Reading Update

[jaggedwolf]

Survival by Julie E. Czerneda

Sometimes books end up on my read list and I don't remember why, and this was one of those books. A sci-fi book where salmon researcher Mac Connor, quite happy to never leave Earth, gets dragged into an alien investigation of settlement disapperances. I liked Mac a lot. She's incisive, persistent, prone to snark at herself, and has very good friendships with Emily and Brymn. Yet I ended the book wishing she had gotten more agency. Felt like a lot of organizations were pushing around with her having little say at the big plot moments. That abstractly makes sense, but was unsatisfying to read. I don't plan on reading the sequels.

I am also apparently so used to my genre reads being gay that her kiss with Mr Spy Man surprised me, as telegraphed as it was.

I was easily charmed by Emily at the beginning, and even more charmed with the reveal of her allegiances and her arm now being made out of weird alien stuff. I was hoping she'd offer more of an explanation for the Ro and the Dhryn though.

It took me longer to like Brymn, but I did, and was sad at his end. I was hoping he'd get to find out answer on his species for himself, not get turned into a murdery pufferfish. :(

Comments

[flowersforgraves]

OH YES I love the Species Imperative trilogy! I'm glad you liked Mac, but I definitely see why her arc was offputting to you.

[jaggedwolf]

Haha yeah, she spent a little too much time getting whisked to various places for my liking.

[shadaras]

I have a deep fondness for this trilogy that I suspect comes of reading it as a teenager where one doesn't question the text quite as much. I come back to it sometimes because I like the alien stuff, and aliens being like... actually reasonably alien! Which is rare in sci-fi! Also protag woman scientist is pretty great too.

(I hear you about 'but wait, it's not gay?' though)

[jaggedwolf]

Haha, yeah the aliens were convincingly alien, and I can see the appeal.

(Look, Mac/Emily as a concept was endearing to me at the start and then became quite compelling with the Emily reveals.)