![]() ![]() An epic battle results in heavy casualties, but the novel manages to end with the deep, hopeful yearning we have to explore the mysteries of all creatures and worlds around us. ![]() The use of military force to protect planetary interests is wonderfully undercut when each species’s scientists sneak off to study one another. The novel moves among all three species as each tries to overcome communication barriers while promoting cultural ideologies and deciphering political agendas (the Ilmatarans only speak in “clicks” the Sholen form friendships and alliances through sexual touching). He discovers that the Ilmatarans wish to study humans with the same type of scholarly and rigorous scientific methods, which results in a hilarious, pulp-fiction-style disaster. That agreement holds until a self-serving media diva with the diving team gets too close while observing his subject. The scientists have won permission for this study from the Sholen, six-limbed, extraterrestrial creatures who forbid any human interaction with the Ilmatarans. This witty, erudite novel chronicles the expedition of a scientific team diving into the icy seas of the planet Ilmatar to study its lobster-like inhabitants. ![]() Cambias’s “ A Darkling Sea”(Tor, $25.99), you will. You’ve probably never rooted for giant lobsters before, but when hard science fiction meets ethnography in James L. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |