A review by midwinteraz
Starmind by Jeanne Robinson

3.0

I read this as a stand-alone rather than as the capstone to the series, so I didn't go into it with any expectations or preconceived notions. For that reason, I think I probably enjoyed it more than others more familiar with the backstory. I loved the beginning, kind of lost interest in the middle, and went into full "meh" with the ending. SF seems to have an obsession with evolution forced on humanity by aliens. *yawn* What started as an intimate family story quickly devolved into something with intergalactic scale, and I found it hard to find anything of interest to latch onto from then on. Blah, blah, forced evolution, blah. Why go through all the trouble of "fixing" the earth and it's current residents if you're going to expel all nine billion of them a few months later? Maybe this was all telegraphed in the previous two books, but based on this one by itself, the set-up didn't match the conclusion.