They are the last survivors of their race, beings who live on and communicate through energy, who are capable of assuming the shape of any other species. When their youngest member is assigned to a world considered safe to explore, she is captured by the natives. To escape, she must violate the most important rule of her kind, and reveal the existence of her species to a fellow prisoner--a human being. Now her race is in danger of extinction, for even if the human does not betray her, the Enemy who has long searched for her people may finally discover their location....
Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters)
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Julie E. Czerneda is going to make it into the awards nominations very soon, if her first two books are any indication. Her first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger, was called "thoroughly entertaining" in Locus. Czerneda's second book, Beholder's Eye, is even better.
Esen-Alit-Quar is the youngest of her Web, a "family" of extremely long-lived shapeshifters. Web-beings live in the diverse cultures and forms of intelligent life to learn and preserve their accomplishments. On her first assignment Es rescues a human, Paul Ragem, from the culture she's studying. But he and some on his first contact ship learn about her shapechanging. This could be fatal for Esen's Web, as an Enemy has appeared, seeking to destroy them and consuming all intelligence in its path. Es must elude pursuit by humans, who believe she is the Enemy, warn her Web members, and defeat this danger. Paul Ragem offers help, but asks Es to trust him with knowledge of her kind. He could lose his friends, his career, and his life, or he could betray Es to his human colleagues out of fear.
The characters, races and cultures are marvelously distinctive and well drawn, the action swift, and the conclusion satisfying. If you've enjoyed Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan books, give Beholder's Eye a once-over. --Nona Vero
Review
From SF Site.com:
Beholder's Eye is Julie Czerneda's second novel. She entered the science fiction scene last year with her delightful debut book, A Thousand Words for Stranger. In Beholder's Eye, she continues with one of the key themes from Stranger, in which a member of a secretive, powerful race winds up getting much too closely involved with a human, leading to profound consequences.
The book's protagonist is Esen-alit-Quar, the youngest of a race of shapeshifters. Being only a few hundred years old, Esen is now just ready for her first assignment -- to spend a decade on a planet studying the culture of the local inhabitants. Despite her confidence, things rapidly go astray when she finds humans on the planet as well. Soon, she's managed to violate her race's most important rule by revealing her nature to a human.
Throughout it all, Esen becomes closer and closer friends with a human. Since she has hardly had any meaningful interactions with someone of another species, she is ill-prepared for the consequences that friendship can bring.- This friendship is further complicated by the danger that her friend will be drawn into the hunt against her.
The unusual premise and excellent writing combine to make Beholder's Eye a wonderfully entertaining book. I'm looking forward to the sequel Czerneda has planned for the future.
Copyright - 1998 James Seidman
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do eye behold an excellent book here?,
By
This review is from: Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters) (Mass Market Paperback)
I really enjoyed this book a lot. We see a lot of different worlds and races in it with a variety of characteristics, and Czerneda does a very good and convincing job of portraying them. She could write many more stories in this universe if she wanted to. Many books are predictable. Sometimes they surprise you. But much of the time, "Beholder's Eye" had so many possibilities that I had no idea what to expect next, and was often pleased with where it took me.Esen, the main character, is a web being, a shape-changer, who takes on at least a dozen different forms over the course of the story, though she uses two of them for most of the story. In each form she takes on the instincts and emotions of whatever form she assumes, with some amusing results. Ragem, the primary human character, is quite intelligent but at a level we can easily relate to. The key characters. both good and bad, are smart enough to make the story all the more interesting. All around, an excellent read.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A surprising and intriquing hero(ine), likewise the tale!,
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This review is from: Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters) (Mass Market Paperback)
The other reviews of "Beholder's Eye" give a good description of the plot, so I would like to focus on the nature and development of the main characters, Esen-alit-Quar and her recent friend Paul-human, both of whom I found most compelling.Czerneda has brought forth an entirely new (to me) being within the universe. In trying to understand the nature of that being I felt that the story started out a bit slow, but as my comprehension grew I became quite rapt and regretted that it was not longer. Most exciting was the "personal" growth of Esen as her responsibility extended to the point at which she alone could meet and, hopefully, quell the ultimate threat to her kind. She takes numerous alien forms along her path, each one remarkably well portrayed and fleshed out. Her reluctant relationship with Paul Ragem inspires her to see and comprehend herself in a deeper and more compasionate way, and to learn to rely on her own personal understanding of her place in the scheme of things. All in all, this excellent book was very thought provoking, compelling to the end, and it certainly whetted my appetite for more!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Rite of Passage,
By
This review is from: Beholder's Eye (Web Shifters) (Mass Market Paperback)
Beholder's Eye is the first novel in the Web Shifters series. Esen-alit-Quar is the most recent member of the Web of Ersh and the only member who isn't a product of fissioning by Ersh; Esen is an offspring of Ansky and her Lanivarian lover and the only one of their cubs who can shift. For over five centuries, Ersh and the others have trained her to function as an observer of sentient life, but Esen has also persisted in pranks and escapades that always get her into trouble. But now Esen is finally ready for her first independent assignment.
In this novel, Esen is taken to Kraos to observe the life and ecology on that planet. However, she spends weeks trying to work up the nerve to move among the population, first taking on the form of the sentient species and then cycling back to her Web form. After using most of the nearby living mass to energize the cycles, hunger forces her to shift into Lanivarian form and retain it. Pretending to be a native canine, she moves among the natives, eavesdropping, snooping and otherwise gathering the required information. After 600 days into the assignment, she discovers that a Commonwealth First Contact team has arrived on the planet and contacted the natives. Two commercial missions have already disappeared on Kraos and she has learned that the natives also intend to capture this new ship and kill its crew. Two members of the First Contact team are killed and the third, Paul Ragem, is captured along with Esen in her canine form, but Paul and Esen managed to escape from a dungeon and warn the ship of the hostility of the natives. Unfortunately, the First Contact team has a vid of Esen changing from her canine form to a Ycl to save Paul from a deadly fungus powder which was sprinkled on his body by the natives. Moreover, the stress of the interview with Senior Specialist and Acting Captain Lionel Kearn and Sas, the Modoren Security Officer, has caused her to explosively shift back to her Lanvarian form, causing minor damage to the personnel and fittings in Kearn's office. Esen is in big trouble with the Web for violating security. After reviewing the events of this chain of fiascoes, and literally chewing her out, Ersh sends her back to learn the extent of the damage caused by these exposures. This time she takes on the form of a Ket, a very humanoid species with great massage skills. This novel is mostly about the evolving relationship between Esen and Paul. In some respects, this novel is much like Heinlein's Star Beast from the point of view of the alien. Although centuries old and very knowledgeable, Esen is very young relative to her potential lifetime. All her forms are also young relative to the species (her human form is about ten years old). Thus, Esen sometimes seems very wise and other times incredibly foolish. This novel, however, has plenty of action and plots within plots. One of the minor themes in this novel, and the whole series, is the very irritating behavior of bureaucrats. Another may be the vagaries of architects, both in expanding existing structures and in deconstructing existing structures to build new ones. Recommended for Czerneda fans and anyone who enjoys tales of young aliens becoming friends with humans. -Arthur W. Jordin
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