Customer Reviews

Lovelock (Mayflower)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The setting for the novel "Lovelock" - first in a projected trilogy - is a massive 'ark' of a spacecraft departing the solar system to search for a new habitable planet. The real story is that of its title character, a capuchin monkey who's been genetically engineered to the point of human or above-human intelligence, and who serves as a 'witness', using implants to record the activities and lives of their human masters. Like all witnesses, Lovelock has had an innate affection for and loyalty to his 'master' programmed into him, hence the disturbing accuracy of his name. Even so, the monkey is astute enough to recognize what humanity is stepping towards here - 'slavery without shame' - by developing animals to human levels of intellect (or perhaps to the human Variety of intellect would be more appropriate; human society in the novel seems quite oblivious to the prospect that some animals might already have their own fairly high intelligences of a different perspective that's more suited to their individual life patterns) and engineering them to, in effect, like it. The terrifying thing is I can see this potentially happening, and possibly well before humanity is ready to attempt interstellar travel.

The unforseen catch is that Lovelock eventually grows to want his freedom. What though, could a single small monkey do about his situation? Given the vast mental capacities programmed into him (even among the enhanced witnesses Lovelock seems to be quite the intellectual prodigy) and the fact that it never seems to occur to any human that a mere animal could do anything But docilely serve them, the answer might be surprising.

The ending of this book is mind-blowing. Science Fiction has delivered some great endings of awe and discovery and revelation, but few that pack this kind of emotionally hammering punch. Few novels of any sort have delivered this kind of finale, where you can scarcely believe the words you're reading on the page. In terms of the science/ethics condundrums potentially faced in humanity's future (well actually I guess you might as well say the present in this day of advanced biotechnology, A.I., etc.) this is along the thoughtlines of works like "Frankenstein", "Jurassic Park", "Monkey Boy" or the prequel portions of "The Animatrix". A great - and emotionally turmultuous - gem of science fiction that could open a lot of eyes to the power of the SF field at its best; and to a host of real-life questions that are becoming more relevant day by day, as a possible future version of the human race is viewed through the eyes of one of their new slaves.

I have to say I'm biased, having been a huge Orson Scott Card fan for years. But in spite of the slight problems in this story, I loved it. I agree with other readers -- where are the second and third books?? You don't need the subtitle, "Mayflower Trilogy," to notice that there are loose threads that are obviously left for subsequent books to sort out.
I have re-read this book multiple times, and find myself speculating on whether the 2nd and 3rd books would be from Lovelock's point of view as well, or perhaps Diana's, Peter's, Neeraj's, or even Causo's.
We all know Orson Scott Card generally has more on his plate than he can handle at any one time. People have been pestering him for more books in the Alvin Maker saga. Until he came out with Shadow of the Giant, they waited impatiently for THAT. He has the feminist series featuring women of the Bible. AND he writes "other" books as well -- poetry, vaguely supernatural books (I don't know a better classification for Lost Boys and Homebody) and non-fiction as well. I expect he just doesn't have time to come back to little Lovelock and his pals on the Ark.
But I don't have to like it. Maybe if he and Katheryn Kidd already have the outline of the rest of the Lovelock saga, SHE could write it. I don't know if this is the solution, but the crew of the ark have been hanging around in limbo for SEVERAL years now, I think it's high time they were allowed to progress on their journey.

My vote is, READ MORE ORSON SCOTT CARD!!! He doesn't HAVE any books I DON'T recommend. And don't get caught up in any particular genre -- his historical fiction is just as well -thought out as his science fiction, so make sure you don't miss his book, Saints, for instance.

Robert Heinlein's "Jerry Was a Man" and David Brin's Uplift series have approached this problem before: when does an 'enhanced' animal become human? And if he's human, does he have a soul? What moral imperatives apply to such a being? How should such a being be treated? With this book, we get a deep and different look into this as we follow Lovelock, a genetically enhanced and psychologically conditioned monkey as he performs his tasks as a 'witness', a being specifically engineered to record every waking moment and action of a person deemed so significant that their lives are worthy of such attention.

The object of Lovelock's attention is Carol Jeanne Cocciolone, premier gaiologist, who has decided to travel on the Ark to the nearest stars in search of a habitable planet. By his conditioning, Carol Jeanne is Lovelock's love, his obsession, his paragon of virtue, a person he will do anything to protect. Along with Carol Jeanne comes her husband and his parents and her own two children, though none of them truly have any of the skills that are needed by the Ark, as a perk to entice Carol Jeanne to come. Seeing these people through Lovelock's eyes is a quick eye opener: the mother-in-law as a status hungry moocher and lay-about and the father-in-law and husband as wimps who meekly go along with just about anything the mother-in-law wants. Not the best group of people to try and integrate into a society that is supposed to be full of some of the best and brightest Earth has to offer - but as quickly becomes obvious, quite a few of the other travelers on the Ark are just as bad in their own ways.

It is partially this quite dysfunctional setup that begins to set Lovelock off on his own journey of self-discovery, finding that he is not just a mute 'witness', but has thoughts and desires of his own - desires that eventually allow him to defeat some of the conditioning imposed on him, to remove Carol Jeanne from the pedestal she was placed on by his conditioning, and to take prohibited action to try and implement some of those desires.

Lovelock continues to grow as person throughout this book, slowly wrapping the reader inside his problems. And his problems are those that all humans face, questions of morality: should I keep silent or tell a white lie to avoid harming someone? Do my own desires outweigh the good of the community? Why must I obey those strictures imposed by my surrounding society? Can I commit murder to save myself? At the end, there is only one possible conclusion: Lovelock is as human as you or I, and should be awarded both the rights and responsibilities of that condition.

Characters other than Lovelock are also well drawn, though some of them are almost caricatures, but each is definitely an individual worthy of some attention. Less well imagined is the Ark itself. I had quite a problem with a design that required that functioning ecologies be totally ripped upped and moved, right down to the dirt, whenever the ship changed from spin-induced gravity to an acceleration induced one - this is poor design, and there are other possible constructions that would obviate this need. The computer system of the ship as described is also less than what it could be - even given the state of the art when this book was written, I cannot imagine any system that would still leave back-door passages into the administrative privileges. Finally, the idea that the Ark would be planned with multiple communities of 'like-minded' individuals doesn't seem very plausible to me.

But all of these problems are comparatively minor. This is a very good study of an individual growing to be a man, in all senses of the word, and is worthy of reading by everyone, from libertarians to xenophobes.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Whenever I long for good hard Sci Fi I reach for one of my well worn volumes from the Masters: e.g.:Heinlein and Asimov. Cards Sci Fi is, however, in many ways much more refined. His dialogue and characters don't feel as stilted (or, in the case of Heinlein, preachy). This does not come as a surprise. After all, Card is a master at characterization. But sometimes his deep characterization takes away, rather than enhances, a read as it does in the case of Lovelock. Please! Do we need ANOTHER book from Card about dysfunctional families? About poor interfamily relationships filled with internecine psychological warfare (carried to an even greater extreme in his Ships of Earth series)? Card NEEDS this type of characterization so badly that he fills this book with conradictions rather than try to write something without resorting to tired intrafamily drama. For instance, near the end of the book (I'm not giving away any important plot lines here for you that have not yet read it) he writes that "the Ark had been clearly limited to heterosexuals in order to maximize the breeding potential... on the new world." If this was the case, why does he fill his Ark with others with no clear contribution, much less breeding potential.. i.e. the idle grandparents and virtually every other character introduced (most of whom he obviously puts there for us to loathe). The Ark idea has been done many times before and is an excellent plot device but populating it with no good ne-er do well gossippers really caused me to sit back and loose my sense of suspension of disbelief. No one would go to the incredible expense of funding such a journey and then populate it with such idiots.
That said, the enhanced animal witness idea is marvelous. Lovelock is a wonderful character. I can't wait to read the next book just to see what happens to him. His thoughts about slavery and the human soul are fine reading. I just hope I don't have to wade through even more dysfunctional families to get to the real meat of this book. If I want to listen to dysfunctional people I'll just listen to Dr. Laura's radio show a while to get my fill. Still, I read it in two nights and mildly enjoyed it.

I clicked through some of the earlier reviews. First, let me list the cons:

There's a whole lot of unnecessary and poorly implemented 'social drama'. It's mostly in just one family, but practically everyone there has some kind of problem that they're just too obstinate to talk about, much less fix. As in real life, most of the problems rose from just 'hushing it up' and 'not making a scene' until it got to be so much they did something regrettable.

Another con is that there's a few things you'll just have to 'take for granted'. One: that they allow gossiping morons onto the ark which will represent mankind in space (totally acceptable since the essence of the book is that the 'social' atmosphere must be kept in a community), and two, that the main character just automatically has good skill with computers. Slightly explained, but not really.

Also, even though the main character is mute, yet supposedly literate, the entire tone of the book (written in first person), is drastically better than the few times he does write to the characters. I think he communicates about five sentences (at most) and sounds "like a monkey that can type" each time, instead of the satyrical and amusing comments throughout the book. This is explained because he's hiding his 'awareness' I suppose, but it's still a little jarring once you notice it.

There are good things to this book, which is why I rate it five stars. First of all, if you look closely, you'll see how Lovelock learns to commit the sins that at the beginning of the book, he despised humans for committing. He does the kind of soul-searching and meaning-searching I did when I was a kid. It's very easy to identify with this primate, to the point where you wouldn't mind throwing a little monkey dung at something that annoys you.

Anyhoo, if it was going to revolve around Lovelock, I'd like it, but it seems to revolve more around the social drama at times. And the social drama is kind of overdone, it's hard to see how any group of people could get so twisted (quite unlike the fairly good social drama in Xenophobia).

But anyway, if you somehow wound up on this page, then you're interested enough in this book that I think you'll enjoy it. It's short enough that you should slip through it in a couple nights.

Card's Ender novels were entertaining, but Lovelock is something else. Kidd throws in more personality for the book, and gives the characters the flaws needed to make them seem more real, and less legend.

Lovelock is a witness- a genetically enhanced animal with a metal jack in the back of his head. He follows a noted scientist, documenting her life. She takes him on a massive starship bound for a distant planet. He watches as her dysfunctional family falls apart around her ears, and gains a new awareness of himself. The ending is a cliffhanger.

The next in the series is eagerly awaited.

Well I read this book not long after it came out so I have to go from memory. But as I recall I devoured it. It was very standard card. I'd have probably given it 5 stars but I'm kinda miffed that I read the book in like 95 or 96 and here it is almost 2000 and they haven't written the second. The person who whined about the book being offensive is being a bit puritanical in my view. Especially in how sexuality is used in the book, secondly its a monkey and well monkeys are well...monkeys. The comment that this is kiddy sci fi I believe was a bit unjustified, the book is not for a non-sci-fi or fantasy reader. I'd say it incorporates elements of both. Secondly it requires you to put yourself into the moral issues. The characters aren't flat and uncomplicated like your run of the mill StarTrek book

I very much enjoyed this book. My only difficulty was with the unbelievibility of some of the background characters. The story though is well written and gives one an inside view of an enslaved being's realization of his situation. I'm partial to thinking novels and this is one as well as being a good tale. I've been anxiously awaiting the sequel

The story reads well and remains interesting all the way to the end. There are no real cliff hangers although there is a little mystery about who is going to get murdered before the end of the novel. The story is told in diary form accounts written after most of the action in the story has occurred. The monkey talks about a murder that he has committed. There are a lot of dysfunctional people in the story at times any of them seems to be a good candidate for being murdered. It is actually these strongly annoying characters that made the story for me, they are well portrayed by the authors.

The technology part of the story doesn't always quite hold together especially if you know even a little bit about computer science. And the tech. is dated a little as well since the story was published way back in 1994.

The collaborative effort by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn Kidd produced a fun and imaginative book. Written from the unusual point of view as a story in the fist person of one of the characters. Card's style of character development and is quite evident. Although some of the characters remind me a bit too much like characters in an earlier novel. The humor of Lovelock's point of view is obviously created by Kathryn Kidd. I feel that this is a strong collaborative effort and the framwork is picked up by other authors.