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possibilityleft's review
1.0
This book had an interesting premise which drew me in quickly in the opening sequence: humans make contact with a less-advanced alien civilization and go down to the surface to study them. The aliens are humanoid enough to relate to and strange enough to be interesting. However, as soon as the book changed to first-person narration, I found myself really turned off by it. The author has a dry, detached style that made it impossible to relate to the narrator, and I felt at many times like I was being spoken down to. Sentences were short and choppy and vocabulary was generally very basic. I finished the book in hopes of resolving some of the more interesting plot threads, but instead it ended abruptly with a promise to continue in the second volume. Sorry, but you didn't hook me enough for a second volume.
ellenw's review
2.0
A for effort, D for execution?
I don't remember where the recommendation came from, but I have it in my mind that someone recommended this to me as an example of anthropological science fiction. Sign me up!, I would have thought.
A group of (one presumes) modern humans are set down on an alien planet, spread apart, so as to observe and interact with the local aliens. Most of the book tells the story of Lixia, one of the humans, and Nia, an alien she meets who is somewhat of an outcast. In this alien society, females live together in villages while males are driven out after puberty, and the two come together only for mating in the spring. There are, naturally, some who rebel against the order of things.
The main problem is, without knowing anything about Arnason's background, I'm going to venture that she doesn't actually know much about anthropology. The aliens are, well, not that alien. (In fact, I think one human character remarks on how "surprisingly" human they seem; if there's an explanation, it wasn't even hinted at in this book, which is half of a duology.) There's something very conventionally moral about it. One of the reasons Nia is an outcast is that she wanted to live with her mate all the time, rather than mating with random males at the pre-appointed season! GASP! There's an implication that the humans will teach the aliens how to monogamously pair up, and about why rape is wrong. At the same time, the aliens manage to check quite a few Noble Savage boxes -- for example, war is unknown to them, and murder and theft are rare.
On top of that, the characters are pretty flat. There's a point where Lixia does something potentially wrong, and she's concerned about the implications for her career. This is expressed by Lixia thinking, more or less, "I am concerned about the implications for my career." I never got a sense that she was upset, afraid, anxious... She's just a flat canvas who performs actions. Nia's personality is "wishes, without realizing it, to be human." Male human Derek's personality is "Lothario."
So: the "science" was not thought-provoking, and the "characters" were not emotion-provoking. Points for an interesting premise, but this is not an interesting book.
I don't remember where the recommendation came from, but I have it in my mind that someone recommended this to me as an example of anthropological science fiction. Sign me up!, I would have thought.
A group of (one presumes) modern humans are set down on an alien planet, spread apart, so as to observe and interact with the local aliens. Most of the book tells the story of Lixia, one of the humans, and Nia, an alien she meets who is somewhat of an outcast. In this alien society, females live together in villages while males are driven out after puberty, and the two come together only for mating in the spring. There are, naturally, some who rebel against the order of things.
The main problem is, without knowing anything about Arnason's background, I'm going to venture that she doesn't actually know much about anthropology. The aliens are, well, not that alien. (In fact, I think one human character remarks on how "surprisingly" human they seem; if there's an explanation, it wasn't even hinted at in this book, which is half of a duology.) There's something very conventionally moral about it. One of the reasons Nia is an outcast is that she wanted to live with her mate all the time, rather than mating with random males at the pre-appointed season! GASP! There's an implication that the humans will teach the aliens how to monogamously pair up, and about why rape is wrong. At the same time, the aliens manage to check quite a few Noble Savage boxes -- for example, war is unknown to them, and murder and theft are rare.
On top of that, the characters are pretty flat. There's a point where Lixia does something potentially wrong, and she's concerned about the implications for her career. This is expressed by Lixia thinking, more or less, "I am concerned about the implications for my career." I never got a sense that she was upset, afraid, anxious... She's just a flat canvas who performs actions. Nia's personality is "wishes, without realizing it, to be human." Male human Derek's personality is "Lothario."
So: the "science" was not thought-provoking, and the "characters" were not emotion-provoking. Points for an interesting premise, but this is not an interesting book.
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