Audio CD, 300 pages
Published Dec. 1, 2005 by Paperback Digital.
Herself a biologist, Julie E. Czerneda has earned a reputation in science fiction circles for her ability to create beautifully crafted, imaginative, yet believably realized alien races. In Survival, the first novel in her new series, Species Imperative, she draws upon this talent to build races, characters, and a universe which will draw readers into a magnificent tale of interstellar intrigue, as an Earth scientist is caught up in a terrifying interspecies conflict. Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor, Mac to her friends and colleagues, was a trained biologist, whose work had definitely become her life. And working at Norcoast Base, set in an ideal location just where the Tannu River sped down the west side of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast was the perfect situation for Mac. She and fellow scientist Dr. Emily Mamani were just settling in to monitor this year's …
Herself a biologist, Julie E. Czerneda has earned a reputation in science fiction circles for her ability to create beautifully crafted, imaginative, yet believably realized alien races. In Survival, the first novel in her new series, Species Imperative, she draws upon this talent to build races, characters, and a universe which will draw readers into a magnificent tale of interstellar intrigue, as an Earth scientist is caught up in a terrifying interspecies conflict. Senior co-administrator of the Norcoast Salmon Research Facility, Dr. Mackenzie Connor, Mac to her friends and colleagues, was a trained biologist, whose work had definitely become her life. And working at Norcoast Base, set in an ideal location just where the Tannu River sped down the west side of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast was the perfect situation for Mac. She and fellow scientist Dr. Emily Mamani were just settling in to monitor this year's salmon runs when their research was interrupted by the unprecedented arrival of Brymn, the first member of the alien race known as the Ohryn to ever set foot on Earth.Brymn was an archaeologist, and much of his research had focused on a region of space known as the Chasm, a part of the universe that was literally dead, all of its worlds empty of any life-forms, though traces existed of the civilizations that must once have flourished in the region. Brymn had sought out Mac because she was a biologist -- a discipline strictly forbidden among his own people -- and he felt that through her expertise she might be able to help him discover what had created the Chasm. But Mac had little interest in alien races and in studies that ranged beyond Earth, and as politely as she was capable of, she tried to make it clear that she was unwilling to abandon her own work.However, the decision was soon taken out of her hands when a mysterious and devastating attack on the Base resulted in the abduction of Emily, and forced Mac to flee for her life with Brymn and the Earth special agents who were escorting him. Suddenly, it appeared that Earth itself might be under attack by the legendary race the Ohryn called the Ro, the beings they thought might be the destructive force behind the Chasm. Cut off from everything and everyone she knew, Mac found herself in grave danger and charged with the responsibility of learning everything she could that might possibly aid Earth in protecting the human race from extinction...
Fun read! Listened to the audiobook, and it was fast paced, action packed, and the universe was really interesting.
Picoreview: good work by Ms. Czerneda as always, and boy do I want to be her when it comes to writing SF. I do, however, have some nitpicks.
The two biggest nitpicks are things that I saw mentioned in reader comments on Amazon.com, and with which I agree. One is that the ending is kind of abrupt, and the other is how Ms. Czerneda kept showing us the thoughts of Mac, her protagonist. She italicized them--as many writers do--but she also had a lot of them in past tense. This was rather distracting! As a reader, I'm conditioned to thinking of italicized thoughts as simply dialogue that's thought rather than spoken. The greater problem, too, was that her treatment of this was not consistent. Occasionally Mac's italicized thoughts were actually in present tense, which is what one would expect!
This is not like Ms. Czerneda, either; it doesn't happen in …
Picoreview: good work by Ms. Czerneda as always, and boy do I want to be her when it comes to writing SF. I do, however, have some nitpicks.
The two biggest nitpicks are things that I saw mentioned in reader comments on Amazon.com, and with which I agree. One is that the ending is kind of abrupt, and the other is how Ms. Czerneda kept showing us the thoughts of Mac, her protagonist. She italicized them--as many writers do--but she also had a lot of them in past tense. This was rather distracting! As a reader, I'm conditioned to thinking of italicized thoughts as simply dialogue that's thought rather than spoken. The greater problem, too, was that her treatment of this was not consistent. Occasionally Mac's italicized thoughts were actually in present tense, which is what one would expect!
This is not like Ms. Czerneda, either; it doesn't happen in any of her other works. So I have to wonder what happened--if this was her fault or the fault of her copyeditor.
There are other quibbles I have with the story, but these are lesser ones... things like "so what was the point of taking this particular scientist and putting her in the thick of things? Why are her skills so crucial?" However, I'm willing to cut slack on this specifically because this is the first of a series--and unlike her previous series, which are genuine trilogies in which each book is a standalone story, this looks like it's going to be one big story. So I can deal with not having all the questions answered yet.
And, all this said, I did definitely enjoy the story. Mac was a likeable reluctant heroine, and I found her distinct lack of interest in affairs off Earth a bit of a refreshing switch--in fact, up until the story really gets underway, she hasn't even ever left the planet. This isn't something I'm accustomed to seeing in SF novels I read. :)
I really liked Brymn, who was the latest in Ms. Czerneda's colorful array of alien characters. And I sniffled at his eventual fate at the end of the book. Speaking of which, the ending definitely did pull a surprising fast one, because I just was not expecting that Brymn's race was actually responsible for the death and destruction! She did an extremely good job of making you THINK that the race that seems to be the bad guys are in fact trying to stop what's going on--and once that's revealed, there's also a good sense that even though Brymn's race is causing all these things, it's not because they're evil. They just have an extremely dangerous biological imperative going on, and the leaders of the Dhryn have been hiding their own history from their people. You get some small heads-up that this is coming, what with the reader finding out that among the Dhryn, biology and archaeology and even medicine--disciplines that would let the race at large have a clearer understanding of what's going on--are forbidden practices.
Nice little touches of technology all throughout the book, too.
All in all, though not up to the standards of A Thousand Words for Stranger, a very fun read. Definitely looking forward to Book 2 hitting paperback.
