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tranquilitycase 's review for:
The Terraformers
by Annalee Newitz
Very interesting and super weird. It's like Kim Stanley Robinson and Louise Erdrich had a book baby. Early on, there's this sentence: "Your head had to be buried deep in your ass to say a flying, talking moose with a weird gang of aeronaut drone friends wasn't smart enough to be a person." So yes, it's about terraforming a planet to be Pliestoscene Earth-like (with the implication that human society has moved far beyond needing planets to be like Earth - the lead terraforming director even wins an annual award similar to the Grammys for her work on this planet). But it's also about bioengineered beings who are "decanted" instead of born, and who can have parents that are completely different species. The purpose of parents is to teach you how to be a person, and there are all different kinds of people, including talking Moose and flying trains who are grown from some sort of organic trellis. It's about different kinds of personhood, self-governance vs. corporate governance, and responsibility for the land. As you can tell it's all about big ideas, and less about developing characters. There are three sections of the book hundreds of years apart, with different characters in each one, so it's hard to get to know any of the characters deeply. It also came across as deeply neurodivergent - at a couple of points, the author even uses the term "mouth words" (as distinct from texting, which is the only way some beings on this planet communicate). This is a term I've mainly heard in the Autism community, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Stars missing for not being quite propulsive enough to keep me engaged - if it takes me more than a week or two to finish a book, I know it's lacking something. Also - the minimal character development. Destry and Whistle were done pretty well, but I had a hard time later in the book. Still, well worth reading.
Stars missing for not being quite propulsive enough to keep me engaged - if it takes me more than a week or two to finish a book, I know it's lacking something. Also - the minimal character development. Destry and Whistle were done pretty well, but I had a hard time later in the book. Still, well worth reading.