Rating: 
Summary: Survival (Species Imperiative, 1)
Review: I must agree with the other reader reviews: this book has a VERY slow start. I had to re-read the first few pages several times before it "clicked", and the beginning chapters were somewhat difficult to get through.
Fortunately, the story picked up later on and left me fairly interested the next volume of the series. Unfortunately, I won't be devastated if I don't get the opportunity to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor Mac!
Review: All Mackenzie Connor wants is to be left alone to research her salmon without any more interruptions from stubborn beaurocrats or overzealous grad students. So when an alien archeologist arrives and asks her to help him save life as we know it, Mac is understandably put-out.
Julie Czerneda has outdone herself. SURVIVAL has all the Czerneda staples -- her biologist background permeates everything from the hectic environment of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility to the incredible depth and detail of the alien biology. It's got the same sort of endearing characters that made her other books so enjoyable. But oh, it has so much more. If TRADE PACT and WEB SHIFTERS are the literary equivalent of a tasty chocolate snack, SURVIVAL is a triple chocolate fudge layer cake. With frosting. And sprinkles. It's deeper, heavier, richer than anything she's done before. And when you finish, it hits you like a punch in the gut.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty but pointless
Review: I found this one to be the equivalent of a literary painting. Pretty, but in the end pointless. The world building is great, the characters seem real but in the end I still don't know what the book was supposed to be about.
Rating:
Summary: Science Fiction for Scientists
Review: I used to read a lot of science fiction. I picked up new copies of the various pulp sci-fi magazines and a correspondent sent me his old copies. I especially liked GALAXY, FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION and later ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION, but I occasionally read ANALOG as well. I also read the novels by numerous sci-fi authors, including Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Norton and a host of others. I don't read much of that genre these days because of time and the fact that while there was always a lot of schlock out there (as there is in any book type) it seems like many sci-fi books these days are take offs on movies or TV shows (I have a possibly snobbish dislike for such made up books).
However, after reading Julie E. Czerneda's "Survival: Species Imperative #1" I may be hooked again. Here is a sci.-fi. book actually written by someone trained in biology. Yes, I know that the space travel involved probably does not have much of a scientific base (Isaac Asimov once said that one needed such devices just to make plots work), but the depth of the work keeps the reader turning pages. While I have my doubts that we will ever (or at least in my lifetime) find aliens like the Dhryn or the Ro, they are fabulous constructs by someone who at least has a handle on how weird living things (even on this planet) can be.
The book centers on one human- Mackenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright Conner (Mac to her friends) and one alien- the Dhryn Brymn. Mac is a biologist who studies salmon on the Pacific Coast; Brymn is an alien archeologist from a species that mostly has little use for science. Add a "spy" named Nikolai Piotr Trojanowski, a Quechua biologist named Emily Mamani Sarmiento, worlds along a inter-stellar transport line being stripped of every living thing, and of course the seemingly ever present and possibly malevolent Ro, who are invisible and thus not easily understood, and you have a fascinating experiment in imagination- the "what if" that hooked me on science fiction in the beginning.
The ending, which is far from obvious until almost the last 20 pages or so (although it starts to become somewhat plausible a bit earlier), leads us into both the light and the dark recesses of the mind- both of human and alien.
This is a very good read for those who like a bit of meat in their sci.-fi. I'm looking forward to other books by this author!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste my time...bring back the Clan!!
Review: I was so looking forward to reading Czerneda's first book of her new trilogy, but when it arrived it took me over a week just to get past the first few chapters.....I just could not get interested in the plot or protagonist.The story is good compared to other sci-fi/fantasies but I would rate it only so-so when compared to Czerneda's previous Trade Pact and Web Shifter trilogies. The only positive thing was that I reread the Trade Pact trilogies shortly thereafter. Czerneda, if you read this, please give us more Clan stories!! I love the comedy and foibles of Huido and the Drapsk, the immediacy of the first person voice of Sira and the wonderful +/- relationship Sira has with all her friends, family and enemies. Write a book about Barac or Rael and their partners or even resucitate Symon and give the poor guy a story. At the end of the Trade Pact trilogy, To Trade the Stars, Czerneda added a bunch of Clan genealogy which purpose, I wrongly assumed, was to give me the hope that there would be more books. 'Survival' puts me in mind of Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls books. They are OK, but stacked against a lively Vorkosigian novel there is no contest...give me a Miles story any day. My best advice..wait for the paperback. It's not worth the hardback price.
Rating:
Summary: action-packed creative space opera
Review: In the far distant future, humanity is reclaiming Earth by encouraging colonization and having manufacturing done in pods above the planet. Earth has joined the Interspecies Union and trades with other sentient races, which is how they learned to use the Transect to get from one point in space to another in an instant. Though space is filled with life, the Chasm sector contains planets devoid of any kind of life and nobody knows how this happened. When Brymn, a seven foot seven armed blue alien comes to Earth he is the first one of his species to do so because his race prefers to stay close to their native orb. He informs the government of Earth that a hostile alien race is heading into earth space. The Ro and their ships are invisible due to stealth technology but they have come to kill. Brymn and earth officials persuade Norcoast Salmon Research Facility Administrator Dr. Mac Connor that she is the only hope of human survival by landing on the world of Dhryn but even there she is not safe because the Dhryn have secrets of their own that must be kept. The Earth authorities encouraged Mac to go to the Dhryn home world to see if they are involved in any conspiracy against Earth. The determined and stubborn heroine doesn't let anyone think for her and goes on the mission for her own reasons. Julie E. Czerneda has written a brilliant world building, action-packed creative space opera that will become imperative for fans to read knowing that this first installment is the beginning of a delightful new series. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: NOT up to the Webshifter standard
Review: It's odd when all the best clues to a mystery are unnoticed by the protagonist even AFTER it's solved. A biologist who samples biota should recognize the same behaviour in others, and she should easily recognize the dangers of an intelligent species that grows too fast and recklessly destroys the environment. Mac's job is the study and protection of salmon populations, for pity's sake.
Czerneda's writing is generally very adept, so it may be an editor's fault that italicized passages intended to be a character's thoughts are not treated like dialogue, as they should be. For instance, Maybe she was learning to deal with repeated shocks should have been Maybe I'm learning to deal with repeated shocks! -- or else it shouldn't have been italicized at all. I may be the only one annoyed by this, but I was VERY annoyed.
I give the Webshifter books 10 stars (out of 5), the Trade Pact series 4 and a half, and this book? Barely 3.
Rating:
Summary: Hard science fiction and exceptional characterization
Review: Julie Czerneda's Survival is a rare blend of hard science fiction and exceptional characterization. Biologist author Julie Czerneda creates unusually believable aliens in her stores, and this first novel in a projected series 'Species Imperative' is no exception, building entire races and moving scenarios as it tells of an Earth scientist caught in interspecies struggles.
Rating:
Summary: MAGNIFICENT - Czerneda's best work yet!
Review: Strange disapearances and a swath of space devoid of life are the farthest things from Dr. Mackenzie Connor's thoughts when her latest Salmon research project is rudely interupted by a desperate Dhryn - an alien never before seen on Earth - and a man who may or may not believe she holds the key to the survival and security of the human race. When a sudden attack forces her to flee from her cozy, comfortable world, Mac begins an odyssey that unfolds with a rare and powerful intensity - where betrayal, friendship, and survival all become intertwined.
At it's core, Species Imperative: Survival is about change. Not only cataclysmic change on a species level, but also the more subtle character changes that occur when Mac's thoughts and beliefs are challenged - when her world is turned upside down and she is forced to look beyond her own secluded corner of the universe.
Survival is VERY different from anything Julie Czerneda has written to date, and yet she takes the FINEST aspects of her Trade Pact and Web Shifters novels and uses them to introduce a story that is more fluid, more complex, and more closer to home than any of her previous works. This book shows a level of ability unparalleled - with engaging characters, deep-rooted mystery, and a premise so intrinsic it touches off the strongest emotions in a reader.
Mac is a character you can understand, feel for, and be moved by...and the story's near future setting makes it all the more realistic and at times even frightening. While the story is serious, there are moments that will cause you to burst out laughing, and others that will make your stomach quiver with creepiness. Czerneda blends these emotions into such a powerful story that the end while stunning, brings with it an intense desire to see more...
Mark the Calendars folks, only 8 months and 12 days until Migration comes out...If it's anything like this, it will be well worth the wait.
Hugo Anyone?
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not amazing
Review: Survival is about a salmon researcher thrown into the middle of an intergalatic mystery that could lead to the end of our species. This book has some ups and some downs, but in the end, fell short of anything more than 3 stars. The plusses were great character development and (for the most part) an intriguing plot. The primary downside was writing that was in many places confusing due to an inability to attend to detail. Another downside was the sheer number of events that simply defied logic and were given no explanation as to why they happened. I personally think this book was undercooked, perhaps 100 or so pages short of a 4 star effort.
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