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songwind's review
4.0
I have never read a book by Czerneda before, but now that I have finished this one, I am looking forward to the next.
I picked this book up on a whim one trip to B&N when my wife offered to buy me a book. I am glad I did. It was a really enthralling read, full of interesting characters and imaginative alien worlds and people.
I rated this book a 4, but it's actually a bit more complicated than that, so I think I will break it down.
Characterization: 4 - The main characters are well fleshed out, and likable and dislikable as the story warrants. However, some of the secondary characters were not as well realized, even when they played important parts.
World Building: 5 - The Trade Pact and the Clan both felt like real entities, and you could see that a lot of decision had been made and were waiting beneath the surface, supporting the story.
Plot - 3. Most of the book is a solid 4, but there are a few choices that just weren't up to par with the rest of it.
I picked this book up on a whim one trip to B&N when my wife offered to buy me a book. I am glad I did. It was a really enthralling read, full of interesting characters and imaginative alien worlds and people.
I rated this book a 4, but it's actually a bit more complicated than that, so I think I will break it down.
Characterization: 4 - The main characters are well fleshed out, and likable and dislikable as the story warrants. However, some of the secondary characters were not as well realized, even when they played important parts.
World Building: 5 - The Trade Pact and the Clan both felt like real entities, and you could see that a lot of decision had been made and were waiting beneath the surface, supporting the story.
Plot - 3. Most of the book is a solid 4, but there are a few choices that just weren't up to par with the rest of it.
heliopteryx's review
4.0
An unusual mix of scientific ideas used very well in a science fiction setting, and a somewhat boring, generic setting outside of these ideas.
I very much enjoyed this book once I reached the point where the reader gets some exposition about the Clan, but I found it a little hard to get into.
I read the 10th anniversary edition, where the author explains how she got the idea for this book. In this book, we have an alien species with a highly desirable trait with brutal tradeoffs. It's the thing their entire culture and lifestyle revolves around, and they've been using eugenics on themselves to exaggerate this trait. The trait is The author wanted to pose the question that, if a sapient species recognized it was driving itself to extinction for the sake of this incredibly valuable trait, would they stop? And who would be the most affected?
The answer is, the main character. She is the one most affected by this process. At the start of the book she has amnesia, but as the story progresses, she and the reader learn more and more about what's going on.
I very much enjoyed this book once I reached the point where the reader gets some exposition about the Clan, but I found it a little hard to get into.
I read the 10th anniversary edition, where the author explains how she got the idea for this book. In this book, we have an alien species with a highly desirable trait with brutal tradeoffs. It's the thing their entire culture and lifestyle revolves around, and they've been using eugenics on themselves to exaggerate this trait. The trait is
Spoiler
the ability to use interdimensional space magic.The answer is, the main character. She is the one most affected by this process. At the start of the book she has amnesia, but as the story progresses, she and the reader learn more and more about what's going on.
joshuadavid1986's review
2.0
EXACT RATING: 1.75 stars
I gave this book more than a fair chance. The cover makes it look like a sci-fi/fantasy/romance novel you’d buy at the airport, but I’ve read books like that before and enjoyed them.
There are a lot of things I disliked about this book, but first I’ll start with a few aspects that I did appreciate.
First, the first half of the story features what I’d consider pretty decent world-building. A universe featuring space pirates and an inter-species trade pact and a single species outside that governance with unique telepathic abilities. That’s a solid foundation.
Second, the first few chapters provide an intriguing setup. An assassination attempt, a stranded amnesiac with unusual powers. A handsome ship’s captain.
And third, I believe the author is at certain points attempting some kind of commentary on virginity as a social construct. It’s very unclear as to what exactly she’s trying to say, but the whole idea about “Choosers” and the “Unchosen” and these elaborate mating rituals…it could have gone somewhere interesting. But it never did.
Czerneda’s writing style was really bland. It reminded me of the worst parts of JK Rowling. Corny dialogue, vague descriptions, even poorly constructed sentences. One of the main characters is named “Jason Morgan”, and he is described as having “regular, tanned features.” Truthfully, I don’t think she ever described anything about Morgan besides saying “piercing blue eyes” 100 times. Even the characters you spend the most time with are extremely two-dimensional. The majority of the book is written from Sira’s perspective, but she has absolutely no agency. She is just swept along by forces outside her control. And the plot! I can deal with poorly-formed prose and even sub-par characterizations if the plot is engaging, but “Thousand Words for Stranger” spends way too much time with the characters hiding and talking or running away and talking or resting and talking.
I also HATED how every character had to finish every sentence by saying a descriptive word about the character they were talking to. It was constant!
“What are you doing here, Human?”
“Nice try, Clansman.”
“You’ll never harm her again, betrayer!”
Also, she had so little faith in the reader that she’d spend pages discussing something that I’d known for the whole book. What?? That character isn’t a human? But what does this mean? Of course they aren’t. It’s been obvious since we first met them.
And the book does this awfully disorienting thing of switching randomly between “Chapters” told in the first person, and “Interludes” told in the third person. I don’t understand why she made this choice. The only purpose of the interludes seemed to give the reader insight as to how other characters were feeling about Sira.
And often the dialogue just didn’t make sense. I’d often go back and re-read conversations multiple times but they would turn out to be kind of gibberish. Here’s a real example of a conversation between 3 characters:
Rael: “I’m so glad you’re alright, Sira!”
Barac: “Is she?”
Sira: “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that question, Barac?”
Barac: “My apologies, Chooser.”
Rarl: “How dare you speak in such a way, Unchosen!”
Barac: “Am I struck dead by your outrage, Clanswoman?”
And trust me, the context doesn’t help.
There was also this huge, important element to the story that the author really struggled to describe effectively. Many of the characters had telepathic abilities, and they would “battle” each other and could also “attack” characters who didn’t have these abilities. But the author never found a way to describe these moments in any kind of interesting way, at all. She would just say, “they struggled intensely with each other and felt each other’s power,” or “suddenly the pirate dropped dead, a victim of a mental attack.”
There were also a couple of shocking moments that were passed over by the author very quickly. I’ll describe only the worst one, with a r*pe trigger warning. So the book has an element of romance, although I personally was never able to buy into it. When this relationship is in its early stages, there are elements of telepathy and mind-sharing that are really confusing. Both to the characters and to the reader. At one point, the characters end up in the bedroom together, and I started to expect a love/sex scene of sorts, but instead the male character grabs the female character and she says “before the protest could leave my lips, his hand pressed into my forehead.” When she wakes up she says, “What did you do to me?” And he says “What I vowed I’d never do to anyone, but I had to, my trusting friend. And the real joke of it is that I found I wasn’t the first to rip my way through your mind without asking. Oh no, and that person did a much more thorough rape than I.”
And she feels very hurt and betrayed for a page or two, but then it’s never mentioned again and we’re supposed to root for their relationship which was at least partially “commenced” in this way.
Actually one of my favorite parts of the book was this section of 3-4 pages where the author tells you about the origins of this gigantic supermarket in space. About the woman who started it and all the difficulties she endured. And I kind of wish that’s the story she had chosen to tell.
I gave this book more than a fair chance. The cover makes it look like a sci-fi/fantasy/romance novel you’d buy at the airport, but I’ve read books like that before and enjoyed them.
There are a lot of things I disliked about this book, but first I’ll start with a few aspects that I did appreciate.
First, the first half of the story features what I’d consider pretty decent world-building. A universe featuring space pirates and an inter-species trade pact and a single species outside that governance with unique telepathic abilities. That’s a solid foundation.
Second, the first few chapters provide an intriguing setup. An assassination attempt, a stranded amnesiac with unusual powers. A handsome ship’s captain.
And third, I believe the author is at certain points attempting some kind of commentary on virginity as a social construct. It’s very unclear as to what exactly she’s trying to say, but the whole idea about “Choosers” and the “Unchosen” and these elaborate mating rituals…it could have gone somewhere interesting. But it never did.
Czerneda’s writing style was really bland. It reminded me of the worst parts of JK Rowling. Corny dialogue, vague descriptions, even poorly constructed sentences. One of the main characters is named “Jason Morgan”, and he is described as having “regular, tanned features.” Truthfully, I don’t think she ever described anything about Morgan besides saying “piercing blue eyes” 100 times. Even the characters you spend the most time with are extremely two-dimensional. The majority of the book is written from Sira’s perspective, but she has absolutely no agency. She is just swept along by forces outside her control. And the plot! I can deal with poorly-formed prose and even sub-par characterizations if the plot is engaging, but “Thousand Words for Stranger” spends way too much time with the characters hiding and talking or running away and talking or resting and talking.
I also HATED how every character had to finish every sentence by saying a descriptive word about the character they were talking to. It was constant!
“What are you doing here, Human?”
“Nice try, Clansman.”
“You’ll never harm her again, betrayer!”
Also, she had so little faith in the reader that she’d spend pages discussing something that I’d known for the whole book. What?? That character isn’t a human? But what does this mean? Of course they aren’t. It’s been obvious since we first met them.
And the book does this awfully disorienting thing of switching randomly between “Chapters” told in the first person, and “Interludes” told in the third person. I don’t understand why she made this choice. The only purpose of the interludes seemed to give the reader insight as to how other characters were feeling about Sira.
And often the dialogue just didn’t make sense. I’d often go back and re-read conversations multiple times but they would turn out to be kind of gibberish. Here’s a real example of a conversation between 3 characters:
Rael: “I’m so glad you’re alright, Sira!”
Barac: “Is she?”
Sira: “Shouldn’t I be the one asking that question, Barac?”
Barac: “My apologies, Chooser.”
Rarl: “How dare you speak in such a way, Unchosen!”
Barac: “Am I struck dead by your outrage, Clanswoman?”
And trust me, the context doesn’t help.
There was also this huge, important element to the story that the author really struggled to describe effectively. Many of the characters had telepathic abilities, and they would “battle” each other and could also “attack” characters who didn’t have these abilities. But the author never found a way to describe these moments in any kind of interesting way, at all. She would just say, “they struggled intensely with each other and felt each other’s power,” or “suddenly the pirate dropped dead, a victim of a mental attack.”
There were also a couple of shocking moments that were passed over by the author very quickly. I’ll describe only the worst one, with a r*pe trigger warning. So the book has an element of romance, although I personally was never able to buy into it. When this relationship is in its early stages, there are elements of telepathy and mind-sharing that are really confusing. Both to the characters and to the reader. At one point, the characters end up in the bedroom together, and I started to expect a love/sex scene of sorts, but instead the male character grabs the female character and she says “before the protest could leave my lips, his hand pressed into my forehead.” When she wakes up she says, “What did you do to me?” And he says “What I vowed I’d never do to anyone, but I had to, my trusting friend. And the real joke of it is that I found I wasn’t the first to rip my way through your mind without asking. Oh no, and that person did a much more thorough rape than I.”
And she feels very hurt and betrayed for a page or two, but then it’s never mentioned again and we’re supposed to root for their relationship which was at least partially “commenced” in this way.
Actually one of my favorite parts of the book was this section of 3-4 pages where the author tells you about the origins of this gigantic supermarket in space. About the woman who started it and all the difficulties she endured. And I kind of wish that’s the story she had chosen to tell.
mjfmjfmjf's review
2.0
I'm pretty sure I've read other books by this author. And I liked them. So I hunted down this, the first book. And it was pretty disappointing. The ideas were okay and the powers. And there were hints of interesting aliens. But in general the pace was plodding. And I just didn't care about the characters. I wanted to care. But I never learned enough of who the good guys were for that to happen. If this had been the first book I had read, I probably wouldn't have read the second.
vaughtgn's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
stuhlsem's review
3.0
Very typical Sci-Fi. Lots of different races of aliens, some tension between different peoples, some people have telepathy, there's a super-pretty alien girl who all the men need to save.
ajlewis2's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
A strange romance with mystery and mental powers. The clashing of cultures was especially interesting and grabbed me. Excellent writing and descriptions and a plot that made me stretch to understand.
colls's review
4.0
A solid scifi tale with aliens, telepathy and spaceships. At times the damsel-in-distress weighs it down a bit, but it's mostly balanced by how calm she was in the face of everything happening.
I'd read this years ago (like 10+ years ago I think?) and remembered little about it other than I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it enough to pick up the next in the series at some point. I thought I could use a refresher before I picked it back up again.
I'd read this years ago (like 10+ years ago I think?) and remembered little about it other than I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it enough to pick up the next in the series at some point. I thought I could use a refresher before I picked it back up again.
tina_moreau's review
5.0
Fantastic! What an Amazing 1st novel. I couldn't put it down... no really. I read it in a single day.
bowienerd_82's review
3.0
Continuing my winter break quest of re-reading some of the books I loved as a teenager, A Thousand Words for Stranger fared decently well. I didn't find it anywhere near as entrancing as I did 20 odd years ago, but unlike some of the books on this quest, it didn't age badly. There are a few hints here and there that make it clear that this was written in the '90s (like all the references to tapes), but nothing cringe-worthy. This is still a pretty solid debut sci-fi novel, with some good universe-building and some interesting elements.
Re-reading it now, I feel like the characters and plot could have been fleshed out a bit more, and the ending could have been a bit less abrupt (even though there are sequels), but on the whole, pretty decent. Not sure if I'll get around to re-reading the sequels, let alone some of the books that have been published in the meantime, but I'm glad to find that this stood the test of time pretty well.
Re-reading it now, I feel like the characters and plot could have been fleshed out a bit more, and the ending could have been a bit less abrupt (even though there are sequels), but on the whole, pretty decent. Not sure if I'll get around to re-reading the sequels, let alone some of the books that have been published in the meantime, but I'm glad to find that this stood the test of time pretty well.