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yourbookishbff's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
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!
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!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Colonisation, Death, Classism, and Police brutality
Moderate: Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, and Animal death
Minor: Sexual content
greystory's review
DNF 47% - I would rate what I read so far 4 stars, for what it's worth, but the overall feeling of being misled or bamboozled by the book as a whole would have ultimately dropped any rating to 3 max.
Sooo when I borrowed this book from my library, the blurb for it only mentions Destry's story and that it spans thousands of years. Nowhere is Misha or another major character mentioned like the Goodreads blurb so I was completely unprepared for the sudden time jump and announcement that the vast majority of all characters I'd come to know and was invested in were now dead.
Had I known that - had I seen the blurb here where it mentions a second story about Misha, I would have looked into it more. I would have tried to determine if these are two stories told at the same time or what, and discovered that they're told chronologically. Had I done all that, I would have decided to not read this book.
I feel like I'm starting a second book after the first book had only a mildly satisfying but too short ending. I get that the overall story for this book is meant to be about the planet and the very, very long-term repercussions of ecological decisions but I can't bring myself to give a shit. I'm not invested in the planet. The planet is a backdrop, an interesting place to build your story but not strong enough to be The Story itself. Even in the universe Newitz created, the planet Sask-E could have easily been replaced with any other planet in the system and the story would have felt the same.
It was the people, the characters, making the story special and that's what you spent half the book getting me invested in. I don't want to start over with a second story about new characters, and judging from the goodreads blurb mentioning a future child, I don't even trust that I wouldn't have this second set of characters ripped from me as well to have a third character story going at the end. No thank you.
ETA: I skimmed a lot of other reviews after I decided not to continue and I agree that the good vs bad distinction was pretty black and white, that the ecoconservatism was very heavy handed (although it didn't bother me as much), and a lot of stuff was cool in terms of world-building but storywise not necessarily nuanced.
Sooo when I borrowed this book from my library, the blurb for it only mentions Destry's story and that it spans thousands of years. Nowhere is Misha or another major character mentioned like the Goodreads blurb so I was completely unprepared for the sudden time jump and announcement that the vast majority of all characters I'd come to know and was invested in were now dead.
Had I known that - had I seen the blurb here where it mentions a second story about Misha, I would have looked into it more. I would have tried to determine if these are two stories told at the same time or what, and discovered that they're told chronologically. Had I done all that, I would have decided to not read this book.
I feel like I'm starting a second book after the first book had only a mildly satisfying but too short ending. I get that the overall story for this book is meant to be about the planet and the very, very long-term repercussions of ecological decisions but I can't bring myself to give a shit. I'm not invested in the planet. The planet is a backdrop, an interesting place to build your story but not strong enough to be The Story itself. Even in the universe Newitz created, the planet Sask-E could have easily been replaced with any other planet in the system and the story would have felt the same.
It was the people, the characters, making the story special and that's what you spent half the book getting me invested in. I don't want to start over with a second story about new characters, and judging from the goodreads blurb mentioning a future child, I don't even trust that I wouldn't have this second set of characters ripped from me as well to have a third character story going at the end. No thank you.
ETA: I skimmed a lot of other reviews after I decided not to continue and I agree that the good vs bad distinction was pretty black and white, that the ecoconservatism was very heavy handed (although it didn't bother me as much), and a lot of stuff was cool in terms of world-building but storywise not necessarily nuanced.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, War, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and Animal death
schnaucl's review
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Death, War, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Colonisation, and Gun violence
Moderate: Blood, Murder, Death of parent, and Animal death
alsoapples's review
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Slavery, Trafficking, War, Ableism, and Colonisation
Moderate: Death of parent and Murder
laurareads87's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.25
The Terraformers is a story told in three parts, set years apart with only the slightest overlap in characters. The plot is set on Sask-E, a planet being terraformed to resemble a Pleistocene era Earth; it begins with the Environmental Rescue Team, whose members are working on the terraforming project. The second section follows a character trained by the protagonist of section one who is on a team strategizing for the development of inter-city transportation. The final section follows one of the sentient flying trains developed by this team as they and their allies work in hopes of creating a Sask-E for everyone rather than just for wealthy H sapiens.
What I liked: I quite liked the incorporation of multiple POVs using jumps in time period, and the incorporation of items like reports and transmissions into the text. I liked the exploration of speciesism & the world-building in which animals of all types are, in at least some contexts, meaningfully conceived of as persons. I like SFF that contrasts societies with dramatically different worldviews and that look at political decision-making as a process, and felt like this was handled well.
What I didn't love: I feel like there was very little ethical ambiguity in the characters, and that many (most) of the characters read as rather immature despite their lengthy lifespans. The antagonists at times felt like cartoon villains. Of the three, I found the middle section dragged on a bit and was less compelling than the other two.
Content warnings: violence, murder, animal death, human death, slavery, classism, war
What I liked: I quite liked the incorporation of multiple POVs using jumps in time period, and the incorporation of items like reports and transmissions into the text. I liked the exploration of speciesism & the world-building in which animals of all types are, in at least some contexts, meaningfully conceived of as persons. I like SFF that contrasts societies with dramatically different worldviews and that look at political decision-making as a process, and felt like this was handled well.
What I didn't love: I feel like there was very little ethical ambiguity in the characters, and that many (most) of the characters read as rather immature despite their lengthy lifespans. The antagonists at times felt like cartoon villains. Of the three, I found the middle section dragged on a bit and was less compelling than the other two.
Content warnings: violence, murder, animal death, human death, slavery, classism, war
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Slavery, Classism, War, Violence, Murder, and Animal death
tigger89's review
adventurous
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
I loved the grand scope of this book. Despite taking place over roughly 1,600 years, Newitz's choice to focus on three distinct, pivotal moments prevented the timeline from muddling together the way many long epics tend to. Each section of the book brought its own cast of characters — with a few crossovers — that still managed to feel loosely connected to each other through mentorship and family. In addition, the evolving maps(who saw that third one coming?) and subtly different narrative styles brought a different flavor to each of the three parts. If the idea of getting to know three different sets of characters in one novel seems daunting, perhaps think of it as reading three closely-connected novellas.
For the most part, I also found the characters to be a major strength. They do have a distinctly Becky Chambers vibe to them, though with variations on human and animal genomes rather than alien physiologies. This book has homo sapiens, neanderthal throwbacks, designer human genomes, robotic drones, sentient infrastructure, intelligent animals, collective beings, and many flavors of mechanical enhancement to biological bodies. The explorations of personhood were particularly intriguing, if horrifying when pushed to their inevitable conclusion under capitalism.
And yes, this is an extremely anti-capitalist book. In fact, if I'm going to point to anything as its flaw, it's probably related to that. Specifically, the two primary villains, the faces of the evil corporations, felt very one-dimensional to me. I'm someone who appreciates a nuanced villain. I see where Newitz did try to add some layers to the two of them, a cycle of revenge spanning hundreds of years, but ultimately it felt like their primary motivation to be evil was because they're part of a corporation, and didn't you know corporations are evil profit-suckers? I especially felt that the primary villain of the last section escalated from like 25% evil to 125% evil out of nowhere. I suppose it could have been a result of the 900-year time skip between sections two and three, in the sense that having so much time to stew might drive anyone to extremes. But there were other long-lived characters who didn't fall off the deep end while we weren't watching, so if that was Newitz's idea there(and I'm speculating, really), I think they needed to explore that contrast a little more in order to do those ladies justice.
This book has a number of LGBTQ(and probably some other letters that don't exist yet) characters, for those who are interested. Minor themes of chosen family might also be relevant to many readers. There are a few sexy scenes, skimmable if that's not your vibe. Nothing massively plot-relevant happens in them, just character development and curious physiology(I'm never going to look at a flower the same way again, there's knowing flowers are sexy and then there's knowing). All in all, I'd recommend the read. As I said before, parts of it feel cozy, but there's also a violence and sense of revolution to it that contrasts very nicely with the cozier parts. It also ends on a note that's undeniably hopeful, yet not saccharine.
For the most part, I also found the characters to be a major strength. They do have a distinctly Becky Chambers vibe to them, though with variations on human and animal genomes rather than alien physiologies. This book has homo sapiens, neanderthal throwbacks, designer human genomes, robotic drones, sentient infrastructure, intelligent animals, collective beings, and many flavors of mechanical enhancement to biological bodies. The explorations of personhood were particularly intriguing, if horrifying when pushed to their inevitable conclusion under capitalism.
And yes, this is an extremely anti-capitalist book. In fact, if I'm going to point to anything as its flaw, it's probably related to that. Specifically, the two primary villains, the faces of the evil corporations, felt very one-dimensional to me. I'm someone who appreciates a nuanced villain. I see where Newitz did try to add some layers to the two of them, a cycle of revenge spanning hundreds of years, but ultimately it felt like their primary motivation to be evil was because they're part of a corporation, and didn't you know corporations are evil profit-suckers? I especially felt that the primary villain of the last section escalated from like 25% evil to 125% evil out of nowhere. I suppose it could have been a result of the 900-year time skip between sections two and three, in the sense that having so much time to stew might drive anyone to extremes. But there were other long-lived characters who didn't fall off the deep end while we weren't watching, so if that was Newitz's idea there(and I'm speculating, really), I think they needed to explore that contrast a little more in order to do those ladies justice.
This book has a number of LGBTQ(and probably some other letters that don't exist yet) characters, for those who are interested. Minor themes of chosen family might also be relevant to many readers. There are a few sexy scenes, skimmable if that's not your vibe. Nothing massively plot-relevant happens in them, just character development and curious physiology(I'm never going to look at a flower the same way again, there's knowing flowers are sexy and then there's knowing). All in all, I'd recommend the read. As I said before, parts of it feel cozy, but there's also a violence and sense of revolution to it that contrasts very nicely with the cozier parts. It also ends on a note that's undeniably hopeful, yet not saccharine.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, War, and Murder
There's recurring themes of species-ism(non-human species being discriminated against) as well as intelligence-based discrimination. It's not quite racism and not quite ableism, respectively, but it's in the same ballpark.rorikae's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
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? Yes
5.0
'The Terraformers' by Annalee Newitz is a novel in three parts that follows three connected characters living on the planet of Sask-E and dealing with issues of terraforming, governance, and autonomy.
The first part follows Destry, a member of the Environmental Rescue Team on Sask-E, who stumbles upon a secret city and learns about a civilization that defies what she believed about the planet. Part two follows Sulfur, an engineer who is part of a survey team hoping to discover what type of transportation would work best to connect cities on Sask-E. Finally, part three follows Scrubjay, a sentient train who is caught up in growing unrest over housing in one of Sask-E's largest cities and how it creates new possible futures for the planet.
Newitz creates a fascinating set of characters that work incredibly well to pull the dispersed story together. With three distinct parts, it would be easy for each to feel disconnected from the others but Newitz does an excellent job of making one cohesive story that just so happens to be broken out across three different perspectives and timelines. Part of why this is so successful is the sense of place. So much of this story is centered on the planet itself and Newitz creates Sask-E into its own character. We spend so much time learning about the planet and how it has been influenced by different people that it's hard to not get attached. Add to that a great cast of characters who are complex but easy to care for and it's easy to be absorbed into this narrative.
Newitz touches on a lot of important topics in 'Terraformers' including bodily autonomy, democracy, colonization, and what it means to be a 'person.' They put forward a lot to think about when it comes to what a potential future could look like, especially with the increase in use of AI.
All in all an excellent blend of great characters, evocative worldbuilding, and thoughtful conversations about systemic issues.
The first part follows Destry, a member of the Environmental Rescue Team on Sask-E, who stumbles upon a secret city and learns about a civilization that defies what she believed about the planet. Part two follows Sulfur, an engineer who is part of a survey team hoping to discover what type of transportation would work best to connect cities on Sask-E. Finally, part three follows Scrubjay, a sentient train who is caught up in growing unrest over housing in one of Sask-E's largest cities and how it creates new possible futures for the planet.
Newitz creates a fascinating set of characters that work incredibly well to pull the dispersed story together. With three distinct parts, it would be easy for each to feel disconnected from the others but Newitz does an excellent job of making one cohesive story that just so happens to be broken out across three different perspectives and timelines. Part of why this is so successful is the sense of place. So much of this story is centered on the planet itself and Newitz creates Sask-E into its own character. We spend so much time learning about the planet and how it has been influenced by different people that it's hard to not get attached. Add to that a great cast of characters who are complex but easy to care for and it's easy to be absorbed into this narrative.
Newitz touches on a lot of important topics in 'Terraformers' including bodily autonomy, democracy, colonization, and what it means to be a 'person.' They put forward a lot to think about when it comes to what a potential future could look like, especially with the increase in use of AI.
All in all an excellent blend of great characters, evocative worldbuilding, and thoughtful conversations about systemic issues.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism, Colonisation, Murder, Violence, Toxic relationship, and Slavery
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