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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
mysterious
Very weird (affectionate) little book that reads surprisingly modern in its style and subject. It has a very interesting female MC (something still lacking in scifi) and I really enjoyed all the ways bisexuality and transgenderism were portrayed. When I heard this series featured casual/normalized sex changes I didn't know what to expect, but ended up really enjoying the role it played and the different ways it was explored. Surprisingly forward and weird, in a good way. Though none of the characters are explicitly stated as trans its easy to see how trans people can seamlessly exist in this world and do very cool and morally ambiguous things with their epic bodies.
Very cool read, definitely interested in reading more in the series.
Very cool read, definitely interested in reading more in the series.
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It's not your Father's intergalactic space war. The Invaders are beyond your understanding; they came to save the dolphins. Humans were forced off Earth centuries ago and are frittering away the years with cosmetic genetic changes that have no survival utility. There are three of "you" wandering around, making some of the same mistakes but also getting it right occasionally. There's a mysterious data feed that suddenly starts broadcasting a "past due" notice. The species will have to make real changes to avoid extinction.
This is a short novel by John Varley, who in the late 1970s was considered by some ‘the next Heinlein’. While I don’t think that he is, but this doesn’t mean he isn’t a good and strong SF author, for he definitely is.
The novel is set in the Eight Worlds universe. The following text will spoiler a bit but no more than the book’s page here on Goodreads. The Mankind lost the Earth to singularity-level (?) invaders. There was no real war, for there was nothing the humanity could have done. Now it lives across the Solar system (the remnants of extra-terran colonies), thus the title. The humanity was helped a great deal by info streaming from the direction of Ophiuchi 70, the star 17 light years from the Solar system. The reason why this info was supplied has never occurred to the mankind, which grabbed this free lunch while it can.
Some five centuries passed after the invasion. A renegade gene-engineer is sentenced to death, but it saved by Luna’s politician, who commits the high crime of cloning her mind and body without destroying the original. The engineer, called Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso is then used to promote Free Earth (a group that plans to re-capture the Earth), without much enthusiasm. She is more interested in running away. There will be clones, asteroids, aliens, black holes and adventures in abundance.
There are a lot of allusions (intentional or not) to many classic SF, like invasive holo-ads (see [b:Podkayne of Mars|50839|Podkayne of Mars|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388228048s/50839.jpg|2534895]), or 4D representation of human (see [b:Slaughterhouse-Five|4981|Slaughterhouse-Five|Kurt Vonnegut|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440319389s/4981.jpg|1683562]).
A very interesting author, recommended.
The novel is set in the Eight Worlds universe. The following text will spoiler a bit but no more than the book’s page here on Goodreads. The Mankind lost the Earth to singularity-level (?) invaders. There was no real war, for there was nothing the humanity could have done. Now it lives across the Solar system (the remnants of extra-terran colonies), thus the title. The humanity was helped a great deal by info streaming from the direction of Ophiuchi 70, the star 17 light years from the Solar system. The reason why this info was supplied has never occurred to the mankind, which grabbed this free lunch while it can.
Some five centuries passed after the invasion. A renegade gene-engineer is sentenced to death, but it saved by Luna’s politician, who commits the high crime of cloning her mind and body without destroying the original. The engineer, called Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso is then used to promote Free Earth (a group that plans to re-capture the Earth), without much enthusiasm. She is more interested in running away. There will be clones, asteroids, aliens, black holes and adventures in abundance.
There are a lot of allusions (intentional or not) to many classic SF, like invasive holo-ads (see [b:Podkayne of Mars|50839|Podkayne of Mars|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388228048s/50839.jpg|2534895]), or 4D representation of human (see [b:Slaughterhouse-Five|4981|Slaughterhouse-Five|Kurt Vonnegut|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440319389s/4981.jpg|1683562]).
A very interesting author, recommended.
We're reading this book for our SFF book club this month. Not entirely sure how I missed John Varley all these years, but here we are.
The earth was invaded 500 or so years ago by incomprehensible aliens who were determined to save earth for the true intelligent species, the whales and dolphins. They weren't exactly out to rid the earth of people, just to make it safe for the REAL intelligences of the planet. Billions of people on earth died as they ripped up all the human-made stuff on the planet though.
The human race managed to survive, first on Luna (the moon) and later on all the other planets. (For purposes of this book, Pluto is still a planet.) This is thanks, in part, to information gained from the "Ophiuchi Hotline", a data stream that seems to come from the direction of Ophiuchi. OR DOES IT?????
If you've ever wanted a book with more clones than you could shake a stick at, this is your book. Memory recording happens frequently. An adult clone can be grown in months. There SHOULD only be one edition of every person currently alive at one time, but that assumes that everyone plays by the rules.
Not everyone does.
Gotta hand it to Varley for making sex (the act) and sex (as in gender) no big deal in this future. Tired of being a woman and want to be a guy for a while? Body modification is quick and easy! There's lots of high technology and no worries about shortages, even on tiny moons. Tiny black holes generate all the power you need.
There were bits toward the end that reminded me a bit of the first book of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis (aka Lilith's Brood) series, Dawn. Also bits recalled Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life (and its movie adaptation, Arrival).
It was a pretty wild ride. Once I got into what was going on, I just rolled with it and figured it was a post-scarcity society, even on Pluto. Big ideas, lots of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.
It took me a few chapters to get used to the Audible narrator. But she did well, with just enough differences among the voices of the different characters to help keep them straight.
(Don't judge, but sometimes I like to eye-read a book while I'm listening to the audiobook. Sometimes I get weary of having to look up how character names are spelled, and eye-reading along with audio fills in those gaps for me.)
The earth was invaded 500 or so years ago by incomprehensible aliens who were determined to save earth for the true intelligent species, the whales and dolphins. They weren't exactly out to rid the earth of people, just to make it safe for the REAL intelligences of the planet. Billions of people on earth died as they ripped up all the human-made stuff on the planet though.
The human race managed to survive, first on Luna (the moon) and later on all the other planets. (For purposes of this book, Pluto is still a planet.) This is thanks, in part, to information gained from the "Ophiuchi Hotline", a data stream that seems to come from the direction of Ophiuchi. OR DOES IT?????
If you've ever wanted a book with more clones than you could shake a stick at, this is your book. Memory recording happens frequently. An adult clone can be grown in months. There SHOULD only be one edition of every person currently alive at one time, but that assumes that everyone plays by the rules.
Not everyone does.
Gotta hand it to Varley for making sex (the act) and sex (as in gender) no big deal in this future. Tired of being a woman and want to be a guy for a while? Body modification is quick and easy! There's lots of high technology and no worries about shortages, even on tiny moons. Tiny black holes generate all the power you need.
There were bits toward the end that reminded me a bit of the first book of Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis (aka Lilith's Brood) series, Dawn. Also bits recalled Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life (and its movie adaptation, Arrival).
It was a pretty wild ride. Once I got into what was going on, I just rolled with it and figured it was a post-scarcity society, even on Pluto. Big ideas, lots of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.
It took me a few chapters to get used to the Audible narrator. But she did well, with just enough differences among the voices of the different characters to help keep them straight.
(Don't judge, but sometimes I like to eye-read a book while I'm listening to the audiobook. Sometimes I get weary of having to look up how character names are spelled, and eye-reading along with audio fills in those gaps for me.)
This book starts out *wonderfully*, and I love the premise of the book. Generations ago, humanity was cast out of Earth by Invaders who are so much smarter and more powerful, they actually operate on a completely different plain. A tinkerer of genetic structures gets caught, condemned to death, and rescued by various factions of humanity. It follows her story, although along the way she gets killed and cloned a half dozen times. A cool look at identity, and I definitely loved the world Varley created.
You can really feel the age of this book in the way it describes technology, genders, fashion. Also in how the story was written. Felt very much like an old twilight zone episode where in the last 5-10% every plot point is wrapped up, leaving you wanting more.
They don't make them like they used to - only 240 pages and I will need a re-read to be sure I know what was going on! Varley & Zelazny are always good for that! The current doorstop books are not half as wonderfully obtuse and take 5x the page count to get halfway there LOL! But the writing was superb, and even though it was (intentionally) disorienting, there was enough real information to keep you coming back to find out what happened next (even if you weren't quite sure which Lilo it was happening to...).