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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
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:
No
adventurous
emotional
slow-paced
I loved so many things about this book: the setting, the ERT handbook snippets, the imagining of the universe’s future, the understanding of environment and our role in it. I just have been trying to “enjoy” it, or want to pick it up, and I can’t.
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is possibly one of the most staggeringly imaginative books I’ve ever read - never did I think a book could make me feel emotional about worm rights, moose falling in love, or the birth of a sentient train.
The Terraformers doesn’t give you a lot of information at the start to help flesh out this highly unusual world. I realized about ten pages in that I was going to have to decide whether I trusted the author to give me the information I needed when I needed it, which they did for the most part (but not always). The history of this universe is incredibly rich, and like all histories, full of decisions made by people that had both positive and negative consequences. It’s almost impossible to fully critique these decisions or comprehend the complexity of their outcomes, even when the book itself is a meditation on how those decisions happen and lead to more and more decisions.
Taking place over a thousand years and across multiple POVs, The Terraformers manages to be sweeping in scope while also adhering to an identifiable through line. The characters in each section, divided by centuries, have become heroes or villains in the next.
Newitz does a LOT with this book - possibly too much. One 300-something page book was probably not sufficient to dig into all the issues, topics, concerns, and metaphors for our own world that they may have actually wanted. As a result of the book being so short, we don’t really get a chance to dive into all the nuances of these very complex situations, and similarly we don’t get to know our main characters as much as we’d like. Their emotional journey as characters sometimes suffers as a result. The ever-present theme is that love always wins, and progress always wins. Violence is never the answer, and diversity and democracy always are. Some may come away from this book feeling that it was almost juvenile in these points, but I suspect these are readers who are accustomed to books about fighting for rights, independence, and autonomy to be significantly darker and more explosive. The truth is, as the book outlines in very specific detail, revolutions take a long, long time. In this case, it takes around 1600 years.
To be honest, I have these same criticisms. It’s easy to say this should have been a trilogy, or even a series, but I can’t tell you that I would have read the whole thing if it was. The balance of page space and telling the story they wanted to tell is clearly a tricky thing here.
But to be even more honest, I didn’t really care. The world building was so unique, the history so rich, the science so fascinating, that I was compelled as much by what I’d learn about this world next as I was by the actual plot.
There is one major criticism I have that is a little hard to put into words, and that’s the issue of ableism present in the book. The book seems to, at its core, reject ableism in practice - there are many words given to ensuring people of all types, sizes, and needs have what they need to lead a full and happy life - but there is still a fundamental flaw in the world building around this topic, which is that creatures of all kinds need to have a certain intelligence level in order to be considered a “person” (which is a legal status in this book). To be clear, the characters in this book are *highly* critical of the intelligence assessment rating process, and it seems largely arbitrary, with Homo sapiens at the top of the scale, but often the characters in the book still abide by this system when uplifting others. People with artificial dampeners on their ability to communicate are “cured”. Animals with demonstrated intelligence are genetically modified to be able to create and understand speech. Entire new life forms are created with the sole purpose of providing a crucial service to other people on the planet, and when one character reasonably argues that those new life forms might not choose to perform that service, he is effectively told he’s being silly and that creatures want to do what they are designed to do. (Incidentally, that is one situation where the minority vote does not get a reasonable concession, as is the case with all other votes by coalition democracies in the book.) In any case, it does seem as though the idea that there is a certain level of ability at which creatures are considered to be made “better” sort of persists in an uncomfortable way. The one time I recall a character being introduced who actually has a “disability” as we might recognize it, that character receives special accommodation from their companions, but otherwise their disability is rarely mentioned or addressed in a meaningful way, and the character later dies off page.
So yes, the book has flaws. But what I love about sci-fi is the boundless imagination, the relatively few tropes, and the general sense of hopefulness at the core of every sci-fi story, and this book has those in spades. I never knew what was going to happen, and I was consistently surprised and delighted by the creativity of the setting. Newitz is truly an author who doesn’t play by the rules, and frankly I respect the audacity enough to forgive the above gaffes.
The Terraformers doesn’t give you a lot of information at the start to help flesh out this highly unusual world. I realized about ten pages in that I was going to have to decide whether I trusted the author to give me the information I needed when I needed it, which they did for the most part (but not always). The history of this universe is incredibly rich, and like all histories, full of decisions made by people that had both positive and negative consequences. It’s almost impossible to fully critique these decisions or comprehend the complexity of their outcomes, even when the book itself is a meditation on how those decisions happen and lead to more and more decisions.
Taking place over a thousand years and across multiple POVs, The Terraformers manages to be sweeping in scope while also adhering to an identifiable through line. The characters in each section, divided by centuries, have become heroes or villains in the next.
Newitz does a LOT with this book - possibly too much. One 300-something page book was probably not sufficient to dig into all the issues, topics, concerns, and metaphors for our own world that they may have actually wanted. As a result of the book being so short, we don’t really get a chance to dive into all the nuances of these very complex situations, and similarly we don’t get to know our main characters as much as we’d like. Their emotional journey as characters sometimes suffers as a result. The ever-present theme is that love always wins, and progress always wins. Violence is never the answer, and diversity and democracy always are. Some may come away from this book feeling that it was almost juvenile in these points, but I suspect these are readers who are accustomed to books about fighting for rights, independence, and autonomy to be significantly darker and more explosive. The truth is, as the book outlines in very specific detail, revolutions take a long, long time. In this case, it takes around 1600 years.
To be honest, I have these same criticisms. It’s easy to say this should have been a trilogy, or even a series, but I can’t tell you that I would have read the whole thing if it was. The balance of page space and telling the story they wanted to tell is clearly a tricky thing here.
But to be even more honest, I didn’t really care. The world building was so unique, the history so rich, the science so fascinating, that I was compelled as much by what I’d learn about this world next as I was by the actual plot.
There is one major criticism I have that is a little hard to put into words, and that’s the issue of ableism present in the book. The book seems to, at its core, reject ableism in practice - there are many words given to ensuring people of all types, sizes, and needs have what they need to lead a full and happy life - but there is still a fundamental flaw in the world building around this topic, which is that creatures of all kinds need to have a certain intelligence level in order to be considered a “person” (which is a legal status in this book). To be clear, the characters in this book are *highly* critical of the intelligence assessment rating process, and it seems largely arbitrary, with Homo sapiens at the top of the scale, but often the characters in the book still abide by this system when uplifting others. People with artificial dampeners on their ability to communicate are “cured”. Animals with demonstrated intelligence are genetically modified to be able to create and understand speech. Entire new life forms are created with the sole purpose of providing a crucial service to other people on the planet, and when one character reasonably argues that those new life forms might not choose to perform that service, he is effectively told he’s being silly and that creatures want to do what they are designed to do. (Incidentally, that is one situation where the minority vote does not get a reasonable concession, as is the case with all other votes by coalition democracies in the book.) In any case, it does seem as though the idea that there is a certain level of ability at which creatures are considered to be made “better” sort of persists in an uncomfortable way. The one time I recall a character being introduced who actually has a “disability” as we might recognize it, that character receives special accommodation from their companions, but otherwise their disability is rarely mentioned or addressed in a meaningful way, and the character later dies off page.
So yes, the book has flaws. But what I love about sci-fi is the boundless imagination, the relatively few tropes, and the general sense of hopefulness at the core of every sci-fi story, and this book has those in spades. I never knew what was going to happen, and I was consistently surprised and delighted by the creativity of the setting. Newitz is truly an author who doesn’t play by the rules, and frankly I respect the audacity enough to forgive the above gaffes.
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Really loved this book, the framing across generations of terraformers works really well and it makes you feel like you get to know the history of the planet in real time.
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Full review
The blurbs! The blurbs are amazing for this book. But the narrative is so boring. And there are so many exclamation points, friend! And so many characters say, friend!
People bioengineered to terraform a planet? Sounds cool. A mix between robots and animal cyborgs? Go on. A sustainable future after a disaster? I’m interested. Monotonous conversations about the need to organize? Um, you’re losing me. Killing off main characters and jumping ahead thousands of years? Now, I’m losing the sense of continuity and need to start over. More, incredibly boring conversations about organizing? I think I’ll scroll Elizabeth Warren’s instagram feed instead.
I forced myself to finish this book. The action is thin. The characters repetitive. It seemed like an editor should have circled scenes and asked how does this move the story forward? And, are these the most interesting perspectives? It’s Occupy Wall Street meets Becky Chambers with motivations so naked nothing is left to the reader’s imagination.
The blurbs! The blurbs are amazing for this book. But the narrative is so boring. And there are so many exclamation points, friend! And so many characters say, friend!
People bioengineered to terraform a planet? Sounds cool. A mix between robots and animal cyborgs? Go on. A sustainable future after a disaster? I’m interested. Monotonous conversations about the need to organize? Um, you’re losing me. Killing off main characters and jumping ahead thousands of years? Now, I’m losing the sense of continuity and need to start over. More, incredibly boring conversations about organizing? I think I’ll scroll Elizabeth Warren’s instagram feed instead.
I forced myself to finish this book. The action is thin. The characters repetitive. It seemed like an editor should have circled scenes and asked how does this move the story forward? And, are these the most interesting perspectives? It’s Occupy Wall Street meets Becky Chambers with motivations so naked nothing is left to the reader’s imagination.
Newitz entwirft eine ultra spannende, komplexe, visionäre Welt, die mich alle paar Seiten wieder vollkommen neu überrumpelt begeistert hat. Ein bunter Strauß toller Charaktere, neuer Ideen und mitreißender Story, ich bin beim Lesen unglaublich tief in diese Welt eingetaucht. Der ganze Planet und die Leute darauf sind mir äußerst bildlich vor Augen gestanden beim Lesen, weil die Beschreibungen so voller Leben waren. Wow, was für ein Buch!