Amazon.com Review
Sarah Zettel writes classic SF with the classic subjects (space travel, alien worlds, exotic cultures, inventive scientific extrapolation), but infused with a thoroughly modern and socioculturally savvy sensibility. It's no wonder she established herself as a major player in SF with only two novels. Her debut,
Reclamation, won the
Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Philip K. Dick Award finalist; her second novel,
Fool's War, was a
New York Times Notable Book of 1997. Her third novel,
Playing God, will win her even more acclaim, with its strong writing, terrific world-building, complex characterizations, and genuinely alien aliens. And its sheer scope. Rarely has a book been more accurately titled than
Playing God.
The multi-planetary corporation Bioverse hires biotechnologist Lynn Nussbaumer to save the world--namely, the planet All-Cradle, home of the Dedelphi. A genetically engineered bio-weapon has mutated out of control and threatens the entire Dedelphi race with extinction; in desperation, the violently tribal Dedelphi have signed their first planet-wide cease-fire and sought off-world help. But Dr. Nussbaumer's only chance of success requires evacuating and re-creating the whole planet--a plan that breaks the fragile truce among the millennia-old Dedelphi enemies and also divides their human allies, risking the quick destruction of all, in a fast- paced, intricate, masterfully plotted narrative of intrigue and betrayal. --Cynthia Ward
From Publishers Weekly
In the future, the Dedelphi, a race ravaged by eons of warfare, contracts with Earth's Bioverse Corporation to save their planet from ecological disaster. Dr. Lynn Nussbaumer spearheads the massive effort, which involves relocating the planet's entire population to orbiting space cities while Bioverse cleanses the ecosphere with its custom nanotechnology, simultaneously reaping whatever rare organisms and bacteria its workers discover. Meanwhile, Praeis Shin t'Theria, a member of the Dedelphia and a fascinating, credible and humane alien character, has returned with her family from exile to her home planet at the request of the ruling Queens-of-All. The matriarchy suspects that the Bioverse effort may be a trick of their enemy clan, the Getesaph, to kill all t'Theria, and so they command Praeis Shin to shore up whatever support she can for the planet's shaky truce. But despite Nussbaumer's and Praeis Shin's efforts, open fighting erupts, with the Getesaph commandeering one of the space cities. Abduction, corporate betrayal and murder ensue, forcing Nussbaumer to choose between abandoning the Dedelphi to a suicidal fate, enforcing a kind of corporate martial law or opening a dialogue to a truly cooperative effort that would help the Dedelphi save their planet and establish a lasting peace. Readers will embrace this complex, multidimensional saga (Zettel's hardcover debut, and the best of her three novels) not only for its depiction of exotic alien civilization and its action-packed plot but also for its pertinent themes of tribalism, intolerance and ecological disaster. (Nov.) FYI: Zettel's first novel, Reclamation, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
