Signs of Life [Hardcover]

Cherry Wilder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

The renowned Cherry Wilder returns to Rhomary Land, the setting of several of her most notable short stories and of her novel, Second Nature. In Signs of Life the crew of a ruined starship flees in lifeboats to a nearby hospitable world--only to be nearly destroyed by their own internal conflicts. How they survive and are reunited with the humans native to the planet is a powerful and affecting story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Second Nature (1982), Wilder imagined a party of interstellar castaways and the society they formed on the planet Rhomary. Now, centuries later, more castaways have landed on that planet, unaware that others have preceded them. The survivors of the starship Serendip Dana are a mixed lot comprised of its regular crew, members of a paramilitary unit known as the Silvos and devotees of the Zen-like Kamalin Movement. Assisting all three groups are the oxper, enormously competent androids. It's soon clear that the greatest challenge facing the castaways is their anger and the violence it breeds, including several murders; only the intervention of the oxper and of a courageous female officer prevents still more deaths. Wilder's characters speak a futuristic slang and tech-talk that's difficult to decipher, and their development is limited, particularly among the Silvos. The oxper, however, are fascinating creations. Intelligent, physically strong but emotionally fragile, they are both more and less than the humans they guard. This novel, though not without interest, isn't up to the superior work of which Wilder appears capable.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

On the way to colonize Arkady, the Earth transport Serendip Dana malfunctions, but the crew abandons it in emergency capsules. One capsule crash-lands on an island of the hospitable planet Rhomary Land (also the setting for Wilder's novel, Second Nature and several of her short stories). As the castaways begin to adapt to their new environment and search for signs of human life, internal conflicts threaten their survival. This study of a microcosmic society nicely integrates space and nautical themes. Recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312861710
• ISBN-13: 978-0312861711
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,106,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Failed to Deliver, November 18, 2005

By 

Parker McWilliams (Tyler, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Signs of Life (Hardcover)

Cherry Wilder's novel "Signs of Life" details the events surrounding the emergency landing of the crew of the Serendip Dana, a World Space Organization "transport" on it's way to Arkady. Presumably Arkady is a human planet somehow associated with the World Space Organization, which the reader can infer is an institution based on Earth that manages at least one "transport", the Serendip Dana. As to what exactly they were transporting we can't be entirely sure, at one point livestock are mentioned and there are a whole lot of reguler crew, silver cross members (repair crew organized along traditional military ranks), Auxiliary Support personal (andriods) and a media team accompanying a high ranking member of a popular religious movement.
EDIT: I know now that the name probably came from the "Search for Extraterrestrial Radio Emissions from Nearby Developed Intelligent Populations (SERENDIP)" project started in the seventies by the SETI organization. This adds a little more depth to the world and I thought it worth mentioning.

There, you now know everything there is to know about the Wilder's Universe outside of the planet of Rhomary. Seriously, that's it. The entire rest of the novel has to do with how the survivors interact with each other (and much later the natives) after crash landing. The survivors split into more or less two groups, the regular crew who are more or less normal and the silver cross members who being more "military" are made stereotypically disagreeable, violent and power hungry.

None of the characters change much over the course of the novel. And after the crash landing Wilder doesn't really throw any external challenges their way so you can't really blame them. It's just 300+ pages of social drama.

So why two stars instead of one? For starters I found Wilder's writing style in Signs of Life to be refreshingly different from the mainstream. Alot of times she makes the reader fill in details within the storyline that normally would need to be explained by the author. The world is kept vague enough that whatever you imagine will fit with the storyline. It was almost like I was helping her write the story, this grew tiring after a while but I enjoyed the change.

If your a Cherry Wilder fan or really enjoy reading about social dynamics in fictional environments, this book my be right for you. If you are detail oriented or believe sci-fi requires high entertainment value and should contain interesting new concepts, ideas, ways of looking at things, etc., then I would advise passing this book up.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just too awkward to read!, November 7, 2000

By 

Sailoil - See all my reviews

This review is from: Signs of Life (Paperback)

I hate people who don't explain their abbreviations. It took me thirty pages to realise that Oxper was an abbreviation for Auxuliary Personnel, and that this meant anderoids. I couldn't figure out the difference between Silvos, Silver Cross and the people wearing silver suits. I eventually figured out that Silvo was an abbreviation for Silver Cross and that they wore blue suits while the Crew, who are not silver cross, wear silver suits from time to time. Confused? Welcome to the club.

I eventually got fed up trying to work out silly little enigmas like these, I lost whatever plot there was, failed to identify with any of the characters, and so the book has been dropped, unfinished. This, from me, is a testament to a bad book. I have finished some pretty bad stuff in my day, I am a finisher, and for me not to finish, the book has to stink like a skunk in a farting contest. Peeyouw!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I missed something here..., May 24, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Orion Nebula) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Signs of Life (Paperback)

"Signs of Life" is well written, but is overly dependent on a story universe I know nothing about.

In addition, Wilder introduces a lot of characters. Some of these characters were rather interesting (like the androids), although most just further diluted the story. I think the reader would have been better served with a simpler presentation providing more background.

If you have been following Wilder's work in other books or magazines you will probably get a lot out of this book. I've never read anything by this author. As such I was as much a castaway as the survivors of the "Serendip Dana".