Neutron Star

Summary:
Neutron Star is a collection of short stories primarily about a man named Beowulf Shaeffer and his life. The book starts out about how he is unemployed and broke. He is in danger of going to debtors' prison soon if he doesn't get enough stars, the futuristic currency soon. Beowulf is told to go to a neutron star and figure out why it killed its last two visitors. He learns that it was tidal forces that killed them and he himself barely survives. He pays his debt and still has enough money left over to last him for a while. Four years later he is offered another job and this time it is to test a new fast ship. The new mission is to take it the ship to center the galaxy and back. He has a time limit of four months for the round trip, but this can only be achieved by going the fastest speed the entire time. At that speed he must keep a 24/7 watch on the sensors to make sure he doesn't run into anything. When he nears the center of the galaxy he sees that the galaxy is beginning to explode. Beowulf returns and tells the puppeteers, his employers, that the galaxy is beginning to explode. They immediately leave to try and run away from the destruction of the galaxy even though it is 20,000 years away. In the next story, Beowulf visits Earth and while in transit meets a man named Elephant. Elephant wants an exciting story like Beowulf and buys himself the location and transportation to an unknown planet with an interesting feature. He takes Beowulf with him and when they arrive they cannot figure out why the planet is special. They learn to late that its planet and the surrounding area is antimatter which can rip right through their ships hull. They barely escape with their lives and are able to make it home. In Beowulf's final adventure, he is taking a cruise on a ship where there is a member of a very shy alien race on board. The ship has some technical difficulties and the member of the alien species is kidnapped. Beowulf goes down to a nearby planet and finds an old friend who hates aliens. Beowulf suspects his friend of kidnapping the alien and is right. Beowulf is able to save the alien, but at the danger of his own life. The last side story in the book is about a man from a company who sells arms to intelligent species. He goes to a planet to investigate if grogs are creature that could use arms. In the end he learns that they are intelligent and may be related to a thought to be extinct alien species that were extremely dangerous because they had the ability to control other creature's minds.

Review:
Neutron Star is a wonderful book that takes the elements of science fiction and turns them into humorous ideas with a touch of truth to them. The primary character is an adventurer that is always getting himself in trouble, but is able to get out of it barely. This story is great because you get to see many aspects of his life, but not so much to bore you. Each story is of perfect length, just enough to be satisfying, but not so much that it is tedious. I found that there were elements of many genres in this book, action, mystery and many others, which is the beauty of short stories. Meeting new characters, learning about them and seeing there lives go from great to poor to greater in just a few pages is amazing. This book will never leave you bored.