Customer Reviews

The Book of The Ler

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My wife and I bought a paperback copy of The Gameplayers of Zan when we were thumbing through an old used book store. We often do this--pick up something that looks like a great old pulpy novel and give it a chance. I had no idea that I was picking up a massively creative, intensely realized work of science fiction literature when we did.

Foster is not a name that I knew, and I am pretty well read in Science Fiction--I've been actively reading the genre for the last 25 years or so. The fact that this man is not talked about frequently is a bizarre piece of nonsense to me. This book pulls together all three novels about the Ler--the race of people that comes after humans in the evolutionary tree. He presents them in one of the most interesting of formats--living side by side with humankind, both revering us as their creators, and yet full of fear for us and our wild actions. The entire experience is a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human, and what makes one human, and what pieces of ourselves should be given to those who come after us.

Pick this up. It is a rare find.

I ahve always wondered why Mr Foster has completely dropped off the radar--aside, of course, from the fact he hasn't published anything in 20+ years--but then, of course, neither has Robert A Heinlein and look at the attention HE gets. At any rate, in these books Mr Foster sets up a fascinating future society of "new humans" (matahomo novalis, as he calls them) and their interactions with "old" humans (that's us). Within this framework, "Warriors of Dawn" is straight space opera with a love interest, "The Gameplayers of Zan" a suspense novel and "Day of the Klesh" (my least favorite of the three) a winding-up. Mr Foster is a writer who seems to have been deeply influenced by Jack Vance both in style and in theme: "Day of the Klesh" will remined discerning readers of Vance's "Big Planet". While Mr Foster on occasion will get (in my opinion) too deeply immersed in the intracies of his creations (this, to my mind, is the major flaw of "The Gameplayers of Zan")readers who persist through these longeurs will find themselves amply rewarded with arichly detailed and internally believable world.

It's not perfect- but no book is, and I can be pretty judgmental. Although he's not the best writer in the world, he definitely has a great style, grace, and flow. The first half of the first book in the trilogy was hard for me to get through. You must keep in mind that 'The Warriors of Dawn' was written first, and then Foster wrote 'The Gameplayers of Zan' afterwords, as a prequel, so a LOT of the beginning of that book seems to simply explain and develop this entire, deep Ler community; benefiting to someone who had read Warriors, but wanted to learn more about how it all started. So for some it can seem to dredge on when reading 'The Gameplayers of Zan' first, but I still suggest reading it in that order- it made it more enjoyable for me in the long run. Once the story starts going I got extremely sucked into it. I had been looking for a great Sci-Fi book to read for a long time, and was always dissatisfied because the stories may be cool and such, but never 'deep' enough, never had enough thought out meaning and depth. This story is great, and makes statements about humanity, and it can make you think, but I wouldn't consider it one of those amazingly mind-blowing stories I've experienced. But fantastic in it's own right, definitely deserving five stars.

I picked up a copy of "The Warriors of Dawn" a couple of years ago and loved it enough that M.A. Foster got onto my short list. I read the other two Ler books, really enjoyed them, and am happy to see that they are available again in an omnibus and that hopefully there will be a new Ler book.

The first 20 pages of the book are very interesting but then the story became so boring that I had to stop reading the book, I was actually forcing myself to continue reading the book hoping that it would get better but it remained boring, I gave the book to a friend at work.

thank you for reissuing this book. I wandered across the children of LER ages ago, and watched for anything from MA Foster since. She is intense, imaginative, consistent, and you believe in the LER (maybe not all of it), but I keep giving away my copies, so this is wonderful.

'The Gameplayers of zan' is the best science fiction book I have ever read, the quality of the ideas is sublime and the plotline is ..... see if you can guess the ending! It took me years to find out who MA Foster is - he is proof that military intelligence is not necessarily an oxymoron. I await the reported new book (after 21 years) and rewrite of GZ with leg-gnawing impatience. Read 'em and weep.