Customer Reviews

Lost And Found

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Lost and Found is the first novel in The Taken trilogy. Marcus Walker was a commodities broker from Chicago. Somehow, he found himself camping near the miniature metropolis of Bug Jump, California, to win a bet that he could actually survive outside civilization. Aside from a close encounter with the relatives of a possibly pregnant maiden, Marcus was looking good going in to the home stretch. Then he heard some strange noises around his tent and opened the flap to shine his flashlight directly into the eyes of a very alien countenance.

In this novel, Marcus wakes up the next day in a fairly convincing simulation of his campsite, but not in California. Instead, he is on a starship many lightyears away from home and putting even more distance from Chicago with each second. After some days of solitary confinement in his little diorama, one wall opens up to reveal the neighboring cell, an urban alley scene, and its inhabitant, a now talking dog of unknown ancestry.

After some discussion, the dog lets Marcus address him as George. Strangely enough, he is also a native of Chicago and was taken directly from that city. George has not been as belligerent as Marcus, so he has had the run of the common area for several days and has met many of their fellow captives. Thanks to his universal translator implant, George has discovered much about their captors. Among other info, George has discovered that they were captured for the curiosities market by a mercantile company of Vilenjji.

With some coaching by George, Marcus begins to mingle with the other captives and soon starts working on a plan to gain their freedom. He meets two other captives with exceptional mental and physical powers and brings them into the conspiracy. Despite their blatant disbelief in his goals, Marcus is determined at the least to strike back at their captors and, if remotely possible, to escape from the ship.

In this story, Marcus learns that he is not very special. Only his ability to learn humility keeps him alive. However, he perseveres in his goals, despite all objections; some would say that he is just too dumb to understand his situation, but he doesn't agree ... most of the time (those midnight doubts are hell).

The storyline combines the tale of the ignorant savage introduced to high society with that of the powerless slave escaping from the chains of a hellship. Of course, the author includes a clean, disease-free environment maintained by advanced automata, so the outward forms of this captivity are not as visible, but the psychological environment is just as miserable.

Highly recommended for Foster fans and for anyone else who enjoys light tales of humans among advanced technological societies and sophisticated sapients.

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book reminds me of a Heinlein Juvenile. It a very good read and the first of a trilogy. Having a man and a dog collected for a space zoo is a cool idea and their travails were interesting.

Chicago commodity trader Marc Walker is planning to win a bet by spending a week camping by a beautiful California lake. The strange object in the sky is less initially less interesting than the attractive woman at the bar but when Marc wakes up to discover that his bit of California lakefront has been transported into an alien spaceship, he realizes that he's misplaced his priorities. With the assistance of a talking dog and a group of also-abducted aliens--intended for some sort of alien zoo or perversion--Marc battles despair. Still, what can one human, even if assisted by an overly smart dog, do against an entire spaceship full of alien-tamers?

Some of the captive aliens are smarter than Marc. Some are much stronger. But Marc's drive for success made him a top commodity trader back in Chicago and it eggs him on--to do something rather than wait to be sold into slavery. Unfortunately, he must also deal with the reality that not all of the prisoners want to escape--and there are always some willing to betray him in exchange for food or simply out of cruelty. And even if he did escape, where, exactly would he go on a huge spaceship located billions of miles from the planet he once called home?

Author Alan Dean Foster writes a charming story of alien abduction and human survival. The characters of George the dog, Braouk, the monster, and Sque the vain octopus-creature are amusing and well thought out. LOST AND FOUND is a bit of a throwback to the science fiction of the 1960s, with pure escapism at its heart.

If you're looking to take a break from 'serious' SF and seeking for some pure escapist fun, LOST AND FOUND may be just the ticket.

I love stories where the everyday man is thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and you can't get more extraordinary than being captured by a group of aliens to be sold on the market as a pet. This book is witty and full of suspense, but the key element to this book is Alan Dean Foster's ability to develop deeply flawed, likeable, realistic characters in bizarre yet believable settings. Excellent Book!

I generally like Foster's books, and this one was no exception. It was in all respects a thoroughly enjoyable, quick read.

I particularly enjoyed the encounters with the many varieties of aliens who were abducted with Mark, the human, and George, the enhanced dog. The gang of four -- Mark, George, and two very dissimilar aliens -- make quite a group of conspirators as they plan and execute their escape from the aliens who are planning to sell them as novelties (i.e., slaves).

I'd just like to thank the malcontent above who put just about every spoiler in his review that he could and then proceeded to ruin the ending for those of us who hadn't read the book yet. I tried to report it as inappropriate but nobody took it off.

Despite that...I thought this book was hilarious and funny and I couldn't put it down (and didn't until I was done). I can't wait for the rest of the books in the series. If they're as good as "The Damned" or the "Icerigger" trilogies I'm chomping at the bit for the next installment!

I hope Foster keeps writing for a good long time!

Marcus Walker is abducted by aliens while trying to win a bet that he can't live in isolation by camping in the wilderness. Isolation is now a major factor being confined to his holding pen on board a giant spacecraft where the Velenjii (aliens who abducted him) barely communicate with him. After a while he is aloud out into the grand enclosure, a sort of prison yard which links the cells, where he meets a dog from earth who he names George and many other aliens from different planets. He quickly learns that himself and the other cargo will be sold as slaves and are being psychologically experimented on around the clock before they reach their destinations. Just like in an earth prison there are captives who are friendly and those that are not, as well as those who will squeal on him to the Velenjii if he does anything against the rules. There are also of course visions of escape. The only thing is where can you escape to when there is nothing beyond the ship but outer space?

This is an interesting book which tackles alien abduction and slavery. The major thing I thought was overlooked was why the Velenjii only abduct one or two species from each planet. Surely it would make better economic sense to abduct multiple numbers of the higher value creatures. I also would have liked a more satisfactory ending and would have liked the Velenjii's point of view chapters to have continued throughout the book then just ending where they did. There are better books out there but this is a satisfactory read.

The first I have heard that this is book 1 of something called The Taken Trilogy according to the title in Amazon. It does not say this on the actual book anywhere.

Marc Walker is in the financial business, trading commodities for a living. On a camping trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains, Marc is...yes, you guessed it...abducted by aliens. Marc is abducted by the Vilenjji, seven-foot tall, purple beings, who we come to find out are only interested in Marc Walker for the purpose of turning a profit by selling him to an "advanced" galactic race as a novelty.

Caged on the Vilenjji ship, along with a host of other alien beings intended to be sold for profit, Marc ultimately befriends several of those alien beings as well as one other organism from Earth, a stray dog who he quickly names George, who was given an intelligence boost (including the ability to talk) to make him a better pet for some undetermined galactic race.

Together, along with several others, Marc and George do their best to not only understand the situation in which they have been thrown into against their will, but also, to plan some kind of escape from their captors.

Lost and Found was the first novel I have read by Foster. I found the story to be, overall, well-written, humorous, and easy to get through, though at times, the author tended to be a bit verbose. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the myriad alien organisms that Marc Walker meets and interacts with. Indeed, I do not think I have encountered so many aliens described in so much depth since having read David Brin's Uplift Series. (Foster's notion of a Galactic society was also reminiscent of Brin's Uplift.)

Having been unacquainted with Foster's work in the past, I am glad I took the time to introduce myself to one of his stories. I recommend Lost and Found to anyone; whether you have read other novels by this author, or like myself, are just getting acquainted with Alan Dean Foster.

Fun, quick read. This sometimes humorous book is different from anything else I've ever read... kind of like a serious HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE.

Marcus Walker plays the "All American Boy" who gets abducted by aliens while on a solo camping trip in the Sierra Nevadas. He is eventually paired with the "All American Mutt", abducted from a Chicago alley, whom he calls George... the dog is able to speak, due to brain enhancement and implant technology of the "evil" abducting aliens.

While in captivity aboard a giant alien ship, our heros encounter all sorts of strange oxygen-breathing aliens in a Wild Animal Park setting; and eventually work with some of them to plot an exciting escape attempt.

This is the first book of "The Taken" trilogy.

Alan Dean Foster has a talent for producing science fiction of the beach reading variety. The protagonists are always shoehorned into their roles as villian, hero, or lovable sidekick, and each character has just enough idiosyncracies to keep them interesting. The plots are always clear clashes between good and evil, and the bad guys always get their butts kicked by the end of the book. However, in this case Foster has neglected the polish and tight plotting that typically make his books fun, and instead produced a dry, unexciting, and utterly predictible book. I read it AT the beach, and I can tell you for sure that it's not suitable.

Problems abound from the very start of the book. Foster's style is unnecessarily verbose. It seems as if he were trying for a tongue-in-cheek parady of those high-falutin writers who aren't happy until they've stuffed several adverbs into each sentence, but he doesn't take it far enough or do it consistently enough to be anything other than awkward. For example: "It did not take the edge off their collective consumate weirdness for George to declare that, insofar as he knew, each and every one of the ambulating menagerie was sentient..." The result is a book that never uses a short word where a long one can be substituted, and leaves far too little unsaid. This style is so annoying that it would probably earn the story a low rating even if everything else were great.

Unfortunately, everything else is not great- in fact practically nothing is. The plot is hackneyed and cliched, and not in the entertaining way that some sci-fi can be. The story can be summed up as "John McClane versus an alien spaceship." Usually this is a great setup, but in this case so little happens for so long that the inherent possibilities are never really explored. Of course, there are plenty of stories of high-tech captivity where the protagonist has to invent ingenious methods of escape and/or retribution. But if an author is going to take on a staple plot of the sci-fi genre, he or she has got to show us an original idea or a new take on the predicament to keep our attention. Foster does neither.

Nor does he provide engaging characters to entertain us through the predictable and overdone plot. The hero comes across as oddly flat, probably because of the wretched prose style already mentioned. The aliens are put together like comic book characters, with loving attention paid to their physical appearance but no plausible inner life. And the one character that should have been more fun than any of the others, a stray dog from Chicago abducted and uplifted to full intelligence, comes across as nothing more than a human wearing a dog suit. In the end, I found myself not even caring what happened to these characters.

I'm certain that Foster is setting up further books in this trilogy, but I recommend that you save yourself the time and money and skip them all, starting with this one. Check out the three books in Foster's "The Damned" series (Starting with "A Call to Arms") for a better introduction to this usually entertaining writer.