Birthstones [Paperback]

Phyllis Gotlieb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2007

On a dark and moonless planet, mutations have left women as little more than wombs, while men can teleport but have limited control over the ability. When aliens come to plunder this world's resources, the already harsh environment degrades exponentially. Will the Galactic Federation find this world in time to help the natives restore their women and save their civilization?

A visionary novel in the tradition of Ursula K. LeGuin and James Tiptree, Jr., by a leading feminist author.

With an afterword by Nalo Hopkinson.

"Phyllis Gotlieb is the grand dame of Canadian SF, a poet with a cosmic perspective who elevates space opera to high art."
-- Robert J. Sawyer

"The best SF novel I've read in years."
-- The Globe and Mail on Flesh and Gold

"A new novel from Phyllis Gotlieb is a major event."
-- Candas Jane Dorsey

"Gotlieb knows how to do it right."
-- Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Space Opera has the reputation - not entirely undeserved - as being the power fantasies of maladjusted teenage boys. But, for over fifty years, Toronto author Phyllis Gotlieb has proven that this subgenre can be complex, intelligent and even feminist. Her new novel, "Birthstones", is no exception. . . Gotlieb rarely pauses to dump information upon the reader. Instead, she reveals much of the society and its problems through glimpses that finally add up to a cohesive whole. As the story unfolded, so did my understanding of the world. But I always knew enough. It is this deftness, as well as Gotlieb's sensitivity to character, that earned her a Governor General's Award Nomination."
-- TOBlog.com

"Gotlieb has a lean poetic style full of irony, intelligence and subtle humour even when describing unmitigated horror. Mainly what shines through is her compassion for her endearingly and realistically flawed characters who muddle on, doing the best they can."
-- The Peterborough Examiner

". . . add up all these tastes and you get a very potent brew that will keep you turning pages avidly."
-- SciFi Weekly

"In Birthstones Phyllis Gotlieb, the doyenne of Canadian Science Fiction, brings us a novel that is fresh and exciting in several ways. Gotlieb gives us completely alien worlds and punches through the issue on the first page of the book, carrying us in her wake. . . At first, the ending is disconcerting, because there is no big bang, no huge climax; but it stays in the reader's mind because what Gotlieb has done is to end with a beginning. The structure of the book is ingenious: instead of chapters, Gotlieb transports us from world to world in a see-saw movement that reminds the reader of a wave ebbing then breaking. The story itself is a clever political whodunit set in a totally unfriendly environment with a mix of races that somehow neutralizes our (humans) ethno-egocentrism. That the novel speaks to the reader in a variety of ways, and that, as with any great art, it disturbs the soul, is the sign of an accomplished writer. Phyllis Gotlieb has shown with Birthstones how she has honed her craft to diamond clarity. A must read.
-- Ohmy News

About the Author

Phyllis Gotlieb has been nominated for the Governor General's Award as well as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award, and she's the recipient of a lifetime-achievement Aurora Award. Her previous novels include Sunburst, O Master Caliban!, Heart of Red Iron, and Mindworlds. Phyllis is now professor emeritus of Computer Science at University of Toronto. She has three grown children, four grandchildren and lives in Toronto.

Afterword by Nalo Hopkinson. Nalo's novel Brown Girl in the Ring won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. She has taken second place in the Short Prose Competition of the Writers’ Union of Canada, and is the recipient of the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and the Locus Award for a first novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Robert J. Sawyer Books; 1 edition (February 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889953856
• ISBN-13: 978-0889953857
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,660,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An immense space opera but flawed in the execution!, December 22, 2007

By 

Paul Weiss (Dundas, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Birthstones (Paperback)

You've got to hand it to Gotlieb!

When it came to developing a space opera plot outline of immense galactic proportions, she certainly didn't hold back. Environmental degradation on the planet Shar led to what their historians called "The Change". Women have devolved into little more than wombs - birth chambers, barely alive, and certainly not enjoying anything one might call a quality of life. Men can teleport but with virtually no control over the ability to do so. Long before Shar had degraded to this bleak current condition, a small number of brave pioneers, now called Meshar had left and colonized a bleak planetary corner of the galaxy known as Barrazan V. Aliens now want to plunder Shar's rich resource wealth, the emperor of Shar wants to bring back the Meshar women to reverse the evolutionary decline of the planet and the Galactic Federation is caught in the middle of everything.

You'd think that a plot like that could hardly fail. After all, it's so obviously rich with fodder for character development, political intrigue, alien interaction and all of the other "stuff" that made classics like "Dune" such rewarding reading that one could return time and time again finding new insights with every reading. But the sad fact is that "Birthstones" falls entirely flat. This book is simply too short. A story of such immense proportions cannot help but take time in the telling - character development, history of the environmental degradation of Shar, the politics of the Galactic Federation, the fear that the ladies of Meshar have at the prospect of returning to their heritage in Shar, and so on. But Gotlieb's novel is, frankly, so brief - a mere 215 pages - that the story becomes an unintelligible, near meaningless mash of dialogue and hurried events that elicited not one whit of emotion in this reader. The characters were so undeveloped that they were little more than names. And, of course, these names were so foreign and alien to our English tongue that it became virtually impossible to tell one character from another.

Double or triple the length. Take the time to develop things more carefully and lovingly. Then "Birthstones" may live up to Gotlieb's reputation as a Nebula Award nominee. I'm going to try it again to see if the plot becomes more meaningful on second reading but, as it stands, it's difficult to recommend "Birthstones" to a science fiction fan at all.

Paul Weiss

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad exactly, but there is so much out there thats better., June 13, 2009

By 

RandomOutput "Scifi Junkie" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Birthstones (Paperback)

Birthstones is a competent novel that just fails to deliver. I found myself thinking throughout the entire book that things were just about to get interesting and then it never did.