Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding insights
Review: By the end of this book, I had totally fallen in love with Lou Arrendale, the autistic hero of this magnificent work. As a high-functioning autistic man, he has a job at a pharmaceutical company. At first it seems that it's merely a sheltered workshop-type job, but we gradually discover is extremely skilled and specialised. Similarly, as the book develops we find out that Lou is a thoughtful, kind and interesting person with a strong personality. He works hard at fitting in to "normal" society by remembering the right things to say and do. Of course we all do that, but most of us remember more easily and the actions come automatically, whereas Lou has to approach every social situation as though it were a maths problem. Lou's dilemma revolves around whether or not he should accept his company's offer of an experimental drug that they say will make him "normal". Will he still be himself? Will he still love Marjory, the woman he fences with? As an autistic man, she'll probably never love him. As a normal man, will he still care for her? A subplot that concerns someone stalking Lou is far less satisfactory than the main plot, and is less interesting than the key ideas, but it does add a certain amount of suspense. The most satisfying thing about this novel is the characterisation. I felt I got to know not only Lou but all the major and even some of the minor characters. I learned a great deal about what it might be like to see the world from the point of view of an autistic person, and what it's like to be so different from everyone else. This book is rich, powerful and affecting. Strongly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: A bona fide page-turner sure to leave a lasting impression
Review: Comparisons have been coming thick and fast for Elizabeth Moon's riveting new novel THE SPEED OF DARK, released in January. This delicate, insightful and sometimes terrifying first-person account of how "normal" life challenges the autistic Lou Arrendale resonates powerfully with readers who have been enthralled by movies such as Flowers for Algernon, Forrest Gump and Rain Man. But THE SPEED OF DARK is anything but derivative. Comparisons are only the beginning when it comes to appreciating the depth and empathic precision that Moon --- a Hugo Award finalist and herself the mother of an autistic child --- brings to a near-future world where the intellectually "different" find themselves caught up in a truly oriental crisis of mixed danger and opportunity. Behind a seemingly dull exterior of minimal outside contact and almost emotionless expression, Lou lives in a rich, intricately woven universe of trusted social routines, a specialized pattern recognition job, regimented personal care and carefully choreographed pleasures, such as fencing, music and art. He is not retarded, intellectually deficient, psychologically damaged, or schizophrenic. In fact, Lou and his close-knit colleagues, who form a special problem-solving team in one small department of a huge research facility, are not a great many of the things that society tends to label them. Instead of responding to the usual fear and prejudice through righteous anger, sentimental preachiness, or idealized fantasy with the requisite happy ending ("boy gets new brain and all is well..."), Moon and her delightfully believable protagonist meet the real world head-on and make whimsical, workable sense of it. Her deft rhythm, diction and nuance capture Lou's terse, yet sophisticated, chains of thought, expanding and contracting like the dynamics of a cosmic symphony inspired by an undecipherable theme. But it isn't easy when your brain is the square peg that "they" (lovers of conformity and homogeneity) want to force into a round hole. Lou's perceptive running commentary on his gargantuan efforts to fit into "normal" society speaks volumes about the enigma of the autistic mind and its unrecognized potential. This inner world, so rarely shared with outsiders, is challenged by an opportunity to perhaps experience what life might be like as a "normal" human being. And Lou's captivating "voice" is very nearly silenced forever. With THE SPEED OF DARK, Elizabeth Moon has formed and sculpted a heroic plotline from seemingly mundane ingredients, taking the reader into fictional, ethical and even spiritual realms that have rarely been so memorably blended. It's a bona fide page-turner --- with surprises and magic around every corner --- and is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression. --- Reviewed by Pauline Finch
Rating:
Summary: Quietly powerful
Review: Elizabeth Moon drew on her time in the Marines for her military SF, and she has drawn on her time as a mother of an austist for this astonishing stand-alone novel. The comparison to _Flowers for Algernon_ is inevitable, but I'd rather not make it. Lou is a complex, fascinating character who deserves to be appreciated for who he is, not who he is like or who he is not like. What is normal? What makes you you and me me? Are we the sum of our memories, or our interpretation of those memories? Do you really perceive blue the same way I do? Are you frowning because you are angry or are you just thinking really hard? Do I understand you? Do I understand me? It's easy to describe this book as the story about an autist who is offered the chance to change, but that description ignores one of the book's recurring motifs: change happens to us, all the time, no matter what consent we offer or refuse. The narrative pulls you along swiftly, offering a point of view that is both alien and familiar. Absorbing, provocative, and moving. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A real treat
Review: Elizabeth Moon is one of my favorite authors for her space-opera series, but here she takes a break from that to deliver what turns out to be a surprisingly interesting and entertaining story. I hadn't thought that I would care all that much about an autistic character, but Moon has obviously carved herself out the task of making people care by way of showing the autistic point of view. It worked for me. Of course it helps that Lou, her protagonist, is not only a functioning autistic, but a functioning genius as well. His understated superiority, which manifests to the consternation of the villians and delight of his friends, is quite appealing. Because of his disability he has to spend a very large portion of his mental effort on simply not being offensive to the "normals" around him. Anything acerbic he has to say is kept in the narrative and not spoken in the dialog. If the book loses a star it has to be because of the bad guys. They are simply too one-dimensional to make the challenge of knocking them over anything more than perfunctory. Perhaps that is OK, because that's not really what the story is about. So go ahead and enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: What great insight into Autism
Review: I appreciate this book. It was a great fiction that felt so real in describing the day to day life of a man with autism. The story line and characters were richly developed and fascinating. You will like this book!
Rating:
Summary: Intriquing
Review: I did find this book intriquing - how did the author get into the head of an autistic person? It is a thought it was a provoking book - how do we define "normal" - SHOULD we try to define "normal"? On the other hand, I wonder what an autistic person would think of this book?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but
Review: I enjoyed this book very much, it was well done,
until the last chapter. Then it was as if someone told the author to finish quickly. The gap of 7 years to the end was huge and left an unfinished feeling.
Rating:
Summary: Written from the Soul
Review: I have read Elizabeth Moon's novels before - her hard, military-type, sci-fi. Those were written with a novelist's pen. Speed of Dark was written from the soul of a mother of an autistic. It is far less sci-fi than most sci-fi, far more about social relations among people, autistic and otherwise, and especially where the twain meet. And is it perhaps so that many of us, save only the total sensor of human signals - Bill Clinton, have some autism in ourselves? This novel leads one to look inside. Some of this nvel's side characters are, frankly, cardboard and stereotypical, especially the villian Crenshaw, whom one might see in a Dilbert strip. But the protagonist Lou and his friends are real. That reality overcomes the small lack of depth in Crenshaw and his sometime henchman Aldrin. Like the real world, the book is about choices, but here they are being made in many cases by people whose choices are limited, although not less consequential than for others. Others, with a full range of choices, choose to self-limit. I do not want to give the plot away, but I wlll ask this: where does Lou go from here? Is there a follow up?
Rating: 
Summary: I could not finish this book.
Review: I have read other books by Elizabeth Moon (the Deed of Paksenarrion and Legacy of Gird sets) and absolutely loved them. I really, really wanted to like this book. She creates excellent characters as always, and a very compelling world - TOO compelling for me! I felt utterly trapped by the protagonist's point of view. I tried several times to finish this book, but it was so excruciating that I just could not go on.
Rating:
Summary: I give it two thumbs up!
Review: I just finished reading this book. WOW! I didn't realize when reading the dust jacket that the story happens some time in the future. Very thought-provoking topic. My eyes have been opened wider than usual, and my mind has definitely been challenged. I've got some serious thinking to do! The book was well written and the story was easy to understand; however, I did become emotionally overwhelmed at times while reading it and needed to take occasional breaks because of this. Well worth reading. I give it two thumbs up!
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