Customer Reviews

Copernick's Rebellion

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In 1940, thirty year-old Martin Guibedo escaped Germany with his only surviving family member, his crippled five year-old nephew Heinrich Copernick. Both men became masters of genetic engineering, Martin specializing in plants, and his nephew Heinrich in animal life forms.

Martin designs and freely distributes his proud creation to save the human race, tree houses. These houses are literally trees, genetically modified to have rooms, beds, chairs, cupboards that grow food, and of course, composting toilets. A tiny problem develops when the first version of the house eats its occupants. Oops. Heinrich's big creations are LDUs, sentient worker beasts that look like walking tables with eight eyes; fauns, cute little half girls-half goats who educate and care for human young; and TRACs, large sentient creatures designed to act in the stead of trucks or buses.

When the dynamic duo's designs begin to interfere with the status quo of the major political and economic powers of the earth; of course it means war. Heinrich, when not genetically modifying himself into a giant stud-muffin and growing his own Pam Anderson-like wife, has been preparing for this eventuality. When the two scientists unleash metal-eating microbes, the compost really hits the fan.

I agree with Connie Willis that great science fiction comes from taking a hypothesis and drawing it out to its most logical or most absurd conclusion. Leo Frankowski does just that in this book, letting the Polish uncle-nephew duo have complete free reign to design whatever absurd thing they can dream up without any real repercussions; universe builders remaking the earth as they want it. The humans in the story do not have much character development, but the little faun, Liebchen, and the LDU, Dirk, are really endearing as they grow and change in the struggle to understand human morality and ethics.

I am surprised this book is so obscure; it is my favorite Frankowski book. If you have read any of his Conrad Stargard novels, you already know that the book is full of plenty of whiz-bang, neato ideas, male chauvinism, puns, but is overall a rollicking fun read. Hard to put down until the last page is turned.

All of leo frankowskis' books are very good science fiction. There are no "fairies" or dragons or majick. His books just tell you why a railroad works and how a windmill can be used to pump water or thresh grain and WHY this is a good thing.

A non-stop parade of fresh ideas, wild inventions and creatures, and original characters. One whopper of a good time!

I enjoyed this little book.
I started reading Frankowski's books several years ago starting with the time travel engineer to Poland books. I really enjoyed those. I thought this one might be similar to that. I was a bit dissapointed that it was not similar.

However, this book is a very enjoyable read.
It really makes you think. At the start of the book there are trees that are mutated into houses that people must live in. During the course of the book civilization as we know it ends and a new form of society is founded. Fauns educated children, vehicles are alive, and more fantastic things occur. The end is a particularly interesting end in that it leaves you thinking about our use of genetic engineering and so on.

Enjoy.

The one thing I love about most of Leo Frankowski's books is that the science is usually "spot on."
The science of Copernick's Rebellion was very plausible when I read it shortly after it's first publication and the world of science has advanced so much since, that it is even more realistic now.

This is a great story, a lot of fun to read, and it gives you a great deal to think about.

The "Conrad Stargard" series is also a great read from the same author.

This book has great idea's ,which mite happen if Christian's where not so busy trying to stop, anything good to come from science! It was years ago first read this book about a couple genius's and tree house's gone wrong because of error's people's why of thinking ,not the bio engineers errors as to there design ! the book is a fun reminder that open minds can be a great thing ,and with buy a bio engineered tree house a safer thing! hope you all read this book,enjoy!Copernick's Rebellion

THE ONLY WAY THAT I CAN DESCRIBE HOW GOOD THIS BOOK WAS IS TO SAY THAT READING A BOOK TAKES ME MONTHS TO ACCOMPLISH, BUT WITH THIS BOOK I COULD NOT STOP READING EACH FASCINATING DETAIL, AND BEFORE I NEW IT I HAD FINISHED THE BOOK AFTER ONLY A DAY AND A HALF!!!

This story is a blight on literature. Once I was done reading it I felt filled with a deep sense of all-encompassing rage and a sensation that could be described as my soul being coated with slime. I felt dirty from simply having READ this story.

The book more or less involves two scientists playing god. This isn't such a bad thing - I firmly believe in the right of mankind to alter the universe to suit our will with our wits and knowledge. However, the issue here is not that they create horrible abominations and kill countless people, its that they GET AWAY WITH IT. They get away with everything. They murder people. They mind-rape people. They destroy every government institution in the world, and everything man has built, save what they choose to preserve (which isn't much) and no repercussions ever occur.

To start with, they manage to push their designs through well before any are fully tested by blatantly corrupting the political process. In the face of the promise of their youth, old senators and congressmen are quick to allow the designs of their various creations to go through. This turns out to be practically criminal. Their first creation is a kind of tree-house, which grows food and comfortable living and costs nothing to produce. Because there is NO sort of testing whatsoever, 40,000+ people are EATEN by their houses when a defective type of house is produced. Long-term testing - or any testing at all, for that matter - would have prevented this from happening. Once it does happen, however, the scientist who created them shows more remorse at the mistreatment of the trees than the death of 40,000 people.

The entire book goes on and on like this. These two scientists act as though the entire fate of the world is theirs to decide, with no oversight or limitation. And it ends up killing millions. Notably, the governments of the world are not thrilled with their actions, nor their getting away with mass murder - not to mention the economic repercussions of their actions. So they send agents to kill them, where they are likely hiding. The two scientists happily engage in stealthily brainwashing these various agents, turning them into "happy citizens" in their little town, "Life Valley", set in the middle of Death Valley. Others are returned home with instructions to simply kill everyone they can. Once it becomes clear that the mass-murdering, mass brainwashing psychopaths are not possible to deal with through either reason or assassination, the government attempts to nuke their stronghold (not knowing how all of their agents are brainwashed at this point). This fails because the scientists are forewarned. Their means of retaliation is releasing a bug which eats metal. This kills millions, destroys modern society, and leaves no choice but to flock to their organic technology and their bio-engineered enforcers for protection.

The true hero of this story is General Harding, who loses his family to the genetically engineered monsters the two scientists have created, and then endures the loss of his nation. Worst of all, he sees the two individuals who destroyed everything be hailed as the saviors of humanity for rescuing them from a plague THEY created. In the end, he almost manages to kill one of them, but only manages to injure him and put him out for five days, while losing a leg in the process. He fails. Humanity fails. The mad scientists win totally, redesigning society around their monstrosities. There are no longer any schools, any factories or anything else. The two mad scientists now run everything, and can more or less hold the entire world at their whim. And I'm not even bringing the rape into this.

This is a terrible story where the bad guys win totally, the book presents them as the good guys, and humanity is doomed to extinction. I could probably write a small book about all the terrible things in this, but I won't. I'll summarize by saying this: This book is an awful crime against literature, and the author should be burned.