Survival by Julie E Czerneda
Series: Species Imperative
Publisher: DAW, 2005
Genre: Science fiction
Sub-genre: Alien encounters
Rating: 3 1/2 pints of blood
I have to give kudos to the cover artist for making the alien match the description in the book. It's refreshing to see something that actually looks the way it's supposed to. The Dhryn are described in great detail, and it looks like someone was paying attention.
I'm not really sure what the girl's doing with her chest thrust so far out in the air, though. I'd say she's trying to force us to stare at her chest, but she doesn't seem overly burdened there. Maybe she smells something strange. Judging by the look on her face, it's not the most pleasant thing she's ever smelled. Either that, or she took Joey Tribbiani's acting classes and is trying to look thoughtful.
Dr Mackenzie Connor, or "Mac" as she prefers to be called, is a biologist, her research specializing in salmon and the necessity for diversity to continue the species. Working with her best friend, the fun-loving Dr Emily Mamani, Mac has settled in an isolated area where she's free to study her beloved fish. Without warning, their studies are interrupted by an alien visitor and his human entourage, ruining any chance Mac and Emily might have had to collect untampered data.
Mac has never had any interest in affairs outside her own little realm, in spite of her status as one of the few researchers at the facility who has never been offworld or interacted with aliens. This time, she doesn't have a choice; Brymn has come specifically in search of her. Big, blue, and very enthusiastic, he has come to her for help, believing her area of expertise will be useful in his search for an explanation behind the obliterated worlds that are known as the Chasm. She's told the work is urgent, and potentially a matter of survival for both species, but the importance doesn't really sink in until the research facility is attacked and Emily kidnapped.
Having barely survived the attack herself, Mac is brought to the Dhryn world for safety, Brymn and his people being the only ones with effective protection from the Ro, the mysterious and invisible aliens who kidnapped Emily. Now Mac, who previously was more than content to never even think about anything occuring outside her friends, family, and salmon, is the only human ever having set foot on the planet of Dhryn. Because of the threat the Ro present, Mac can't even have outside contact from the human world. All she can do now is learn as much as possible about the Dhryn, the Ro, and their histories in hopes of stumbling across the secret of the Chasm so they can stop the human and Dhryn worlds from being obliterated in the same way. In the process, she may start finding out the truths behind the things she previously thought she knew.
Sorry if I lost anyone there, it's kind of a complex plotline going on there. Czerneda has quite the story here to tell, full of twists and feints and possibilities. The plot is one of those "can't wait to find out what happens next" types, and on its own is enough to ensure I'm itching to get my fingers on the other two books in the trilogy.
The characters are as involving as the story itself, and I found myself really caring about what happened to each of them by the time they got swallowed in the events surrounding them. Brymn was especially well drawn, balancing his completely alien reasoning with enough "humanity" (so to speak) to make him sympathetic.
It's clear Czerneda put a lot of work into her aliens, and every detail is there. No, I mean it. Every detail. There were times I lost track of the story because of the great detail of the Dhryn race or world. These were the sections I found the book easy to set down or skimming over, because they were often really long. We're not talking Tolkien levels of over-descriptiveness, but it was enough to discourage me, and as a result, this book took me a lot longer to finish than it should have, especially because I really liked the story and the characters. Granted, this is the first book in a trilogy, and a certain amount of worldbuilding is to be expected if the story is going to last more than a few hundred pages. I have high hopes that the second and third books will skip over some of the lengthy descriptions that Survival suffered from, since we've been through them already.
I really loved the way the book ended, I have to say. It was fully satisfying and it may not have been the way I wanted things to go, but it was the only way the story could have ended. There aren't many things I enjoy more than a book that can elicit an emotional response from me as it ends, and this definitely counts as one of those.
Publisher: DAW, 2005
Genre: Science fiction
Sub-genre: Alien encounters
Rating: 3 1/2 pints of blood
I have to give kudos to the cover artist for making the alien match the description in the book. It's refreshing to see something that actually looks the way it's supposed to. The Dhryn are described in great detail, and it looks like someone was paying attention.
I'm not really sure what the girl's doing with her chest thrust so far out in the air, though. I'd say she's trying to force us to stare at her chest, but she doesn't seem overly burdened there. Maybe she smells something strange. Judging by the look on her face, it's not the most pleasant thing she's ever smelled. Either that, or she took Joey Tribbiani's acting classes and is trying to look thoughtful.
Dr Mackenzie Connor, or "Mac" as she prefers to be called, is a biologist, her research specializing in salmon and the necessity for diversity to continue the species. Working with her best friend, the fun-loving Dr Emily Mamani, Mac has settled in an isolated area where she's free to study her beloved fish. Without warning, their studies are interrupted by an alien visitor and his human entourage, ruining any chance Mac and Emily might have had to collect untampered data.
Mac has never had any interest in affairs outside her own little realm, in spite of her status as one of the few researchers at the facility who has never been offworld or interacted with aliens. This time, she doesn't have a choice; Brymn has come specifically in search of her. Big, blue, and very enthusiastic, he has come to her for help, believing her area of expertise will be useful in his search for an explanation behind the obliterated worlds that are known as the Chasm. She's told the work is urgent, and potentially a matter of survival for both species, but the importance doesn't really sink in until the research facility is attacked and Emily kidnapped.
Having barely survived the attack herself, Mac is brought to the Dhryn world for safety, Brymn and his people being the only ones with effective protection from the Ro, the mysterious and invisible aliens who kidnapped Emily. Now Mac, who previously was more than content to never even think about anything occuring outside her friends, family, and salmon, is the only human ever having set foot on the planet of Dhryn. Because of the threat the Ro present, Mac can't even have outside contact from the human world. All she can do now is learn as much as possible about the Dhryn, the Ro, and their histories in hopes of stumbling across the secret of the Chasm so they can stop the human and Dhryn worlds from being obliterated in the same way. In the process, she may start finding out the truths behind the things she previously thought she knew.
Sorry if I lost anyone there, it's kind of a complex plotline going on there. Czerneda has quite the story here to tell, full of twists and feints and possibilities. The plot is one of those "can't wait to find out what happens next" types, and on its own is enough to ensure I'm itching to get my fingers on the other two books in the trilogy.
The characters are as involving as the story itself, and I found myself really caring about what happened to each of them by the time they got swallowed in the events surrounding them. Brymn was especially well drawn, balancing his completely alien reasoning with enough "humanity" (so to speak) to make him sympathetic.
It's clear Czerneda put a lot of work into her aliens, and every detail is there. No, I mean it. Every detail. There were times I lost track of the story because of the great detail of the Dhryn race or world. These were the sections I found the book easy to set down or skimming over, because they were often really long. We're not talking Tolkien levels of over-descriptiveness, but it was enough to discourage me, and as a result, this book took me a lot longer to finish than it should have, especially because I really liked the story and the characters. Granted, this is the first book in a trilogy, and a certain amount of worldbuilding is to be expected if the story is going to last more than a few hundred pages. I have high hopes that the second and third books will skip over some of the lengthy descriptions that Survival suffered from, since we've been through them already.
I really loved the way the book ended, I have to say. It was fully satisfying and it may not have been the way I wanted things to go, but it was the only way the story could have ended. There aren't many things I enjoy more than a book that can elicit an emotional response from me as it ends, and this definitely counts as one of those.