Customer Reviews

The Seeds of Time (Bantam Spectra Book--T.P. Verso)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you're a fan of Ms. Cherryh (and I certainly am), you'll be delighted with this book. It has a dark intensity, quite a few surprises, and strong characters of both genders-- it kept me reading well after my bedmate had gone to sleep. The writing is consistently excellent, much better than most first books you encounter, and there are a number of interesting ideas that keep the book from ever drifting into formula. Not only did I love it, I liked Ms. Kenyon's second book, Leap Point, even better. What can I say, she's made it onto my automatic buy list.

This Story of Time travel, sacrifice, and conflict grip me from the start. You have a memorable heroine, Clio Finn who comes from a troubled past. She is a dive pilot. Dive Pilots dive into the time stream of the universe to seek out seeds to save a dying earth. When Clio finds seeds from the planet Niang she initiates a adventure of violence passion, and betrayal that will keep you glued to the book.

The good parts:

1. SF ideas: parallel universes approached not quite as usual and an interesting means of space travelling by time-travelling thus solving the eternal problem of FTL

2. The picture of a grim but not so impossible future with an ecologically devastasted Earth. I know, we've seen all this before, but it never fails to impress me, it's sooo possible...

3. The characters, most of them. Except of the fact that most of the good guys were women and most of the bad guys men. This is not very credible (and it's a woman saying this).

The bad parts:

1. The fact that the book was basically split into two distinct parts: the first half and the second half. They were connected through the actions, but the characters are entirely different. Except for Clio and Harper Teeg (the bad guy) there was nobody from the first half of the book which appeared in the second. It was kind of difficult to get used to some people just to have them replaced afterwards by another ones. The ones in the second half of the book were better, though.

2. Too much sexuality! The beggining of the second half, the part in the quarries, rambled on and on about how Clio was forced to give sexual favours in order to survive. It may have been true, but I hate it when a SF book spends too much time on this. And what about her relationship with Hillis? I didn't get the point there. It never seemed real to me, and it seemed entirely pointless. What did it matter whether she loved him or not? It was not connected to the action in any way, it had no influence on it.

3. Harper Teeg: the main bad guy. I have always thought that as a writer, one should be able to create a credible negative character without making him mad. I mean, he could have had other reasons for his actions than his delusions of grandor and fixation with Clio (sex again...).

Other than that, it was enjoyable reading.

Kay Kenyon is absolutely amazing. This story about a Dive Pilot named Clio Finn and her adventures in Space/Time Travel kept my face buried in this book from start to end with very few breaks. All good authors have strong points in their writing which breaks down into 3 or 4 different styles of writing. You get some that are proficient in one and sometimes two, Kay Kenyon is a true marvel as she excels in all ways and in my opinion is one of the finest writers whose work I have had the pleasure to read in a long time.

Why only three stars. Weeellll. At times I found the story was a little drawn out in places and was retelling what I alread knew. But what do you expect in a first novel? Perfection???

So, this is a story of an earth that is dying of pollution (hey, that's us!) The population is doing nothing because the government and large corporations have it all under control. But they don't. They just don't want to panic the population.

So, can a group of pilots "Dive" back to a fertile planet and bring back plants that can survive polluted earth, or are we going to fizzle out of existence?

For the answer to that one you will just have to read the book.

I got this book because I was looking for scifi and it was recommended if I liked Octavia Butler, I'd probably like this one. Well, I did! It is one of those books (much like Butler's) that keep you reading because you've got to know what's going to happen next. And when you try to predict the next move, she throws you a curve. I just found out that Kay Kenyon has a new one out-I'm going buy it right now. You should too!

What I mean by raw is that Clio, the main character, isn't a pretty picture. Strung out on drugs and not the smartest person she is never the less able to get you into her corner as you make your way through this book. If you have problems with time elements, such as the future and the past, etc. then you won't like this book because the author jumps from time period to time period which means Clio is living differently in all of them. I liked it because it kept me on my toes.

Put some time aside, because once you start this novel, you won't want to stop.

This is an great sci-fi action adventure with interesting characters. Although Clio does begin to feel a bit like Job at times, the author keeps you guessing as to how she will get out of yet another impossible situation. Good quick enjoyable

A good action/adventure SF. It started on the first page and never let up. I kept thinking that this would make a great movie. There are great plot twists and the plot didn't get predictable till near the end. Be ready to finish this in one sitting, it's hard to put down once it gets going.

Starts out very predictable, but by the middle of the book, the plot has many twists and turns. I ended up not being able to put it down and even spent two days of my Florida vacation reading as fast as I could to find out what happens.