Reviews for Winds of Altair

The average rating for Winds of Altair based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-08-15 00:00:00 Bepi Maser I am so excited about finding this book! Ever since I watched the movie Avatar I have been scraping my memory trying to the remember the name of the book that I read in grade school with the six-legged tigers on the hostile planet and the kids that run them telepathically. Well guess what? It's called The Winds of Altair Stand yourselves by for a re-read review so very soon. --update-- Having re-read this book now, I must say that it not aged as well as I had hoped but it was still pretty great. Here some thoughts: This story is old school YA and as such doesn't really deliver the Hunger Game level of intensity expected of modern YA. It's kind of tame by today's standards. The ending is rough - I remember thinking even as kid that that it was a little unrealistic and anticlimactic. What surprised me during the re-read though, was that the ending that I remembered didn't actually happen. I invented it. The actual ending was even more unsatisfying than the one I remembered. Apparently somewhere along the line I imposed my own "How it Should Have Ended" upon it. Having said all that I must add that I still really love this book. A lot. The ideas in it are fabulous. Just ask James Cameron, because he appears to have dipped heavily into it to create the movie Avatar. I also cannot deny the appeal of nostalgia. This book was "the one." The story that lit up my eyes and hooked me on Science Fiction. I even tracked down the 1973 version that I had originally read and paused religiously during my re-read to inhale that old book smell. By the magic invested in it, I was able to be a kid again, racing across an alien planet as a glorious three-ton wolfcat, if only for few hours. Which is powerful magic indeed.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-23 00:00:00 Jarrett Lee Loved it! Ben Bova's eye for detail is amazing. His insight and forethought still leave me in awe. This author is what started me liking SiFi. Not only does he draw you in, he also makes everything believable. Instead of merely reading a fictional story, its like your reading an account of someones life. If you have a love for animals, like myself, you will enjoy reading this.