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vailynst's review against another edition
3.0
Notes:
3.5 Stars
Several interesting developments, but the overall plot flow was not as good or cohesive as the first story. Hopefully, more stuff about the alien animals/people/plants will be explored in the next book.
3.5 Stars
Several interesting developments, but the overall plot flow was not as good or cohesive as the first story. Hopefully, more stuff about the alien animals/people/plants will be explored in the next book.
tome15's review against another edition
4.0
Gear, W. Michael. Abandoned. Donovan No. 2. Daw, 2018.
Would you share spit with an alien, who usually gets to know visitors to his planet by eating them? Sounds like a silly question, I know, but somehow W. Michael Gear makes us take it seriously in Abandoned. This second volume of the Donovan series is a lot less like Alien or Predator than was Outpost, the first novel in the series. This time it is more of a survival story than a battle. To his credit, Gear has created an intriguingly difficult ecology to challenge his indentured labor force, their corporate masters, struggling science geeks, and marine contingent. Some unknown glitches in the faster than light drive that gets people to the Capella system mean that no one can predict if or whether a supply ship will arrive or how much subjective or planetary time it will take if it does. This means it is even money whether the best strategy is to go native and try to find out how to make terrestrial plants grow in the Donovan jungle, struggle to mine metals for the corporation that sent you, or just hang out at the bar and play a rigged game. All this is made more problematic by the alien population, who have their own challenges dealing with the earthers. One alien is an unwilling guest inside a security agent’s body, and another is bonded as a pet to a nine-year-old girl living in the jungle. All this would be made much easier, if the humans could figure out who is actually running their show and quit killing each other. Good story. I enjoyed it.
Would you share spit with an alien, who usually gets to know visitors to his planet by eating them? Sounds like a silly question, I know, but somehow W. Michael Gear makes us take it seriously in Abandoned. This second volume of the Donovan series is a lot less like Alien or Predator than was Outpost, the first novel in the series. This time it is more of a survival story than a battle. To his credit, Gear has created an intriguingly difficult ecology to challenge his indentured labor force, their corporate masters, struggling science geeks, and marine contingent. Some unknown glitches in the faster than light drive that gets people to the Capella system mean that no one can predict if or whether a supply ship will arrive or how much subjective or planetary time it will take if it does. This means it is even money whether the best strategy is to go native and try to find out how to make terrestrial plants grow in the Donovan jungle, struggle to mine metals for the corporation that sent you, or just hang out at the bar and play a rigged game. All this is made more problematic by the alien population, who have their own challenges dealing with the earthers. One alien is an unwilling guest inside a security agent’s body, and another is bonded as a pet to a nine-year-old girl living in the jungle. All this would be made much easier, if the humans could figure out who is actually running their show and quit killing each other. Good story. I enjoyed it.