Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz

1 review

schnaucl's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

This wasn't really what I was expecting.  For some reason I was expecting a book about climate change (which is on me).   Instead, this was a story about terraforming (...hence the title), colonialism, gentrification, class solidarity and the ravages of capitalism.  

The most horrifying part to me was the constraints the corporations put on creatures with a low intelligence assessment except what a low rating really meant was that their brains were designed so that they physically couldn't verbalize other than what they were allowed.  In the case of a mount, the limitation was polysyllabic words, in the case of a cook, it was anything not related to her job.  They can still understand other words and concepts, but they couldn't verbalize them.   It's discovered in the first book what the limitation does, and that it can be at least partially reversed and then it just...isn't?  I get that it was possible because the mount was injured and in the course of treating him they were able to mitigate the limitation.  But there's no real discussion about whether it might be possible to use the same technology even in the absence of a severe wound.   The people with the artificial limiters can and do find ways around the limitation but it's exhausting.


I did like the concept of the minority getting one concession from the majority that the minority gets to specify when a vote is taken, although I feel like that only really works if there's agreement on why the minority is voting against the majority.   And if everyone is operating in good faith, of course.  
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