Rating: 
Summary: Except For One Minor Point, A Wonderful Sci-Fi Adventure
Review: The Story: Jakob Faraday and his partner descend in a tethered bathysphere into the atmosphere of Jupiter, and discover intelligent life, despite decades of Mankind observing Jupiter without a hint of these creatures. The Qanska look like a cross between manta rays and dolphins and, despite handling the language barrier fairly easily, Man and Qanska are not understanding each other's culture two decades after first contact. Faraday approaches Matthew Raimey, a shallow but intelligent, determined but arrogant young man about to graduate from business school -- who has a skiing accident leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. The plan, if Raimey accepts, is to transplant his brain and an artificial spinal cord into a Qanskan embryo, creating a hybrid being who could act as a cultural bridge. But, is that all that Man is after? Is that all that the Qanska are after? Raimey renames himself "Manta" after becoming Qanskan, and the science-fiction mystery blends with a coming-of-age story to create quite an adventure.This is a fast-paced, well-written novel with three-dimensional characters, a moderately complex plot, and an intriguing alien culture swimming in Jupiter's atmosphere. This is a real page-turner! The only flaw I caught is that Mr. Zahn needed a technical consultant regarding quadriplegia. I am a quadriplegic, and there were a few errors in the description of Raimey's condition, post-injury and pre-Qanska, while he was paralyzed. However, that piece of the story is very small, and this flaw did not detract from the story for me. Most people will not even know that the description has inaccuracies.
Rating:
Summary: Serious SF in a readable novel of adventure.
Review: Timothy Zahn has an amazing ability of bringing readers' imagination a new gift with every book he writes. "Angelmass" (Tor, 2001) was one of my picks for the best in Science Fiction last year, and "Manta's Gift" certainly did not disappoint me. Set primarily in the atmosphere of Jupiter, there are some echoes of Robert K. Forward's "Saturn Rukh" but with science focusing more on the biological rather than physics. The fast paced storyline is part mystery, part adventure, and all science fiction--combined in a highly-accessible style. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Jupiter Sky Captain
Review: Timothy Zahn is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. He has a knack for developing characters and story without pausing the fast-paced action that usually occurs in his novels. And having said that, Manta's Gift is not exactly an action novel. This book is more about the "human condition"; what makes a man a man? Can a man be someone/something else?
The mind of paraplegic Matt Raimey is reborn into the body of an alien Qanska living in the skies of Jupiter in order to help humanity and the Qanska understand on another better. There are, of course, ulterior motives for both species, and that is one of the themes of the book. The other is Matt's ability/inability to cope with his new existence. Will he be a human in a Qanska body, will he become a Qanska, or will he become a tool for one species to use against the other?
This book was sort of a slow read due to the limited action, but I was never bored and needed to know what was going to happen next.
Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: Timothy Zahn won a Hugo Award for his novella "Cascade Point"--he has then felt it necessary to beguile us with over twenty more books and countless other stories in an effort, I presume, to dazzle our imaginations with his subtle prose and rapier wit. Courageously, he plunged forward into commercialism, putting down words on paper with no meaning or fire or imagination. His stories move at a brisk pace; indeed, I found myself moving at a brisker pace as I neared the end, flipping pages to see if his faceless characters would ever stop twittering amongst themselves in page after page of self-centered internal dialogue. Zahn's stories offer neither entertainment nor enlightenment, as strong fiction usually does. Zahn may provide a sugar-coated confection designed to pass the hours, but underneath that glittering coat that so appeals to his fans, one can find a tasteless, bland lump of nothing.
Rating:
Summary: Angelmass... in a different light. Really Good Job Zahn!
Review: Well at least that's how I see it. And that's my opinion of it in a very short form. Read my review about Angelmass to see why I think they're similar. But then again I don't see a problem with authors using similar concepts from their own books. Isn't that what you kind of half to do when you're pretty widely written? As well some people might find some similarities between them. Similarities between Icarus Hunt and Survivor's Quest were minute, mainly the mystery aboard a starship.
But anyway, this book was one of my favorites this summer. Of course I've rediscovered reading books. I first discovered reading books (outside of elementary school assignments) by reading Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (Zahn). Well I read every book until the New Jedi Order, then i picked up reading again with Survivor's Quest (Zahn). So I decided to read any Zahn book I came across and this one will always be a favorite.
Why? Becuase of what it does. A person is talked into going into a fairly unfamiliar situation and asked to survive and is given a purpose for doing so. Well this purpose isn't exactly the True reason and this person also eventually ends up having to save this new, unfamiliar place he's been thrust into. (Sounds like Angelmass so far). But this is no Academic Scientist being thrown into enemey territory as a spy to research Angels. This time a paralyzed young man, Raimey, is REBORN as an alien. I may not be widely read but that's a first for me. Then he therefore must live as one, becoming one of them, but at the same time he's essentially human, with many human emotions and ideals. This becomes one of the major conflicts in the book, dealingn with being Qanskan or Human or both at the same time.
Eventually, as one would expect, truths are told. But is it in time? There's a Adjutor type character here (Liadof of the Five Hundred) who puts "nation's cause" above all else and can really start to mess things up.
Zahn has done a wonderful job of bringing together his very complicated logic and "problem solving" into this book as people try to figure out what is actually going on, especially the character that has this "going on" going on him. It comes down to defining what is truly human, if that can actually be defined. But compared to the Qaskan, this is the difference between survival and death.
But this was my opinion...
Rating: 
Summary: Solid first-contact/coming-of-age/action-adventure story.
Review: ____________________________________________
This is a solid, straightforward first-contact/coming-of-age/action-adventure tale, set on Jupiter -- or, more accurately, within Jupiter's thick atmosphere, where the ray-shaped Quanska live. The Quanska (literally) ran into a human Jupiter probe, to the surprise and consternation of both races. Once communication is established, the Quanska offer a near-term fetus as a host-body for a human brain. Matt Raimey, a young quadriplegic, is recruited, and is duly reborn as a baby Quanska. "I love the central idea of Manta's Gift -- an ornery, shallow and callow human youth trades a hopeless existence as a quadriplegic for a chance to be reborn as an alien being with a (reasonably) human mind. The description of a birth from the point of view of the thing being born is... interesting. The depiction of what is a truly alien society -- in setup, in physiology, in mindset -- is well done, and is a fascinating thread to follow throughout the book. Everything is accounted for, in suitably alien ways..."
-- Alma Hromic, SF Site [google] Once the earthly Powers That Be twig that the Quanska aren't native to Jupiter, they want that alien stardrive -- now! Rather than trade for it, they send a goon to extort it. She opens 'negotiations' by kidnapping a bunch of Quanska children. Worse, the kids escape... In a fine twist, the Quanska themselves are desperate for human help with their big problem -- their introduced ecology is falling apart. And there's a catch to their 'stardrive', too. The crisp dialog and hardball power-politics remind me of prime-period Resnick (eg. SANTIAGO). On the downside, the Quanska Big Secret is, well, incredible. Fortunately, it's revealed late, and the book has other virtues. But it's sloppy and dumb [note 1, *SPOILERS*]. "As usual, he draws his characters simply-there is a distinct tendency to caricature-and often poses them rather stiffly on the stage. Yet Zahn is ingenious in his plotting and well versed in keeping things moving. Manta's Gift leaves the reader feeling very satisfied." --Tom Easton, Analog My favorite Zahn remains Spinneret (1985), and if you missed that one, you're in for a treat. MANTA isn't in that class, but it's an entertaining way to pass an evening. My grade: "B".
__________________
Note 1.) **SPOILER WARNING****SPOILER WARNING** The ecologic crisis turns out to be caused by, of all things, *dead bodies* piling up in Jupiter's lower atmosphere. The bodies block some of the healthful radiation from below, that turns out to be a requirement of the Quanska ecology. OK, fine, but the Quanska have only lived on Jupiter for 2000 years! Further, they are stated to be a small population -- a few million -- and long-lived, to boot. And this is *Jupiter*, fer chrissake, which is, umm, rather large... BOTE calculation:
100 yr lifespan = 20 generations in 2000 years. Even assuming a Quanska population of 100 million, this is just 2 billion corpses, which ain't gonna block much of that healthful Jupiter rads at all. Elapsed time to calculate this: about 2 minutes. This is the sort of scientific gaffe common in the pulps fifty years ago. It's embarrassing, and disheartening, to see this sort of thing now, from a reputable, well-educated author.
|
