Hellspark

Rating:
Summary: Manners of Humanity
Review: HELLSPARK is a wonderful prism of shifting words and situations. As in many novels (such as the _Starbridge_ series) the plot is familiar: representatives of a myriad of cultures are brought as a survey team to document a newly discovered planet. A poorly matched team finds itself in the position of having to judge the sapience of another race. The premise of HELLSPARK is the mysterious death of an exploration team physicist during the survey of a new planet, and the need to determine what (or who?) caused his death.

Honestly, the plot is not the important part of the book. Where Ms. Kagan excells is bringing her audience into the world and into the perspective of the main character. We, as readers, are brought up short by our own cultural preconceptions and wrapped into the shifting sands of political politeness conflicting with truth both said and unsaid.

This book came to me by way of the authors Lee and Miller, and I must credit them with a good sense of what I would enjoy. I found the heart of HELLSPARK to be a complex portrait of cultural communication and the limits of going "by the book," which are strong enough topics to support multiple readings. When HELLSPARK arrived, I was too busy to read it and buried it under my mail. A thousand pardons are winging their way back to Ms. Kagan as I type. I *so* regret waiting to read it that I plan to promptly share it out.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent, original and "a keeper"
Review: Hellspark is an outstanding book. I particularly like the imagery and word-play. The description of alien cultures includes important elements usually missing in many novels - the cultural nuances of expression and body language. I find myself slowing my normal reading pace to savour paragraphs and even read some aloud (I would love an audio cassette version for long journeys in the car). Every one I have recommended this book to has loved it. Her other two novels are excellent also. My only wish is that Janet Kagan would publish more. Can anyone tell me if she has any short stories in collections?

Rating:
Summary: More! More!
Review: Hellspark is quite possibly my single favorite book - and I read an awful lot of books. All of Janet Kagan's books are wonderful, and my only gripe with her as an author is that she's only written three so far (Please Ma'am can I have some more?) Hellspark is a fascinating first contact book, with a crystal clear look at how our culture informs our assumptions, and the huge messes those assumptions can cause. Tocohl Susumo (our Hellspark protagonist) is wonderful as the only good cultural interpreter in a mass of surveyors from vastly different worlds, Maggy, her computer is a delightful mix of rapid thinking and small-child personality, and her aliens (the Sprookje) are truly alien without being unbelievable or trite. If you've already read this one, go on and try Mirabile and Uhura's Song, which are also wonderful reads.

Rating:
Summary: She's great along the lines of McCaffrey.
Review: I absolutly love her work. I've worn out 3 copies of this book. I wish she'd write another, I'm her #1 fan. She's as good as Anne McCaffrey any day.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent find, back in print
Review: I also own an SFBC copy of this book, and I'd given up recommending it to anyone because it was out of print. Now I can go back to exclaiming what an excellent book this is! Where most science fiction focuses on whiz-bang technology, and how it changes a society, the majority of aliens still conveniently speak English. Ms. Kagan's vision of the social and linguistic challenges an interstellar society faces seemed more vivid to me than the classic worlds of Azimov and Heinlein. I'll add my voice to those begging for another novel set in this universe. There's too much potential that's merely hinted at in this book.

Rating:
Summary: More? Please?
Review: I enjoyed this book so much that I have clung to a friend's copy for several years, selfishly declining to return it until I could find a copy for my very own. Now that it's been reprinted, I'll have to go get my own, and read that one to tatters. I like the worlds, like the people, this is good stuff. I'm hoping the reprint means a sequel is in the works??

Rating:
Summary: Terrific read; a well thought out culture/universe!
Review: I first read this book in the SFBC edition (in fact I got it because I forgot to send in my 'Don't Send' notice, thank god).

The characters were very real, and the premise that humanity would have start colonization, fall out of contact, and create unique cultures that would have problems dealing with each other was great. The question of what qualifies as a sentient/human is profound and well presented in this work.

And it's a gripping story. You have a scientific investigation to determine sentience, with murder mystery, and a fanatic group of exploitive colonists seeking to take the treasures of Flashfever for themselves at any cost.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to other works of the author (especially if they deal with Tocohl Susumo and Lord Lynn Margaret). If you liked Hellspark, then I definitely recommend you find a copy of Mirabile, a collection of stories about the human colonists on the planet Mirabile. These stories first appeared in print in magazines, I believe Analog. They are great.

Rating:
Summary: I really appreciate your intriguing conclusions!
Review: I loved both Hellspark and Uhura's Song. I hope that you will write another Star Trek book with Evan Wilson in it even though Pocket declined your outline for another book. I am hoping to be a writer like you someday. I am in the 8th grade.

Rating:
Summary: I've kept this book all these years; it is so wonderful!
Review: I put plastic covers on the cover and read it very carefully when I felt the urge for a "fix". I am delighted to find this is out in acid free paper and I am ecstatic to find Merlin Meisha,a publishing discovery for people who like to keep and reread books. Anyway, I enjoy the characters, the mystery and the descriptions, all believable, of so many different aliens. I wish JK had found it within her to continue on with these characters in another book.

Rating:
Summary: Neat idea, but laborious reading
Review: I seem to be in the minority here, but I was not blown away by this book.

I found the plot ok, but there were simply too many characters presented one after another in too few pages. It became laborious to keep track of them all. On top of that, I found the author's writing style to be awkard at times, forcing me to reread sections multiple times throughout the book in order to understand what the salient points were.