Customer Reviews

In the Company of Others

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ever since I read Julie E. Czerneda's A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER, I have looked forward to each of her new novels with their unique perspective and insight. BEHOLDER'S EYE was phenomenal as well and established Czerneda as one of the brightest new writers to come along in many years. IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS continues to show the author's substantial talents through a tale of human galactic expansion and "first contact" of a most original type.

The hefty tome of this latest novel is a bit intimidating at first, and I must admit that the first 200 pages were extremely challenging to read, and made for a slow start. Perhaps it was the author's desire to explain her well created universe in a bit too much detail, or perhaps it just needed one healthy edit by someone who wasn't afraid to cut text that was neither necessary for character development or for the plot to move forward.

With that said, I must applaud Czerneda on creating some of the most "alien" of aliens in science fiction today. Her "Quill" are enigmas par excellence, and "first contact" becomes an event of intrigue and fascination. There is a hearty dose of cultural anthropology here told through a xeno-biological perspective, as well as a healthy dose of hard speculative science backing up every paragraph. What may be missing in "action" is certainly made up for in ideas. Ideas about the future in science, politics, ethics and human relations.

IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS is highly recommended, and I will continue to look forward to Czerneda's unique writing talents filling my shelves for years to come.

I liked Julie Czerneda's "In the Company of Others" well enough, but it's not a book I need to read again. I found two of the three main characters somewhat boring and annoying, the story too slow until the crisis point, and the ending a bit abrupt.
"In the Company of Others" has an extensive backstory, which is revealed in varying degrees of grace. It goes like this: in the future, humans have invented space travel (it's FTL, as is the communications tech, but is never discussed; this is a character, sociology, and xenobiology story) and have terraformed many barren worlds. However, these world were contaminated by the Quill, a formerly harmless alien species that has now become deadly; people on terraformed worlds die instantly, for no discernable reason. Tens of thousands of immigrants (immies) and many spacers ('siders) are trapped on space stations originally intended to house only a few thousand people. Earth has imposed a near-total quarantine on the stations, and has stopped space exploration and terraforming.
A generation after the Quill incursion, Dr. Gail Smith has a theory that the Quil on the terraformed worlds are genetically linked to the chief terraforming engineers for each world. She wants to test her theory on Pardell, a world whose coordinates were known only to Susan Witts, the chief of all the terraforming engineers, and the one who gave Quill as presents to the other terraformers. Gail comes to Thromberg Station, searching for Aaron Pardell, Witts's great-grandson, and his ship, the Merry Mate, which holds the only known record of Pardell's location. Pardell is more than just an anonymous 'sider, however; he was born on Pardell, and is the only person to survive an encounter with the Quill. He, however, doesn't know this.
The story follows Aaron, Gail, and Hugh Malley, Aaron's best friend, as they travel from Thromberg to Pardell, learning about each other and the Quill. The plot is fairly intricate; I won't attempt to describe it, because the Quill are supposed to be a mystery. (That said, I do think it's odd that nobody, Rosalind in particular, ever realized the source of Aaron's odd medical condition.) The chief supporting characters are interesting and well-drawn, and the Quill are satisfactorily alien aliens. However, I found Gail and Malley somehow flat, and often skimmed their sections, wanting to get back to Aaron. (To be fair, Gail does improve in the second half of the book.) There is a nicely understated love story, and a lovely conclusion. However, for some incomprehensible reason, Czerneda added a brief epilogue that completely threw me out of her world. It was completely unnecessary, and very grating.
"In the Company of Others" is a bit thick and intricate for light summer reading, but not especially deep or difficult. It's entertaining, with many good ideas and scenes, and probably worth a read.

Crowded Earth has terraformed new planets. Before the colonists landed, the pristine new worlds have been contaminated with a deadly organism--the Quill. As would-be colonists wait in crowded, failing space stations, the Solar system has been sealed against the alien contamination.

A novel of exploration, biological peril, desperation and sacrifice, this is also a novel of hope, courage, affection and occasional humor. The author mixes emotions well, and produces real conflict with no villains. The plot moves along at a high clip, but without being choppy. The adventure is combined well with speculation, but the likable characters provide the real attraction.

I've come to look forward to each of Julie Czerneda's big, fat, juicy books -- and this one is no exception. Although the scope of her novel remains large, the focus on relationships and multiple viewpints keeps it involving. Like the best of her previous novels, A Thousand Words for Stranger, we get an inside glimpse of a not-human intelligence and the sense of being in its skin. Although the style is transparent and not showy, there were still very evocative images -- the graveyard of ships moored to the station, a lonely child's inability to touch another, a musty patchwork pressure suit -- that propell the narrative. It's also rather amazing that in such a short period of time, Czerneda has published five long, high quality works. I'm imagining a closet jam full of previously-written manuscripts , waiting for the first sale to start them tumbling down on readers' heads. I reco this for those who enjoy space opera that's still strong on character and insight.

This novel is set in the far future when earth's millions are desperate for a new start off the overcrowded homeworld. Terraforming has provided the new worlds needed - then disaster strikes. An alien life form, the quill, somehow takes over the new worlds and makes them uninhabitable and earth is ruthless in quarantining earth from it's influence by preventing immigrants from returning home.

A generation later, the descendants of those who tried to immigrate are still stranded on obselete and decaying space stations. Aaron Pardell is one of those people, and unknown even to himself he is the only person to have gone to one of the infected worlds and lived afterwards.

Dr Gail Smith tracks him down to find out why and if he can help with finding a way to destroy the quill.

This is very thick novel. Dense in descriptions and explanations of the universe that has been created. Too thick in fact. While I completed this novel and liked the characters in it, I felt I was wading through a lot of un-necessary explainations to do it and that the story could have been improved if it was a bit tighter in execution.

While I can't say I'm sorry I read this book, I know it's one I won't bother to read twice. Essentially this is love story, and the real core of it is the people, but they do get swamped at times by their surroundings.

"In the Company of Others" is an extremely disappointing, flawed novel. It's too long, overburdened with description, and I don't believe the romance between hardened scientist Gail Smith and much younger Aaron Pardell.

I did like most of Ms. Czerneda's minor characters, and enjoyed her perspective of what life on an actual space station might be like. But compared to "A Thousand Words for Stranger" or "Beholder's Eye," this book is extremely disappointing.

It seems to go on too long; I'm not sure why this is. Some of the description is absolutely essential, and I buy into that. And I like the two main characters separately; I just don't believe in their romance.

Maybe I'm a romantic at heart, and that's the main reason I'm downgrading this book. But in her other novels, the romances make sense and are believable; here, it doesn't make sense on Gail's side (although I can see why Aaron would like her, as she accepts him for who he is), and that's why the romance wasn't believable to me.

Another person may find it differently than I did.

In addition, as I said before in re-reviewing these novels, Ms. Czerneda is one of my favorite writers. I hold her to a higher standard. And that's the main reason this book gets 2 1/2 stars (not two -- I gave it that before because I didn't know you could give fractions in a review) . . . it has some very strong pluses as well as the minuses.

But the writing is good, mind, and the premise makes sense (with the exception of that romance). I'd just rather people started with "A Thousand Words for Stranger" or "Beholder's Eye," which are much better and involving novels, than this; "In the Company of Others" just isn't as interesting to me as the other works, which is why I give it two and a half stars...

Mankind broke free of the solar system and terra formed sixteen different planets so humans can live on them. Then the Quill, a fungus like organism with soothing properties was found on a planet. They quickly spread throughout the terra-formed world, killing everyone on it. The people of earth abandoned those living outside the solar system out of fear that the Quill would invade the home world.

At Thromberg Station, Dr. Gail Smith, backed by soldiers, searches for Pardell, a person who was born on a Quill-infested planet. Pardell has gold veins that make him sensitive to touch. However, he agrees to accompany Gail back to his home world in an attempt to rid the orb of the Quill.

IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS is a big juicy novel that provides for outer space buffs what Highlander did for immortal gurus. Fans will enjoy this book as Julie E. Czerneda shows she is an up and coming talent by writing a tale with a strong plot populated by complex and diverse characters.

Harriet Klausner

One thing I've learned to expect from Julie E. Czerneda is plot twists that sometimes take you where you'd rather not be, but then, she rescues you -- somehow. She always provides characters you can bond with, laughter, tears, and just plain fun! IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS is no exception. If anything, it's more of everything that is Czerneda. The story and characters are more mature, the conflict more personal. This is an exceptional read and a must for any serious collector of fine speculative fiction. Thank you, Ms. Czerneda!

I admit that I WANTED to like this book. I tried to like this book. I kept reading this book even though I didn't like this book. I kept hoping that somewhere, somehow, this book would click with me and just kept reading. Well, my efforts were in vain. I didn't like this book. Not to be discouraged, I read two more Julie Czerneda books and didn't like them either. She got her money's worth out of me, that's for sure.

I think the main problems with her books is that her characters just don't have any character. They are almost TOO REAL, which in order to make interesting in a SF novel, requires the talents of an exceptionally good author. I think Ms. Czerneda borrows heavily from A.C. Clarke, which is good, but doesn't have what it takes to bring Clarke's writing style into the 21st Century. The characters in this book are just plain dull, there is very little action to make up for it and the resolution at the end of the book doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Thanks anyway, Julie, I wish you luck, because I REALLY WANTED TO LIKE YOUR BOOKS!!!!

Julie E. Czerneda caught my eye with "A Thousand Words for Stranger," and I've done my best to get a hold of everything she has written since. So far, she has delivered high quality, character-driven SF, without ever letting the alien aspect or the technology totally dominate the storyline.

"In the Company of Others," delivers this as well. Humans reached the stars - and finding no one out there, began to terraform worlds for colonization. And then it all went wrong: the Quill showed up on worlds that were terraformed, making them uninhabitable for humanity. What are the Quill? No one really knows, and that mysterious overtone drives the first double-hundred pages of the book.

As usual, Czerneda's strength lies in her characters, most notably the empathic Aaron Pardell, who is the only human to have survived a Quill world. He could be the saviour of mankind, or it's destruction... And you're left hanging in that balance for most of the book, as unsure as everyone else.

Give this one a read if you're looking of a complete-in-and-of-itself SF read by one of Canada's finest SF Authors. First contact, space drama, and the height of characterization keep this one going, even after a somewhat slow start.

'Nathan