Hardcover debut for the author of a couple of well-received science fiction paperbacks (Fool’s War, etc.). On planet All-Cradle live the Dedelphi, homicidal humanoid aliens whose numerous clans have been warring for millennia. Humans, however, are toxic to Dedelphi and must wear environmental suits. All active Dedelphi are female, powerfully bonded mother to daughter, sister to sister—except that when they grow old, they turn male. Now their technology has reached the nuclear and biological danger level: half the population has died from a mutated plague, and the desperate clans have ceased hostilities so that Dr. Lynn Nussbaumer of Earth’s Bioverse corporation can help. In return, Bioverse will be permitted exclusive access to the planet’s unexploited biological resources. The natives will be evacuated to huge orbiting city-ships while Bioverse deals with the plague. But Lynn finds that only wise Praeis Shin of the t’Theria clan is willing to negotiate a genuine end to the violence. Lynn, meanwhile, has a personal problem: old college flame Arron Hagopian has been working closely with the Getesaph clan and publishes some inflammatory material about Bioverse’s true intentions, claiming that it will sooner destroy the planet than let the clans fight it out. Then Arron discovers the Getesaph are planning a surprise attack on the first city-ship. He tries to warn Lynn but the Getesaph grab them both, along with Praeis’s daughter Resaime, who, having been deliberately confined with Lynn and Arron, quickly dies. The Getesaph capture the ship, the t’Theria retaliate, and war explodes across the planet. Even if Lynn can escape, how can she stop the carnage? A taut, thoroughly captivating yarn, with splendid characters, a gratifyingly substantial sociobiological base, and one intractable problem: Armed with nukes and missiles, how did the Dedelphi avoid exterminating themselves long before humans showed up?
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52322-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
Watts (ßehemoth: Seppuku, 2005, etc.) carries several complications too many, but presents nonetheless a searching,...
Alien-contact tale in which humans are at least as weird as the aliens.
Eighty years from now, denizens of Earth become aware of an alien presence when the sky fills with bursts of light from dying Fireflies, tiny machines that signal to a supergiant planet far beyond the edge of the solar system. With orders to investigate, the vessel Theseus carries an artificial intelligence as its captain, along with expedition leader Jukka Sarasti, a brooding, sociopathic and downright scary vampire; Isaac Szpindel, a biologist so mechanized he can barely feel his own skin; the Gang of Four, a schizophrenic linguist; curiously passive warrior Major Amanda Bates; and observer-narrator Siri Keeton, a synthesist with half a brain (the remainder destroyed by a virus) enhanced by add-ons and advanced algorithms. They meet a huge alien vessel that calls itself Rorschach and talks eagerly but says nothing of consequence. Indeed, the Gang of Four suspects that the alien voice isn’t truly sentient at all. As Keeton begins to hallucinate, Sarasti orders a team to break into the alien vessel despite its lethal radiation levels. Still unable to decide whether the aliens are hostile, Sarasti devises a plan to capture one of the creatures that apparently thrive within Rorschach’s peculiar environment. They succeed in grabbing two specimens. These scramblers, dubbed Stretch and Clench, resemble huge, bony, multi-limbed starfish. They have no brains but show evidence of massive information-processing capability, which brings Theseus’ crew to the crucial question: Can intelligence exist without self-awareness?
Watts (ßehemoth: Seppuku, 2005, etc.) carries several complications too many, but presents nonetheless a searching, disconcerting, challenging, sometimes piercing inquisition.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-765-31218-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
Meanwhile, all those exploding planetoids make a good argument for more STEM funding. Wise, witty, utterly well-crafted...
No slim fables or nerdy novellas for Stephenson (Anathem, 2008, etc.): his visions are epic, and he requires whole worlds—and, in this case, solar systems—to accommodate them.
His latest opens with a literal bang as the moon explodes “without warning and for no apparent reason.” When the reason finally does become apparent, it’s cause to enlist steely-jawed action hero Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris, Ph.D., a scientist who makes fat bread as a TV science popularizer and sucker-up to the rich and powerful. Easy street gives way to a very rocky galactic road as Doob has to figure out why the heavens are suddenly hurling mountains of space debris at Earth in a time already fraught with human-caused difficulty. Ever the optimist, Doob puts it this way: “The good news is that the Earth is one day going to have a beautiful system of rings, just like Saturn. The bad news is that it’s going to be messy.” The solution? Get off the planet fast, set up space colonies, perpetuate the human race using turkey basters—well, a “DNA sequence stored on a thumb drive,” anyway—and multiple moms, whence the title. Stephenson takes his time doing so, layering on a perhaps not entirely necessary game of intrigue involving a sly-boots “dusky blonde” of a president. When the yarn moves into deep space thousands of years from now, however, it picks up both speed and depth, for while humans are more diverse than ever (“Each of the seven new races had embodied more than one Strain”), the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened, piles of gold and golden eyes and all. Stephenson does a fine job, à la H.G. Wells, of imaging a future in which troglodytes live just outside the titanium walls of civilization, and though the setup is an old one, he brings a fresh vision based on the latest science to the task.
Meanwhile, all those exploding planetoids make a good argument for more STEM funding. Wise, witty, utterly well-crafted science fiction.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-219037-6
Page Count: 1056
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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