steveab's review
4.0
Michelle Murrain's debut novel The Casitians Return was a real treat. I read it nonstop right after its release, and am only now posting my thoughts.
I enjoyed the blend of hard science fiction, spiritual exploration, environmentalism, present day realities of surveillance and privacy, and musings on everyday life in high tech. The alien race Casitians have returned to Earth after many (really many) years leaving the planet to its own devices. When they last were here, the human race was kinda just getting started. An an aside, given the way things are going these days, that's still true enough, and we had better get our act together pretty soon. And that's pretty much the message the Casitians deliver. They first contact a few likely sympathetic listeners, and quickly use them to let the whole planet know we're living on borrowed time.
Elements of this theme remind me positively of such diverse classic movies as Close Encounters and the Day the Earth Stood Still. Unlike Close Encounters and like Earth Stood Still (remake), in Casitians Return, the key human contacts get close enough to their Casitian counterparts to begin to probe what the technological--and moral/spiritual--superiority really counts for. The shape up message delivered by the Casitians is true enough, but then again, do we really want to hear it from a bunch of aliens who haven't been around since ages ago and have no idea what we went through to get as far as we did? I suspect that that is where volume 2 of the series is going to go, and I'm ready to pick it up.
One concern: While the dialog and personal situations of the characters seem real and modern, the characters could stand to come alive a bit more. You want to care about the characters as people as much as the larger issues. For a first novel, and one with such epic concerns, this limitation is OK.
I should say that I know and have worked with Michelle and appreciate how much of her own tremendous liveliness *is* in the characters and their dilemmas, as well as the story line. I am looking forward to the author settling into the story and letting the characters grow as well.
I also want to say that I love that the book launched as a self-published ebook, which I easily got onto by Nook, and that the author is mastering the evolving economics of publishing as well as writing at the same time.
Well done!
I enjoyed the blend of hard science fiction, spiritual exploration, environmentalism, present day realities of surveillance and privacy, and musings on everyday life in high tech. The alien race Casitians have returned to Earth after many (really many) years leaving the planet to its own devices. When they last were here, the human race was kinda just getting started. An an aside, given the way things are going these days, that's still true enough, and we had better get our act together pretty soon. And that's pretty much the message the Casitians deliver. They first contact a few likely sympathetic listeners, and quickly use them to let the whole planet know we're living on borrowed time.
Elements of this theme remind me positively of such diverse classic movies as Close Encounters and the Day the Earth Stood Still. Unlike Close Encounters and like Earth Stood Still (remake), in Casitians Return, the key human contacts get close enough to their Casitian counterparts to begin to probe what the technological--and moral/spiritual--superiority really counts for. The shape up message delivered by the Casitians is true enough, but then again, do we really want to hear it from a bunch of aliens who haven't been around since ages ago and have no idea what we went through to get as far as we did? I suspect that that is where volume 2 of the series is going to go, and I'm ready to pick it up.
One concern: While the dialog and personal situations of the characters seem real and modern, the characters could stand to come alive a bit more. You want to care about the characters as people as much as the larger issues. For a first novel, and one with such epic concerns, this limitation is OK.
I should say that I know and have worked with Michelle and appreciate how much of her own tremendous liveliness *is* in the characters and their dilemmas, as well as the story line. I am looking forward to the author settling into the story and letting the characters grow as well.
I also want to say that I love that the book launched as a self-published ebook, which I easily got onto by Nook, and that the author is mastering the evolving economics of publishing as well as writing at the same time.
Well done!
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