Customer Reviews

Seeds of Earth

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

 

 

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!

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.

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.

Like the previous reviewer, I bought "Seeds of Earth" on the strength of the recommendation given by Iain M. Banks, but unlike him, I would personally rate the book as the best new space opera series by a new author since the appearance of Alastair Reynolds's "Revelation Space" in 2001. When I buy a book by a new author, in particular one of the universe-building space opera genré, I do so with the hope that it will be new and refreshing. "Seeds of Earth" didn't disappoint me. His cast of characters, human and non-human alike, are engrossing, interesting, and often funny. His prose style is unadorned and straightforward. The main story line--first contact of a remote human colony with a future earth and its dubious interstellar allies--is intricately plotted and well paced. Cobley does an especially good job with the time-honored space opera theme of ancient interstellar civilizations and the mysterious artifacts they leave behind. My only regret in having read this book is that I am now forced to wait six months for the sequel, "The Orphaned Worlds," which is not due to be released until April 2010.

This book has some good points but it is not yet up to the standards of Iain Banks. I only bought it because of the Iain Banks endorsement on the cover.
It is OK to pass the time waiting for the next full Iain Banks release. It had good characters reasonably well drawn and a good emerging (and potentially interesting negative view from the human viewpoint) of machine intelligence as compared to the Culture View of Iain Banks.
However this book is unfinished and looked like it had been rushed to print to fill the gap for those waiting for Iain's next novel after "Matter".
"Seeds of Earth" is OK and has a reasonably good initial plot line but instead of publishing it so quickly, the editors should have asked for more depth and a better finish. I have to say that I hate the idea on a first book where the publishers pronounce the first book of the "Humanity's Fire" series.
Wait until the first book is a hit ( or even the second book) before jumping the gun on the series!

That said (and to to put Michael Cobley out of any anxiety I may have caused him) this is still a reasonable book and I will most likely buy the second book.
But if I was your editor, I would have said, add a few more chapters to this first book and make a better finish to your first book - currently it is unfinished and pointing to an 'as yet' undelivered second book !

By the numbers space opera. The type of story where everything is driven by political intrigue and the level of politics show themselves to be pretty rigidly defined in the end. There's some ambivalence among squabbling but well-intentioned factions in the 'good polity', but the evil polities lack any such nuance and it becomes distressingly clear which argument is serving the greater good far too early and forcefully.

Beyond that we have the list of modern space opera points to checklist off in a matter similar to Wheel of Time running through a checklist on post-Tolkien fantasy---gesture at huge scales involved in interstellar war, make a small group of heroes feature decisively in this conflict, have those characters have pencil-thin personalities, make the first book of the trilogy push through big revelations for a sequel hook, show advanced tech for weapons but have little substantive change in daily human life.

It's been done a lot before and it's been done better, and there seems little point to even work up much disappointment over it. To be fair, the ultimate plot did turn out to better I was expecting from the initial setup and on a page by page level it's quite readable. Still, it's not great or even good fiction and it provides compelling demonstration that science fiction can be just as stale, unambitious and over-familiar as fantasy can.

Better than: Titan by Stephen Baxter

Worse than: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

If you are a sci-fi fan who is thoroughly sick of "new wave" sci-fi (as in lets have lots of sexual violence and some otherly sexed aliens) and if you think that Alastair Reynolds is a good author, then youll love this series.

Personally I think that Iain Banks has written some good books Excession etc but he sooooo wants to prove that hes more than just a sci-fi writer and the boring cliched "new wave" motifs that he wears like a constricting uniform detract from his undoubted ability as a story teller.

This is my first Michael Cobley novel as I'm sure it's the first of many who choose to begin this trilogy of Humanity's Fire. Like other trilogies (Cosmonaut Keep (The Engines of Light, Book 1) to name one) or quadrilogies (Lords of the Middle Dark (Rings of the Master, Book 1) to name another) I've completed, Seeds of Earth has the same problem of getting the plot off the launchpad when weighed down with a load of new characters, a shipment of proper nouns and crates full of exotic aliens, planets, flora, fauna, honorific titles... I could go on. It's one of those books which is difficult to find a toehold. It's also one of those books which lends itself to be read in one week in order for the reader to fully understand the setting Cobley has just placed.

The 9-page prologue of Seeds of Earth takes place on Mars when the Solar System is under attack by the Achorga Swarm. Plans have been made to launch fifteen arks to save humanity in case the Swarm prevails. The Swarm has been virulently persistent to only allow humanity to construct and launch three arks. Chapter One opens 150-years after the ark Hyperion has made landfall on the planet Darien. The mix of Scots, Scandinavians and Russians settle the hospitable planet and befriend a race of intelligent bipeds who inhabit the breathable atmosphere of moon.

Living in ignorance about the fate of the earth and the two other arks, the tiny outpost somewhat flourishes. Politics plays a big role in Book One, but not to the extent of what MacLeod includes in his novels (but you can bet they both emphasis the Scottish accent!). I'm not sure why a small outpost needs eight-story building with elevators. I ask the question: Did they strip the ark of the elevator of did they manufacture it? And if they stripped the ark, why did they put the elevator in something as unimportant as an apartment building? Much of the description of the infrastructure of the colony seems unrealistic for only be in operation for 150 years. The citizens also travel by dirigible. I'm getting sick of dirigibles.

Lemme see... only two of the cast have idiosyncrasies enough to be sympathetic with:
There's Kao Chih who's on a long, long journey from his domain (no plot spoiler here) and keeps running into difficulties including a menacing human, menacing pirates and menacing droids. Seems like deep space is a scary place to traverse... honest enough Kao Chih just keeps going in honor of his ancestors. However, one niggling detail remained: when the craft left its main port, it had six days of food for the two crew members. Later, it's quoted as having enough food for three months and nine days at quarter rations for one person. I can't massage those numbers!
Then there's Earthspace ambassador who carries around a virtual simulation of his dead daughter and plays chess with her, even when there's company around. Sounds kind of a disappointment to the government of Earth.

The writing style isn't as grandiose as Banks or as techy as Hamilton... it lays somewhere in between, but I much prefer the lengthy prose of Banks above all others. That said, Seeds of Earth doesn't have loquacious paragraphs like much of modern British Space Opera uses. The vocabulary isn't as challenging as Revelation Space or The Algebraist, but still maintains a certain sophistication. One more niggling point was the 3-time use of the word "concertaed" when describing the operation of a door (which fondly reminds me of Delanay's "the door dilated").

It's definitely NOT bad. It's just unfortunate the the trilogy has to start somewhere! Judging from the conclusion of Book One, I predict that books two and three will be at least 4-star reads. I've already bought Book Two and I've pre-ordered Book Three. How's that for eager!

I've read the whole seeds of earth series and really enjoyed them! Action and cool aliens. my only dislike was having to keep track of so many names. A few parts might be slow in the series, but a really great bit of space opera. I think the latter books might be a bit better.

Kudos to the author. Not sure why people are so hard on this book.

Seeds of Earth is Michael Cobley's first foray into space opera after the Shadowkings fantasy series a few years back. What is written here is pretty much fantasy with technobabble - but you can say that about Star Wars too, so it should not be taken as criticism.

The novel opens with a prologue about the defeat of Earth's armies on Mars against the Swarm, an insectile race trying to overwhelm humanity. As a last throw of the dice, 3 starships were sent out into the universe on random courses, as "seeds of earth". The focus is initially on one ship which has colonised Darien, 150 years after the escape from Earth. On arrival, the colonists had to contend with an insane AI, which has led to distrust of artificial intelligence, and the attempt to create "Enhanced" humans. Darien is a pretty quiet place, with humanity co-exisiting with the native Uvovo people, who seem to be perhaps plant-based, although this is never made clear.

Then Earth discovers the lost colony. Earth was saved from the Swarm by the Hegemony, a race which is heavy on AI implants for its members - a trait some of humanity has adopted. The Hegemony are not particularly benevolent it appears, for all that they saved Earth in the historic past. You can read into that commentary on politics or empires as you so desire.

Another lost colony ship hears of the discovery, and sends an ambassador, who is befriended by an ancient robot on the run.

All of this is the backdrop for a millenia old conflict to rekindle - although who is who, and what is right, is hardly possible to know at this stage. Cobley tells a good story, and raises good questions in the mind of the reader. His universe is vividly drawn, and is a grimy gritty place full of aliens and robots, space stations and asteroid fields. This is an interesting first book in a trilogy, and if it is not groundbreaking, it is at least well written and enjoyable.