Customer Reviews

Merro Tree (Del Rey Discovery)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This work is simply marvelous. I intended to read it for one hour last night, but instead stayed up almost the whole night, making me a bit of wreck today, but it was quite worth it. Thank you Ms. Waitman!

Addressing a couple of comments others reviewers made. The only person I saw that disliked the book complains that its sci fi is not complete, that it is more fantasy than sci fi. Well, shucks, mate, if the story is incredible and the characters are deeper than deep, I don't really care if we aren't subjected to long treatises of speculative science. I like hard sci fi, but to castigate the book for *not* being hard sci fi is like castigating classical music because it isn't jazz. And anyway, I don't agree with the criticism, the sci fi is more anthropological, a la LeGuin, with completely believable worlds and races.

Someone else asks to *please* tell us what other books touched us like this one, other than Dune. Here is my little list, in no particular order: Songmaster (Card), Ender's Game (Card), Kindred (Butler), Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), The Dispossessed (LeGuin), Beggars in Spain (Kress), The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien), Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke), The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven)

I guess I come at whatever I read from a different angle, because I'm an English major. At one level, I loved _The_Merro_Tree_ because it's a good story. It's complex, but easy to follow. The attention to detail is amazing, but it doesn't slow down the plot.

At another level, Waitman's done something very special, beyond just a good story, here. One of my lit teachers refers to it as the balance of profit and prophet: storytelling and preaching. She's managed to create a balance where preaching doesn't interfere with storytelling--but if you're looking for a message, you'll find one, and if even if you analyze literature as well as read it, you won't find anything to complain about.

This is one of the best books I've ever read, hands down. And the others are _Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land_, _The_Summer_Queen_, and _Nineteen_Eight-Four_, if that means anything to you.

i read all the reviews about this book and i decided to add mine because nobody seems to catch what in my opinion is the point of this novel.

this work has undoubtedly a sf background: alien worlds and races, spaceships, etc.
it deals with important issues such as the value of art, censorship, the tendency of people to create sort of dictatorial institutions they must afterwards fight against, same sex and interracial relationships.

still one has to admit this is not really pure sf, because ms waitman seems to have decided to use such a (interesting and detailed) background to express her views on some topics. she manages to do it with little inconsistencies and very few slow pages, which is remarkable for a first novel.
this is a bildungsroman (sorry, i do not know the english word) such as goethe's but it is not half as boring or selfindulgent: ms waitman writing might not be spotless but the plot structure is complex, intriguing and achieves a lot of tension.

what one would not expect is that this novel is basically an enthralling if a little exotic love story: the two main characters share a growing, developing, intimate affection depicted in a simple but moving way. one of them is humanoid, the other a sort of giant snake, both are males (and the author is not, one should remember) but disbelief is easily suspended and ms waitman manages to give us a very effective idea of their PHYSICAL desire for each other too. the only point i feel i have to complain about is the idea of both being basically heterosexuals who share love out of a kind of predestination. i found this rather unbelievable; but this is sf, so i imagine her idea is legitimate.

This book is a must-read for artists of any genre. It explores many facets of the life of an artist: the need for self-confidence, the relationship of a work to the artist itself, the need to explore and break boundaries in art. It also explores Mikk's experience with these, and with his own talents. Besides that, this book is a coming-of-age story, interspersed with a very odd courtroom drama.

For the non-artists, this might give an insight into an artist's mind. It's also, plain and simple, a good story, a love story, a multi-world space opera. There are millions of interesting characters, from Maya to Hom to Ahvi to Thissizz; as well as interesting alien races: the Vyzanians, the Droos, the Somalites, the Kekoi, the Freen . . .

Every time I read this book (I've read it five or six times) I become hooked first by the characters, the world-building, the plot, then the deeper implications of everything. A wonderful read. I also heard that she might come out with a sequel. One can only hope . . .

Few science-fiction writers, other than Jack Vance, have dealt with the role of art in an age of interstellar travel. But Katie Waitman makes up for this lack in her gracefully written and compassionate first novel. (and probably you'll discern some similarities with Waitman's Master Mikk and Vance's Cugel the Clever). _The Merro Tree_ demonstrates that when a vibrant endeavor is controlled by the dead hand of a bureaucracy those at the creative end of the process will indeed suffer.

The novel generates a terrific amount of suspense, even though you learn at the outset that Mikk has been taken into custody for having performed a forbidden dance routine. The suspense is all in what got him into the predicament in the first place. You'll probably have the tendency to read rapidly just to see what will happen next, but the advice here is to slow down, because Waitman, a skilled wordsmith, makes every one of her words count. Skim over a passage and you're sure to miss something.

Since the publisher herself makes reference on Amazon's boards to sex with a snake, it gives nothing away to say that Waitman renders the impossible plausible, thus adding a stratum of Freud to a work that already has layers enough.

I just finished reading this book for the fourth time. The Merro Treeis amazing! It's completely cohesive; the plot and the flashbacksfit together in a seamless succession. Every mention connects with the big picture. The labels and titles that Waitman fabricates for alien names and things create a terrific visual image. There's nothing to nitpick about. The story is totally fulfilling and her structure and presentation are flawless.

You might be disoriented reading through the novel for the first time because you're placed right in the thick of things and then transported to Mikk's very beginning on Vyzania -- which is confusing in itself because they have a different culture, social structure, and way of thinking as us. But everything falls together as you read further. You'll pick up on more and more subtleties and cross-references in the text if you read through again. And again. . .

This book had no middle ground. It was by turns creative and stunning, and flat and boring.
Some things Waitman did really well were the character development of Mikk, the memories of his mother, and the Master.
Yet mixed in with this were some horribly written scenes and characters. Thissizz, the famed snake, wasn't described very well. Mikk's brilliance was very overdone, making him less easy to identify with- and making me sick with jealousy, of course.
It's worth reading for the good parts, but the bad parts were painfully so. The relationship between Thissizz and Mikk, while essential to the book, was a strange and uninformed depiction of homosexual love which involved overdone feminity on Mikk's part and loads of love-bird prattle between the two.

This book is simply amazing. As one of the reviews before me states, it really gets into some of the base psychological issues a performer feels as they learn and atempt to master their craft and shape into an art that is their own. If you don't recognize parts of yourself in Mik you'll see a friend. I am an avid reader and this is one of the few books I have enjoyed time and time again.

I have looked for another book by this author every single time I have been in a book store since, hoping to find another gem like this one. Thank you, Katie.. and I hope your writing the next one now!

This story is about the redeeming power of beauty and integrity. The main character, Rikk, is a misfit child, abused by his parents, who becomes a great entertainer. This gives him too much power, and the Stalinist trade unionist who regulate the entertainers try to bring him down.

This book works well because the characters are well defined, and they relate to each other in a believable way. The plot is well structured, moving seamlessly between different times. Rather like the main character in the Fountainhead, Rikk triumphs because he remains true to his art and himself.

This is real science fiction, although there is little in the way of fancy gadgets. But there is no end of strange tribes and creatures, and interplanetary travel. This is a book that I like to re-read (it takes me about 2 hours), and recommend to my friends.

Some sci-fi has great characterizations but lacks the "gee whiz" factor that makes the genre so much fun. These stories often read like classic tales transported to outer space. Another type of sci-fi spends a lot of effort creating alternative worlds with complex biology/ecology/socially--and forgets to include interesting characters with whom the reader can identify. Ms. Waitman manages to create some of the most well rounded, memorable characters that I have come across since the last time I read Dickens. At the same time, she satisfies the urge to "explore strange new worlds."