Lovelock (The Mayflower Trilogy, Book 1)

Rating:
Summary: A fairly good space opera
Review: I clicked through some of the earlier reviews. First, let me list the cons:

There's a whole lot of unnecessary and poorly implemented 'social drama'. It's mostly in just one family, but practically everyone there has some kind of problem that they're just too obstinate to talk about, much less fix. As in real life, most of the problems rose from just 'hushing it up' and 'not making a scene' until it got to be so much they did something regrettable.

Another con is that there's a few things you'll just have to 'take for granted'. One: that they allow gossiping morons onto the ark which will represent mankind in space (totally acceptable since the essence of the book is that the 'social' atmosphere must be kept in a community), and two, that the main character just automatically has good skill with computers. Slightly explained, but not really.

Also, even though the main character is mute, yet supposedly literate, the entire tone of the book (written in first person), is drastically better than the few times he does write to the characters. I think he communicates about five sentences (at most) and sounds "like a monkey that can type" each time, instead of the satyrical and amusing comments throughout the book. This is explained because he's hiding his 'awareness' I suppose, but it's still a little jarring once you notice it.

There are good things to this book, which is why I rate it five stars. First of all, if you look closely, you'll see how Lovelock learns to commit the sins that at the beginning of the book, he despised humans for committing. He does the kind of soul-searching and meaning-searching I did when I was a kid. It's very easy to identify with this primate, to the point where you wouldn't mind throwing a little monkey dung at something that annoys you.

Anyhoo, if it was going to revolve around Lovelock, I'd like it, but it seems to revolve more around the social drama at times. And the social drama is kind of overdone, it's hard to see how any group of people could get so twisted (quite unlike the fairly good social drama in Xenophobia).

But anyway, if you somehow wound up on this page, then you're interested enough in this book that I think you'll enjoy it. It's short enough that you should slip through it in a couple nights.

Rating:
Summary: Hello... Where are the other two books.
Review: I enjoyed this story, it had some uncomfortable monents but I still enjoyed it. I have been waiting for the rest of the "Mayflower Trilogy" for all the years since. Whats up with that?

Rating:
Summary: Is Lovelock actually Bean in a monkey suit?
Review: I was grabbed by this book's opening sentence: Lovelock says something like, "This is the story of how I stopped being in love with my mistress and came to commit murder," although worded better than that.

Now, this opening reminded me of the first sentence of "To Kill a Mockingbird," where Scout says (to paraphrase crudely again): "My brother was thirteen the summer he broke his arm." The story takes off from there and covers so much ground that by the time it gets to the climax, the reader has forgotten that Scout's brother's arm is going to get broken.

I expected similar plotting in "Lovelock" and kept waiting for the actual story to start, but it never did. Lovelock just describes a sequence of events in which he becomes more and more disillusioned with his mistress and his own slavery. The only suspense was waiting to see who gets murdered. There weren't really any other side plots or even a bigger overall plot. There isn't anything that makes me want to read the next book in the trilogy except mild curiosity.

Because of that I find this book to be poorly conceived and amateurly plotted, something surprising from a master of the genre. But Card even says in his introduction that he and Kidd lost interest in the story while writing it, and generally played computer games the whole time.

That said, "Lovelock" is still worth reading for anyone interested in Orson Scott Card or sci-fi in general. The concept of a super-intelligent monkey as the narrator is original. The writing is easy to read. The story is intriguing and thought-provoking, if light and one-dimensional. I do have some problems with the main ideas driving the story, however.

Unlike some other reviewers, I don't have a problem with the monkey's quest for sex/masturbation. But wouldn't it have been easier to neuter the monkey rather than condition him against it? Also, is a super-intelligent animal really the best way to record someone's life? And I don't think people would really treat their "witnesses" like slaves. I would love it if my cat were super-smart (not that she isn't already). I would make sure she had as much freedom as she wanted.

But worst of all, the concept of the Ark is dreadful! (Not the hard science behind it, the people in it I mean). Nobody would let these idle, gossipy, obnoxious busy-bodies colonize a new world. I have a problem with the rule that only heterosexual breeding couples were allowed, which Card and Kidd mention but don't discuss. I've never understood the point of spreading human populations to the stars just to breed more humans. Why not try to make a stable, diverse, non-oppressive society? And if only breeding couples are allowed, why were those horrid grandparents allowed?

I'm kind of sick of Card's dysfunctional families. Everybody in "Lovelock" is having an affair and not even going through with it very well. This book convinced me that there is something seriously wrong with small Protestant towns and probably with religiously-organized communities in general. I couldn't relate to any of the characters.

To conclude, I'm surprised that so many reviewers actually liked this book. I recommend reading it just to see what it's all about, but I can't believe anyone thought it was a good or well-conceived story. Even the authors didn't like it enough to finish the trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: A capuchin is a person
Review: Let's say you were an Enhanced Capuchin. You had all of the intelligence of a human, more, but all of the emotional and psychological properties of a capuchin. You have been conditioned not to do the unseemly things capuchins do. But never fear, you can conquer this and, as a culmination of your growth, successfully masturbate. This book is no more than a tool to put dirty ideas in the mind of readers, from a unique standpoint, a monkey. This book has no value, it is essentially a story of a monkey who wants to be sexually free, with himself and everyone else, even going to the effort of growing a wife for himself. Welcome to the twisted mind of Orson Scott Card, I can only say that I am happy OSC has mellowed his writing in his old age, and am glad that he has redeeming books such as the Ender's saga. Sorry OSC, I like to think of you as the inspiration for my writing efforts, but some of your books are nothing to be proud of.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular
Review: Orson Scott Card and Kathryn Kidd did a wonderful job of life from the view of a monkey named Lovelock. Though Lovelock is truly the 'hero' of the story, the human characters are a necessity. Lovelock seems to be the... person... we all want to be. Everybody thinks what Lovelock thinks, and how he feels. This is a very good book, I suggest and OSC fan reads it. I can't await the sequel. I've read the other critiques, and I noticed that not many (if any) people gave credit to Kathrynn Kidd. Remember, Card didn't do it himself, and if he did I believe the book would have been very different.

Rating:
Summary: Servant, Slave, or Man?
Review: Robert Heinlein's "Jerry Was a Man" and David Brin's Uplift series have approached this problem before: when does an 'enhanced' animal become human? And if he's human, does he have a soul? What moral imperatives apply to such a being? How should such a being be treated? With this book, we get a deep and different look into this as we follow Lovelock, a genetically enhanced and psychologically conditioned monkey as he performs his tasks as a 'witness', a being specifically engineered to record every waking moment and action of a person deemed so significant that their lives are worthy of such attention.

The object of Lovelock's attention is Carol Jeanne Cocciolone, premier gaiologist, who has decided to travel on the Ark to the nearest stars in search of a habitable planet. By his conditioning, Carol Jeanne is Lovelock's love, his obsession, his paragon of virtue, a person he will do anything to protect. Along with Carol Jeanne comes her husband and his parents and her own two children, though none of them truly have any of the skills that are needed by the Ark, as a perk to entice Carol Jeanne to come. Seeing these people through Lovelock's eyes is a quick eye opener: the mother-in-law as a status hungry moocher and lay-about and the father-in-law and husband as wimps who meekly go along with just about anything the mother-in-law wants. Not the best group of people to try and integrate into a society that is supposed to be full of some of the best and brightest Earth has to offer - but as quickly becomes obvious, quite a few of the other travelers on the Ark are just as bad in their own ways.

It is partially this quite dysfunctional setup that begins to set Lovelock off on his own journey of self-discovery, finding that he is not just a mute 'witness', but has thoughts and desires of his own - desires that eventually allow him to defeat some of the conditioning imposed on him, to remove Carol Jeanne from the pedestal she was placed on by his conditioning, and to take prohibited action to try and implement some of those desires.

Lovelock continues to grow as person throughout this book, slowly wrapping the reader inside his problems. And his problems are those that all humans face, questions of morality: should I keep silent or tell a white lie to avoid harming someone? Do my own desires outweigh the good of the community? Why must I obey those strictures imposed by my surrounding society? Can I commit murder to save myself? At the end, there is only one possible conclusion: Lovelock is as human as you or I, and should be awarded both the rights and responsibilities of that condition.

Characters other than Lovelock are also well drawn, though some of them are almost caricatures, but each is definitely an individual worthy of some attention. Less well imagined is the Ark itself. I had quite a problem with a design that required that functioning ecologies be totally ripped upped and moved, right down to the dirt, whenever the ship changed from spin-induced gravity to an acceleration induced one - this is poor design, and there are other possible constructions that would obviate this need. The computer system of the ship as described is also less than what it could be - even given the state of the art when this book was written, I cannot imagine any system that would still leave back-door passages into the administrative privileges. Finally, the idea that the Ark would be planned with multiple communities of 'like-minded' individuals doesn't seem very plausible to me.

But all of these problems are comparatively minor. This is a very good study of an individual growing to be a man, in all senses of the word, and is worthy of reading by everyone, from libertarians to xenophobes.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the Ender books, but good nonetheless.
Review: Start with the idea of slavery.
Add the concept of using genetic engineering to make the enslaved like it.
Now you have this book.
The main character, Lovelock, is a genetically engineered monkey who is fully sentient, smarter than many humans, but treated as another dumb monkey and conditioned to be subserviant.
By the middle of book, Lovelock is beggining to break through his conditioning. However, he is generally out of control and can't tell wheather what he thinks about his master Carol Jean is programed and what are his own feelings. He is generally out of controll.
One point I'd like to make about this book is Card is not afraid to make a less than perfect character. If anyone thinks Lovelock is supposed to be perfect, let me point out that Lovelock describes Mormons as fanatics and calls sermon in general "group therapy thought up by cows." Card is Mormon.
Very good, the existance of the Ender series prevents me from giving it 5 stars, but still definately worth it.

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining story from and unusual point of view
Review: The collaborative effort by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn Kiddproduced a fun and imaginative book. Written from the unusual pointof view as a story in the fist person of one of the characters. Card's style of character development and is quite evident. Although some of the characters remind me a bit too much like characters in an earlier novel. The humor of Lovelock's point of view is obviously created by Kathryn Kidd. I feel that this is a strong collaborative effort and the framwork is picked up by other authors.

Rating:
Summary: Great! Where is the sequel?!!
Review: The story of a genetically enhanced capuchin monkey hoping to escape from his human owners is absolutely mesmerizing. I highly recommend it, especially for Ender fans. Now, where the heck is the sequel? Isn't this supposed to be the first part of a three part series?!

Rating:
Summary: A fairly good space opera
Review: The story reads well and remains interesting all the way to the end. There are no real cliff hangers although there is a little mystery about who is going to get murdered before the end of the novel. The story is told in diary form accounts written after most of the action in the story has occurred. The monkey talks about a murder that he has committed. There are a lot of dysfunctional people in the story at times any of them seems to be a good candidate for being murdered. It is actually these strongly annoying characters that made the story for me, they are well portrayed by the authors.

The technology part of the story doesn't always quite hold together especially if you know even a little bit about computer science. And the tech. is dated a little as well since the story was published way back in 1994.