This author is quickly becoming one of my favourites. James White was an excellent storyteller, and a sadly underrated master of the science fiction genre. I thoroughly enjoyed his novel The Silent Stars Go By, and All Judgment Fled certainly exhibits the same standard of writing. As a Big Dumb Object book, it invites comparison with Clarke's Rendevous with Rama and Niven's Ringworld, but it was actually written in 1967 before either of those two novels were published. Personally, I found it more thought-provoking than those standard works, too. While it is undoubtedly now classed as old-school science fiction, it does not feel especially dated and is, in my opinion, definitely worth reading. ( )

Average quality 1960s' SF. This author is good at creating new and different Aliens and human/alien encounters but I had a trouble picking it up again after putting it down.

This particular encounter becomes a fight for life and has an exciting finish. A side feature, which gives it the title, is the support/interference of the command authorities back on Earth. They only hurt the mission with failures of judgment and brains. This book was too heavy on the psychology as the main character tries to keep the crew mentally healthy while being undermined by Earth. I wanted to shout, "Turn off the radio!"

I will likely try another James White book as he had quite a successful writing career. This must not be his best work. ( )

F/SF