Customer Reviews

The Meek

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

 

 

The author has seen fit to provide his own book with a five-star review, and I'm sure he feels he did an excellent job. I beg to differ. Although the background is intriguing, it seemed to me like all these characters suffered from (to use a psychological term) a lack of affect. No one seems to really get excited about anything, nobody ever panics or even feels a sense of urgency when confronted with a life-threatening situation, everyone is always completely level-headed and matter-of-fact. When nobody else seems interested by the goings-on in a story, it's hard for the reader to find them interesting either. A strange blue woman giving you telepathic powers by kissing you? That would seem miraculous to me, but the characters might have well have yawned for all the real interest they displayed in this remarkable development. The lead character blithely makes the decision to abandon the world he knows and lie to his parents about it without even a hint of inner turmoil. These characters aren't merely cardboard, as you would find in even well-regarded hard SF by e.g. Asimov or Hogan -- they barely react to anything at all. It is difficult to care whether these people live or die because they never seem alive to begin with. On the whole the novel just can't rise above the cold, dead weight of its characters. I really hate writing a bad review... but this just isn't the quality of SF I'd expect to read after seeing five-star reviews... Sorry, Mr. Mackay.

I enjoyed "The Meek" right from the start. The chief protagonists are all burnt out whether by disappointments, personal loss or the struggle to survive. The arriving engineers engage an environment in Ceres which is completely unenvisaged by anyone. Here they meet a human derived /designed race who call themselves, the Meek. The Meek are not only alien but possess a proven and very worrying pedigree of savagery. Yet, despite their motivations, their responses, and even their physiology and appearance, it is the achievement of this author that they are revealed as fully human.The last portion of the book takes the characters to another very different world where the coalition of new and old humans discover their dependence on each other. Thoughtful, excellent (but never preachy) SF.

"The Meek" by Scott Mackay is an incredible science fiction novel that uses shopworn genre concepts to create a fresh narrative of sometimes unbearable suspense. "The Meek" is SF in the old-fashioned tradition: When a survey ship is sent to inspect an asteroid habitat thirty years after a bloody civil uprising and attempted extermination, the crew finds that the habitat is populated by genetically modified humans with superior strength and intelligence. Stranded and unsure whether the unsuspected inhabitants can be trusted, the central characters are pitted against time as the government demands the asteroid's unconditional surrender. Part technothriller and part evolutionary detective story, "The Meek" builds to a rousing climax that shows Mackay is every bit as good at writing about humans as he is at depicting alien landscapes and the consequences of biotechnology.

When I first started reading The Meek, I had the impression that I had picked up a trilogy in the middle. The author describes action that is crucial to the story, but took place in the recent past. While it threw me for a loop originally, I was drawn into the story immediately. Scott Mackay gives the reader enough of the background behind the story so that you understand the characters, and care about the outcome.

This book is not a part of a trilogy, but I wish it were. There is plenty of material to write a story of the "pre-Meek" asteroid society, and another could be written about the ending journey. Without giving away any of the plot, it's difficult to write a review. The story begins as a recovery effort is underway to restore an asteroid habitat that was lost. The children of the neighboring asteroids need this habitat to grow up healthy. In an effort to provide for the children, many ethical decisions must be made, and this is what's good about the story. Scott Mackay doesn't preach any particular view, and the characters have good intentions behind their particular actions, and end up having to live with their decisions.

I hope that more will read this book.

The story was enought to keep me reading, I'll grant that. But the details were like some teenager's first attempt. Asteroids are equipped with singularities to create gravity, but travel from Ceres to Earth is too expensive. If you can create singularities of planetary mass, little trips in the solar system are not going to bother you.

Spacesuit oxygen supplies are calibrated to the second, people are in no distress until the timer goes "click" then they're suffocating.

The orbital mechanics are positively Velikovskian in their convenience at times.

Some parts seem informed by video games, rather than SF.

Some of the writing is turgid, with sentences cluttered with more numbers than words.

I think I got this free at Torcon - I hope I didn't pay cash for it!

How is this book getting 5 star reviews? The characters are boring and unimaginative, and all apparently suffer from a total lack of believable emotional response. Supposedly abandoned base filled with hostile blue mutants? Meh. Life support crisis and serious threat of a slow, painful death? Yawn. Imminent inter-solar war with super mutants? Whatever. I've seen people get more worked up over lint.

If this was ever made into a film it would be a $300 million dollar Michael Bay blockbuster with a cast made up of summer stock rejects. In fact even then I doubt you'd get performances wooden and drab enough.

In short this is a few hours of my life I WANT BACK!

THE MEEK is thought-provoking, compelling and filled with clarity of thought. The setting on the asteroid Ceres is extremely well developed as is the race of genetically altered humans who ultimately are the blue-skinned "Meek," able to withstand almost no atmosphere and intense environmental conditions. Scott Mackay has superb "world-building" skills that are not often seen outside a handful of classic SF writers.

While the plot moves along at a brisk pace, there is a slow but steady revelation of characters' pasts which form a complex history of the evolution of "The Meek" from human to "Orphan," to their current level of development. This back-story provides the motivations and logic behind the novel and is managed in a sure-handed manner. I found myself frequently wondering about both the ethics and possibilities that such drastic genetic alterations could cause both to the existing structure of human kind-and our future place in the universe. A satisfying read that gives you much to mull over once the story is finished.

"Mackay does a very workmanlike job of creating a world and its people, and poses some intriguing ethical problems within a satisfyingly complex plot." SF Chronicle

"...extraordinarily piercing and powerful ... the backdrop of Ceres is well-constructed and thorough ... an engaging story that is worth a read." Locus