This is absolutely one of my favorite books. The characters are deep and involved. The story is compelling and difficult to put down. I read this one over and over, and it never gets dull.
Helpful Score: 2
I'm giving it a 5 stars! Wow! It is one of the best and most complete stories I've read...I cried starting on page 40 & I laughed out loud somewhere around page 65...it was a very moving story - I cried through the last page! There were about 100 pages 2/3 of the way through where I wasn't as involved in the story, but it came around again and truly all made sense and was very fulfilling. Wow! It's rare to read a scifi book like this and not be upset that there isn't a sequel, but it was just perfect the way it was.
Oh, perhaps I should mention that there was some unexpected but not really explicit sex in the book...just a bit...and m/m at that...that is not what the book is about, but it's there nonetheless. The book is a full life story. A story with many unique twists and a fascinating view of so many things...utopia...interspecies partnerships...death...the future. I can't recommend it enough!
Oh, perhaps I should mention that there was some unexpected but not really explicit sex in the book...just a bit...and m/m at that...that is not what the book is about, but it's there nonetheless. The book is a full life story. A story with many unique twists and a fascinating view of so many things...utopia...interspecies partnerships...death...the future. I can't recommend it enough!
Helpful Score: 1
If you enjoy the dragon-human bond in the Pern books, you'll like "Storyteller". A well-developed alien biology (which Thomson has done extremely well in her other books) and interesting character development.
Helpful Score: 1
Good story, strong characters, I-want-to-meet-one cool alien people (who happen to be fish on the world of Thalassa), and compelling relationship development all combine to make a good story. If you like McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern, you will like this story.
I enjoyed Amy Thomson's "The Color of Distance" so I was excited to find another book by her. I was not disappointed.
I enjoyed Amy Thomson's "The Color of Distance" so I was excited to find another book by her. I was not disappointed.
Helpful Score: 1
There is a good story here. . . underneath very pedestrian storytelling -- which is rather ironic, for a novel about the power stories (and memories) have in our lives. It is a coming-of-age novel, but the characters surrounding Samad (the young boy) seem never to have grown up themselves, and from his introduction (when he is eight) Samad thinks and talks and acts exactly as mature as Teller (who is even older than Samad knows). It is a companion animal fantasy and succeeds in that regard, but as a result the har don't feel alien enough for the science fiction setting that is clear in the backdrop at all times and which becomes foreground in the last third of the novel. The central metaphor inherent in the harsel mode of reproduction is very satisfying as it weaves through the rest of the story, but its execution left quite a bit to be desired, and the novel got bogged down in the middle with paroxysms of grief. In short, it's a story in search of a writer: if Thomson was a better technician (something she conveniently makes Samad off-stage with a bit of hand-waving that felt far too much like wish-fulfillment) I believe I might have loved this book; as it is, I could see recommending it to a middle-schooler (whose parents don't mind frank discussion of sex) but not to an intelligent, well-read adult.
Science fiction on a planet that's mostly water, inhabited by harsels, telepathic whale-like creatures which some humans can bond with. History is told by itinerant storytellers, like Teller, who in her old age adopts a homeless boy who becomes her apprentice and lives with her and her harsel and learns her secrets. There's some sex, both gay and straight, but nothing really graphic.
