Book 17.  Solaris
Author: Stanislav Lem
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 204
Release date: 

What worked: There was a pscyhological aspect to this novel that was very appealing.  From the moment that Kevin gets to the station, his life is turned completely upside down.  Having to see someone he cared abut that had died years before, suddenly be there when he woke up...was kind of cool.  The dialogue between Kevin and Rheya was interesting because she was not "human", yet she took some human characteristics.  Also the interaction with Kevin and Snow was also very good. 

Yet, it was the psychological parts that made this enjoyable.  Kevin was a psychologist and a logical man.  When his "visitor" shows up, he can barely handle it and kind of goes off the deep end rather quickly.  He then spend his time trying to figure out how to escape, but also gets confused about Rheya.

What did not work.  Too verbose.  There were sometimes ten to twenty pages of nothing but text about previous findings for the planet.  It was too much.  It killed any momentum you could get with the book and made it very difficult to read.  There is a fine line with how much information you need to understand something as opposed to get beaten over the head with it. 

Also, it seemed like Kevin fell apart way too quickly to me.  It had been 10 years since Rheya had died, and he fell apart very quickly.  A bit of resiliance would have been nice to see.  I would have liked to seen what the other people on the station's "visitor" looked like.  That would have been interesting. 

Favorite Quotes:  "Apathy robbed me of the strength even to despise myself."
-Kevin

Rating:  6.0 out of 10.  An interesting sci-fi novel, that had good and bad parts.  Barely readable because of certain writiing issues, but the psychological aspect of the novel overcame that.