Helpful Score: 2
This is the first book by this author that I've read, but it certainly won't be the last! Engaging characters facing major problems--more plot twists that a Sherlock Holmes novel--and an entire planet's ecology trained to kill! This author doesn't believe in small bites; she lays things out in great big gulps!
Zettel's other award-winning titles include: RECLAMATION, FOLL'S WAR, THE QUIET INVASION and PLAYING GOD.
From back cover: Fugitives in a closed system---Chena and Teal Trust are in mortal danger. Humans on dozens of colony planets are dying from environmental collapses and mutating diseases. Their warships orbit the lush world of Pandora with an ultimatum: The brilliant ecologists of Pandora must solve the crisis, or their paradise will be destroyed. Now Chena and Teal are chosen to immigrate as part of Pandors's 'Eden Project.' But once they arrive, the Trusts quickly learn that the scients don't want new blood...only raw DNA. Trapped on a world where nature is genetically programmed to kill, the girls' new lives may be very short, unless they can discover whether the Pandorans are seeking a universal cure--or a means to commit galaxy-spanning genocide.
Zettel's other award-winning titles include: RECLAMATION, FOLL'S WAR, THE QUIET INVASION and PLAYING GOD.
From back cover: Fugitives in a closed system---Chena and Teal Trust are in mortal danger. Humans on dozens of colony planets are dying from environmental collapses and mutating diseases. Their warships orbit the lush world of Pandora with an ultimatum: The brilliant ecologists of Pandora must solve the crisis, or their paradise will be destroyed. Now Chena and Teal are chosen to immigrate as part of Pandors's 'Eden Project.' But once they arrive, the Trusts quickly learn that the scients don't want new blood...only raw DNA. Trapped on a world where nature is genetically programmed to kill, the girls' new lives may be very short, unless they can discover whether the Pandorans are seeking a universal cure--or a means to commit galaxy-spanning genocide.
Helpful Score: 1
I wanted to read this since it came out, just because of its lovely cover painting by Michael Whelan. (This shows how quickly I get around to reading new books - it came out in 2000.) However, I have to report, sadly, that evocative as the artwork is, it doesn't have anything to do with anything that happens in the book. I guess I will just have to appreciate it as artwork....
The book is not bad at all... Humanity has been colonizing other planets - but failing to prepare for the slight differences of other ecosystems, and the drastic consequences that may result... The only colony that seems to have been spared this "Diversity Crisis" is Pandora - but Pandora's government, ruled by AIs connected to "conscience" chips in the leading families' brains, has its own issues - namely that they are engaging in wholesale human experimentation on the 'villagers' of Pandora. Still, the sick and desperate masses are converging on the planet....
The story focuses on two young women, whose mother brought them to Pandora as immigrants, hoping to give them a better life than that on the Authority space station. Unfortunately for their family, their genetics seem to be the key to the experiment that Pandora is doing - and multiple factions each have their own ideas of how best to use the sisters...
The book is not bad at all... Humanity has been colonizing other planets - but failing to prepare for the slight differences of other ecosystems, and the drastic consequences that may result... The only colony that seems to have been spared this "Diversity Crisis" is Pandora - but Pandora's government, ruled by AIs connected to "conscience" chips in the leading families' brains, has its own issues - namely that they are engaging in wholesale human experimentation on the 'villagers' of Pandora. Still, the sick and desperate masses are converging on the planet....
The story focuses on two young women, whose mother brought them to Pandora as immigrants, hoping to give them a better life than that on the Authority space station. Unfortunately for their family, their genetics seem to be the key to the experiment that Pandora is doing - and multiple factions each have their own ideas of how best to use the sisters...
Helpful Score: 1
a good read -- about two young women caught up in a future of eco-disaster, genetic engineering, intolerance. Good depiction of alien civilization.
Interesting take on life in the future
