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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A clunky first effort,
This review is from: Seeds of Earth (Humanity's Fire, Book 1) (Paperback)
Call me churlish, but when a book has a quote from Iain M. Banks on the cover declaring "Proper galaxy-spanning Space Opera" then I'm going to expect something along the lines of a Banks novel.But unfortunately, "Seeds of Earth" aint that. Sure it's a weighty novel, chock full of characters - both alien and human - and a series of set piece chapters...but it is missing the subtle emotional threads that tie the mosaic together, and more importantly for me, it is missing the depth of vision that makes for outstanding science fiction. Cobley populates the galaxy in what seems to be a near future timeline with dozens of alien species (one of which aggressively attacks Earth in the 'first contact' scenario that opens the book) that have come and gone with numerous wars over millenia. Given the energies involved in these wars, I had a continual niggle that surely, with all the telescopes trained on the skys, some boffin somewhere would have noticed said aliens. As I said, a niggle, but one of many that piled up as I waded my way through the book. A more serious niggle was that each of the aliens we meet have essentially human motivations. It may be true that petty politics is indeed "galaxy spanning", but it ensures the plot stays ordinary. Basically, Cobley gives us good aliens and bad aliens (and indeed, good Human's and bad Human's). I prefer shades of gray with all the underlying uncertainty and corresponding tension it provides and was disapppinted that over 600-odd pages it was white hat and black hat and nothing in between. And then there is the technology....or lack of it This is where Cobley seriously lets the side down. This is a future devoid of any serious consideration for impact and consequence. That opening sequence of first contact shows Humanity as possessing FTL drives, yet strangely we can't have used them because we've not really left Earth yet. Hmmm... And many characters have an embedded AI including one of the main characters, yet a simulcrum of this guys dead daughter needs a seperate player so he can see her. Why? Surely if you can load an AI in your skull, you can load a simulcrum of your dead daughter as well? The same character, a diplomat who routinely goes FTL between planets, can't seem to get his head around there beings "layers" to the universe. Oh and he goes potty all to readily for no apparent reason. Work stress perhaps, but it seemed very unlikely to me and sadly, missed steps like this abound. All of which is small potatoes to the main problem I had with "Seeds of Earth". The Universe shattering premise - which I won't spoil, don't worry - made no sense to me. It all seemed so pedestrian, a kind of 'Gaia is Good' (or God perhaps) stance for no obvious reason. Indeed, many sections of the novel reminded me uncomfortably of "Avatar", to the point that I had to check authorship of "Avatar" just to reassure myself Cobley was not the original source of Cameron's epic. He's not, that I could find at least, but the themes in "Seeds of Earth" are strikingly similar and not in a good way. So, I'm definitely a disappointed reader. I purchased this for a flight to Indonesia, and normally I'll munch through a good novel on the plane, forgoing sleep and the inflight entertainment both. This time I crunched my way through a few chapters then gave up and watched a movie instead. It ultimately took me three weeks to finish the novel, which is a powerfully long time for me. Basically, Iain M. Banks notwithstanding, for me this was less a space opera and more a sci-fi train wreck and I certainly won't be buying the next volume for a long haul flight any time soon...or at all!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A promising start to a new series,
By
This review is from: Seeds of Earth (Paperback)
Seeds of Earth is the first volume in Michael Cobley's new space opera trilogy, published by Orbit in March 2009, here's the synopsis form the back cover:
"First contact was not supposed to be like this. The first intelligent species to encounter mankind attacked without warning and swarmed locust-like through the solar system. Merciless. Relentless. Unstoppable. With little hope of halting the savage invasion, Earth's last, desperate roll of the dice was to send out three colony ships, seeds of Earth, to different parts of the galaxy. Earth may perish but the human race would live on... somewhere. More than a century later, the human colony on the planet Darien has established a new world for humanity and forged a peaceful relationship with the planet's indigenous race, the scholarly, enigmatic Uvovo. But there are secrets buried beneath the surface of Darien's forest moon. Secrets that go back to an apocalyptic battle fought between ancient forerunner races at the dawn of galactic civilisation. Life is about to change for the last children of Earth, as surprises spring from below and above. How will the Darien colonists react when all they have worked for is overturned at a stroke? And what choices will the Uvovo make when their true nature is revealed and the skies grow dark with enemies?" The Uvovo and the human settlers of Darien and its forest moon have been cut off from the planet they once though lost and the other colony ships that fled Earth. Living alone on this planet has bought them together and they have built a thriving civilisation after a bitter war against their ship AI. After a mysterious event that caused life on Darien to be wiped out 100,000 years ago, investigations are ongoing to try and uncover the cause of this event. The Uvovo that live on the forest moon can shed no light on the matter, although the ancient and mysterious Pathmaster - an entity long thought dead - has now shown himself to the Uvovo in preparation for the events that are converging on Darien. These events are kicked off by a ship from Earth announcing its arrival to the colony of Darien. Of course, the questions are raised on how Earth survived, what became of the Swarm and why are they now reaching out to this one lost colony. With a great Hegemony in this part of the galaxy responsible for Earth's salvation and subsequent expansion, humanity are finally living amongst the stars with advanced AI technology. With the discovery of the colony on Darien, a planet in the middle of a disputed section of space, the Hegemony and Earth representatives travel to assist wherever they can. With political maneuvering from both sides at every turn the Darien colony has its hands full, and with more and more revelations coming to light the decisions they have to make bear more and more weight. Although the above is a general outline for the events in Seeds of Earth it doesn't do it justice without getting into the realm of spoilers. What Michael Cobley has done here is create a wonderfully vivid future that has been realised to the full. We have the large scale sense of wonder, from the perspective of the Darien colonists as the Earth ship arrives at the planet, the representative from Earth encountering the colony, and that of Kao Chih, a representative from one of the other lost colonies who himself is on the way to Darien for reasons I won't go into here. Everything that is done is what I love in space opera - a huge canvas, plenty of action, political sub-plots, hidden secrets, a well executed story and some good characterisation. Seeds of Earth also contains one of the things I have a love/hate relationship with: info-dumping. If done well it can blend into the story and enrich it in many ways, if not then it can make the book drag and be a chore to read. Although not all of it is perfectly balanced in Seeds of Earth, I had only a few problems while reading, none of which was bad enough to stick out terribly and only a minor bump along the road. As far as the characters go, there isn't so much a main character in Seeds of Earth, more like a good cast that all contribute to the story in their own way. Greg, a Darien colonist who is working on the excavation, is the closest we come to a main character for the main plot of the story. He is both likable and believable, something he has in common with all characters we encounter. Kao Chih is also a close contender, but his story is one of adventure, exploration and travel, all separate from the main story, although he is my favourite and Cobley uses humour to good effect during this sub plot - a regular occurrence that always put a smile on my face is the way that not one person he meets pronounces his name correctly, in fact they all pronounce it differently! The rest of the characters feel well rounded and supportive to the main story, each giving that little bit to the whole. All in all I enjoyed Seeds of Earth considerably. It isn't perfect, but the foundation it gives for the future books is solid and the consequences of actions here will make for very exciting reading. Here's another author that is being added to my buy-on-release list and one that is a breath of fresh air into the genre with an intriguing, complicated and a well executed story. Highly recommended.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I Need An Editor - Help Me Before I Write Again,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Seeds of Earth (Paperback)
This story is really a clever idea, and reminds me of space opera's I used to read at age 14. Pretty much because everyone it the book acts like they are 14. Unlike the writers then, who had grown up professionally paid by the word (and were harshly edited in the process) this book screams on every page for a fast forward button. As one example, a lengthy bit of business is played out, in front of people who give first person accounts and explain the context and importance - cool. Shortly afterwards, another character calls a third on the phone, who has nothing to do with it, and REPEATS the whole story. A character takes a zeppelin ride at night, alone, from A to B. Instead we learn that the pilot is chatty, tells sarcastic jokes, is a Finn, and the name of his hometown and where it is - and we NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN. In a scene in a hotel, where it could say, we went up to his room, instead its we climbed the spiraling staircase, and at the landing an attendant clad in a green uniform seated in a booth pointed us down the corridor. AAAUUGHHHH. This is a good solid book trapped inside a doorstop, a scary exercise promising two more volumes to come that could be... Well you get the idea, six or seven chapters apiece. Save your money.
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