Reclamation

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: A book I enjoyed quite a bit. The different societies I found interesting. The speculation on human genetic engineering was well done. The class differences seemed plausable, and the action was more than enough to keep a reader entertained. Worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: An absorbing read.
Review: After several years away from SF, I find myself returning to the "new" SF with a vengeance, thanks in no small part to amazon's personalized recommendations. I was sent to Ms. Zettel because I enjoy Octavia Butler. These two authors share an ability to create an utterly alien, but internally consistent, world. Ms. Butler is the more accomplished author, but Ms. Zettel gets points for doing so well with a first novel. I am willing to forgive her over-attention to detail because her created world is so fascinating. And if you've ever been a contractor, you'll laugh out loud at her "process oriented" villains.

Rating:
Summary: Worthless mass-produced junk
Review: Don't waste your time on this one, which is about as creative as whatever the latest sci fi shows on TV are--at best. Boring flat characters, a lame plot which is wrapped up so quickly it's almost perfunctory. Interesting bald black robed figures as bad guys, very remiscent, of, oh, just about half of all recent movies? Borg like? Like the guys in Dark City? Skip it!

Rating:
Summary: Worthless mass-produced junk
Review: Don't waste your time on this one, which is about as creative as whatever the latest sci fi shows on TV are--at best. Boring flat characters, a lame plot which is wrapped up so quickly it's almost perfunctory. Interesting bald black robed figures as bad guys, very remiscent, of, oh, just about half of all recent movies? Borg like? Like the guys in Dark City? Skip it!

Rating:
Summary: A tad too tedious.
Review: Having read the Foundation and Hyperion series, and enjoyed them tremendously, I was "recommended" Reclamation by my friends at Amazon. Reclamation isn't easy to follow. I constantly felt like I was reading the second or third novel of a series, missing a lot of the background.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best, but perhaps judged too harshly
Review: I agree with much of the drift of some of the other criticisms among these reviews, i.e., that the book is not overly original and that the characters are somewhat shallow. I feel the need, however, to respond to some of the "1 star" reviews and mediate their more intense dislike of this novel. I found the Rhudolant Vitae (the main villains of this book who are compared to the Borg in other reviews) to be very interesting villains; they are not simply black-robed automatons or some kind of hive-mind like the borg (nor are they aliens like those of Dark City). What I found interesting about the Vitae was that they were very human; this society, faced with the loss of their homeworld, became a very conservative and static entity centered around the religious/messianic goal of finding and reclaiming that homeworld. I find this interesting and all-too-human, considering that messianic religions consistently arise out of troubled political climates. I feel the need to point out also that the Vitae are not just a black-robed collective, but, indeed, their society is a complex interrelationship between various functionaries (which wear different colors) including engineers/scientists, administrators, diplomats, and a kind of historian/judicial class which records the activities of everyone else. One of the more interesting characters is one of the Vitae himself, and his machinations for the benefit of himself and his family in this strictly policed society also give it the necessary humanity to avoid falling into communist-paranoia SF cliches. This book is perhaps better rated a "3 star," but I'm giving it four to compensate for the several one's that I thought were unfair.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best, but perhaps judged too harshly
Review: I agree with much of the drift of some of the other criticisms among these reviews, i.e., that the book is not overly original and that the characters are somewhat shallow. I feel the need, however, to respond to some of the "1 star" reviews and mediate their more intense dislike of this novel. I found the Rhudolant Vitae (the main villains of this book who are compared to the Borg in other reviews) to be very interesting villains; they are not simply black-robed automatons or some kind of hive-mind like the borg (nor are they aliens like those of Dark City). What I found interesting about the Vitae was that they were very human; this society, faced with the loss of their homeworld, became a very conservative and static entity centered around the religious/messianic goal of finding and reclaiming that homeworld. I find this interesting and all-too-human, considering that messianic religions consistently arise out of troubled political climates. I feel the need to point out also that the Vitae are not just a black-robed collective, but, indeed, their society is a complex interrelationship between various functionaries (which wear different colors) including engineers/scientists, administrators, diplomats, and a kind of historian/judicial class which records the activities of everyone else. One of the more interesting characters is one of the Vitae himself, and his machinations for the benefit of himself and his family in this strictly policed society also give it the necessary humanity to avoid falling into communist-paranoia SF cliches. This book is perhaps better rated a "3 star," but I'm giving it four to compensate for the several one's that I thought were unfair.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding first science fiction novel
Review: I received this book in the mail at the end of last week, and it ran away with most of my 4th of July weekend. I barely got my laundry done! It is hard to believe that this is a first novel, but considering the fact that Zettel has, apparently, been writing since the fourth grade, I guess it's not really her first novel -- just her first published one. I'd love to read some of what didn't make the cut. It probably surpasses a good percent of what gets published as science fiction these days. The excellence of this book covered all the bases -- good writing, decent character development, complex and fully-realized cultures and universe, interesting and truly alien alien creatures [those Shessel! ;-) ], and interesting plot lines that gradually all distill down into one. On top of that, it has what I think I like most in science fiction: exploration of the relationship between myth/religious ritual and ancient scientific/historic truth. I'm looking forward to reading her next.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent first effort
Review: I thought this was actually a pretty gripping read but I'd have to agree with the 1-star people about some of its flaws. It took a while to get going (which I didn't mind because it was setting out background) but the ending was really abrupt, and I can only assume that the writer was setting up for a sequal. The basic story about people discovering that they've been genetically engineered for a specific purpose, is a really interesting one in terms of their reactions. I imagine that it would be something that took a bit of coming to terms with, but the authoress makes very little of what it might feel like to be the product of laboratory experiments. I would have liked to see deeper into the main characters' minds. There were also one or two characters who disappeared without having their stories properly wound up. I thought that the villains were great - they had no redeeming features whatsoever, completely evil infact. I got really in to hoping they'd come to a very nasty end. In fact, it was their extreme wickedness rather than the hero and heroine that made me want to see the Realm safe at the end. (Incidentally, Ivy obviously didn't understand what was going on; Arla left the Realm because she wanted to know what the outsiders were up to. She insisted on going back when Eric and she had discovered that the Realm was under threat). Personally, I love attention to detail, so I quite appreciated Miss Zettel's attempts at describing her galaxy (although I would have liked a bit more detail about the Realm and its workings). I'd really like to see a follow-up about the Realm coming to terms with its new knowledge, and its future interaction with other humans in the galaxy.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent first effort
Review: I thought this was actually a pretty gripping read but I'd have to agree with the 1-star people about some of its flaws. It took a while to get going (which I didn't mind because it was setting out background) but the ending was really abrupt, and I can only assume that the writer was setting up for a sequal. The basic story about people discovering that they've been genetically engineered for a specific purpose, is a really interesting one in terms of their reactions. I imagine that it would be something that took a bit of coming to terms with, but the authoress makes very little of what it might feel like to be the product of laboratory experiments. I would have liked to see deeper into the main characters' minds. There were also one or two characters who disappeared without having their stories properly wound up. I thought that the villains were great - they had no redeeming features whatsoever, completely evil infact. I got really in to hoping they'd come to a very nasty end. In fact, it was their extreme wickedness rather than the hero and heroine that made me want to see the Realm safe at the end. (Incidentally, Ivy obviously didn't understand what was going on; Arla left the Realm because she wanted to know what the outsiders were up to. She insisted on going back when Eric and she had discovered that the Realm was under threat). Personally, I love attention to detail, so I quite appreciated Miss Zettel's attempts at describing her galaxy (although I would have liked a bit more detail about the Realm and its workings). I'd really like to see a follow-up about the Realm coming to terms with its new knowledge, and its future interaction with other humans in the galaxy.