Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Terraformers

Futuristic sci-fi meets multi-generational family-ish saga meets climate crisis, with a three-part plot tracing three different generations of terraforming Environmental Rescue Team (ERT) engineers as they fight their planet's corporate owner and its greedy colonizing violence. A few key things that worked really well for me:

1) The structure. Short, fast-paced chapters within a clearly defined three-part story. This seems trivial, but I honestly felt like this accessible structure made it easy to follow the characters and the action and kept the plot moving. In each of the three parts we have a core cast (with connections between each generation) and an evolving picture of Sask-E, and because each generation has its own corporate obstacles, there is always a clear (and unique) central conflict.

2) The world-building. For as many creatures and constructs of human-level intelligence as there are in this story, it's surprisingly easy to get acclimated. A world in which "The Great Bargain" has determined which creatures can participate as equals in self-governance means a world in which a moose or a cow or an earthworm may be your partner in the field. I loved our wacky cast of characters, and appreciated that the moments of levity are counterbalanced with moments of uncomfortable reflection. Ideas of defining personhood and measuring intelligence reminded me of Martha Wells' Murderbot universe, as did the futuristic corporate-colonizing space-race.

3) The audio! There are so many implied/described sound effects in the story that are brought to life in the audiobook - Crisp and Hellfire's doubled speech, our various bots' conversational sound effects, the train song in part three (perhaps my favorite part of the entire story!). This narration elevated the reading experience for me (and I say this as a reader who generally has not enjoyed Graphic Audio productions that include sound effects).

I wouldn't consider this a sci-fi entry point for newer readers to the genre, but it is a thought-provoking and unique read for sci-fi fans!

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wlewis98's review

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

The premise is fascinating. The setting earns it two stars by itself. The author also plays with gender in a far-future setting in ways that help deconstruct contemporary gender/sexual mores. As an abstract story premise or piece of queer analysis it might be good, but as an actual story it falls far short of its potential. The sex scenes are gratuitious and regularly involve animals (albeit intelligent ones), the prose is awkward, and the plot contains disorienting time jumps, preventing characters from sticking around long enough to develop well.

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karlawaddles's review

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adventurous hopeful inspiring slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book was riveting. It was not what I expected but the story was engaging and the multiple points of view were cleverly done. The world building was clearly intently researched (most of the acknowledgments were thanking various experts in a variety of fields). Probably could have been 3 books with how much went on, but it was satisfying to see the storyline build on each other.

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mes0pelagic_fan's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I would have dnf-ed this less than three hours in if not for it being a book club pick, but if you can get past the writing (or audiobook style), then you're in for a meandering multi-century tour of a pretty cool planet though the eyes of some characters I found deeply unlikable and at times downright irritating.

the time and POV jumps threw me off, and the overall plot didn't do it for me. I did like the idea of corporate terraforming, and i think some of the themes explored like eco-tourism, urban planning, and other stuff associated with the worldbuilding were really neat, but the themes related to speciesism and 'what does it mean to be a person' really didn't land. the inter-homonid "racism" also really put me off, especially with regards to the relationship between sulphur and misha. by the time we got to their sentient train kid hooking up with a cat journalist I was so non-plussed I didn't even bat an eye.

I made some connections between this and Huxley's brave new world,

with the deliberate caste-ification of individuals by stunting intelligence to make a "better" society, as well as the eco-tourism idea of rich people being horrified/fascinated by 'natural/primitive' humans and landscapes

which inspired me to keep reading just to see what would happen, but it didn't really come to fruition the way I had hoped. overall a mildly interesting read-- but the best part was showing other people snatches of the wildly out-of-pocket sound effects from the audiobook.

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bedwinnjamin's review

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informative fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I just did not get this book. The author tried to tell like 8 stories in one whole book. I understand stories have different arcs and intertwining threads, but this book just had completely different motivations and plots all over the place, seemingly randomly and not connected. The characters are weak and, especially with time skips, essentially useless. And random sex scenes?! Also, the idea that everything can be a person by bio-engineering is interesting, but surprisingly clashes with the author's other messages. 'Oh this cow is a person, and in a milk farm, they have no agency!' Meanwhile, the characters literally

create a train creature/person, and build it for one purpose and talk about how it will enjoy the job they made it for.

It just seems like the author had too many ideas, and too many layers of morality. I did not enjoy this book.

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alsoapples's review

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adventurous challenging hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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jodean's review

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Newitz has created both my dream world and my worst nightmare. A future of amazing bioengineering capabilities, of any creature being sentient (including public transit??). Also a capitalist hellscape future where most people are "slaved" to a corporation?
The writing style is the only thing I can't get past. It's not my thing. But the premises were interesting enough that I had to keep reading.

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shinypurplepants's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Vast in scope, this reminded me a bit of Gregory Maguire's <i>Wicked<\i> series with its arguments about what is good and what is a person.

The description does not do this book justice. This epic takes place on a planet across three "eras" where you get to see how earlier choices affect those that come next. There are dozens of named characters of various species with their own baggage and struggles. I would recommend this for readers that want a world to sink their teeth into.

There is a LOT of world-building that is glossed over in a "as you already know" manner that bothered me but I think would be satisfying to readers that prefer large scope narratives with lots of moving parts.

This was sold to me as a readalike to Becky Chambers and I would not agree with that.

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