain of Taurus like a giant ruby. Orion strode across the sky, a swirling nebula at his belt. Vega burned, cobalt blue, in the heart of the Lyre.

Colours, colours! Inside the atmosphere of Earth's night, the stars had been pale white sparks against black. Here, against the misty-pale swirls of cosmic dust, they burned with colour heaped on colour; the bloody burning crimson of Antares, the metallic gold of Capella, the sullen pulsing of Betelgeuse. They burned, each with its own inward flame and light, like handfuls of burning jewels flung by some giant hand upon the swirling darkness. It was a sight Bart felt he could watch forever and still be hungry to see; the never-changing, ever-changing colours of space.

More importantly, in a genre which usually presents violence as the main way for protagonists to solve their problems, the Colours of Space is a magnificent description of non-violent conflict resolution. Both the possibilities and the limitations of non-violence are shown. The protagonist decides that the means do not justify the ends, and makes a hard decision not to resort to violence. Things work out okay in the end for everyone, but it is not a Care Bear universe where a happy ending was a foregone conclusion: people on both sides have been killed for less, though off-screen. The motivation for the antagonists to settle the conflict non-violently makes sense. The way the ending unfolds without bloodshed made a strong impact on me when I was very young and holds up well today.

I first became aware of our symbiotic bioflora from reading this book, so it played a role, I am sure, in determining my present conviction that our bacterial-pals-who-are-fun-to-be-with are more important than commonly supposed, and more effort should be put into understanding them.

On re-reading, I have also got a sneaking suspicion that the protagonist's selfless revelation of his exceedingly valuable information to humanity at large played a role in determining my present attitude towards 'intellectual property'. (viz. Property is theft. Intellectual property is intellectual theft. All that can be known or created exists eternally in the mind of God.)

So: read this book when you are still young, and let it work upon you, and you will probably turn out like me.