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A review by isabellarobinson7
The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton
2.5
Rating: 2.5 stars
This was weird. It was just... odd. I won't really go into plot specifics here, because while it wasn't all that memorable to begin with, the things that made The Defiant Agents weird are the same things that affected the plot.
The time difference between books two and three makes no sense for them to have achieved all this stuff. Timeline-wise, The Defiant Agents starts 18 months after Galactic Derelict (I googled it) and yet, they have made these gigantic strides in technology that would normally take years to establish. They found this alien ship in the previous book, and in less than two years, have managed to not only understand it at a fundamental level, but have somehow developed such an advanced comprehension of what was not long ago literal alien technology that they can build a fleet of said ships. A civilisation that was leagues ahead of humanity in every way, and I'm supposed to believe we cut open a few ships, looked at a few control panels, and now we are standing alongside them? Sorry, but that's nowhere near plausible in my eyes.
The second thing is this "science" of reverting individuals back to the people their ancestors were. Aside from the question of why anyone would find a group of de-evolved humans useful (they wanted a couple of ooga-boogas around, idk), I also am confused as to how they would know what ancestors to choose. I was born in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but my people are not from here, i.e. I am not Māori. In a similar vein, I also have a decent amount of Australian blood, but I have no ethnic connection to any of its indigenous peoples. I have mostly German and English blood. So do I revert back to an Anglo-Saxon? Or maybe a member of one of the Germanic tribes, like the Goths? If that is the case, I am so disconnected from those parts of the world, that what's the point of doing it in the first place? Maybe I'm just not a good example, so I wouldn't be an ideal test subject, a fact I am more than happy to live with.
While I loved book one of this series, my enjoyment of each subsequent book has dropped gradually. I am still going to continue with The Time Traders series and hope this was simply a brief dip in quality and Norton will return to form. Plus, I bought all the audios and have all the ebooks, so it's not like I can go back now.
This was weird. It was just... odd. I won't really go into plot specifics here, because while it wasn't all that memorable to begin with, the things that made The Defiant Agents weird are the same things that affected the plot.
The time difference between books two and three makes no sense for them to have achieved all this stuff. Timeline-wise, The Defiant Agents starts 18 months after Galactic Derelict (I googled it) and yet, they have made these gigantic strides in technology that would normally take years to establish. They found this alien ship in the previous book, and in less than two years, have managed to not only understand it at a fundamental level, but have somehow developed such an advanced comprehension of what was not long ago literal alien technology that they can build a fleet of said ships. A civilisation that was leagues ahead of humanity in every way, and I'm supposed to believe we cut open a few ships, looked at a few control panels, and now we are standing alongside them? Sorry, but that's nowhere near plausible in my eyes.
The second thing is this "science" of reverting individuals back to the people their ancestors were. Aside from the question of why anyone would find a group of de-evolved humans useful (they wanted a couple of ooga-boogas around, idk), I also am confused as to how they would know what ancestors to choose. I was born in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but my people are not from here, i.e. I am not Māori. In a similar vein, I also have a decent amount of Australian blood, but I have no ethnic connection to any of its indigenous peoples. I have mostly German and English blood. So do I revert back to an Anglo-Saxon? Or maybe a member of one of the Germanic tribes, like the Goths? If that is the case, I am so disconnected from those parts of the world, that what's the point of doing it in the first place? Maybe I'm just not a good example, so I wouldn't be an ideal test subject, a fact I am more than happy to live with.
While I loved book one of this series, my enjoyment of each subsequent book has dropped gradually. I am still going to continue with The Time Traders series and hope this was simply a brief dip in quality and Norton will return to form. Plus, I bought all the audios and have all the ebooks, so it's not like I can go back now.