mjfmjfmjf's review against another edition
3.0
Weird after-the-end-of-oil book. A true kitchen sink book, its got a bit of everything in here. And it almost holds together. There's Spanish and migrants and seed people and random nakedness and genetic modifications and fancy soldier stuff and ow it just hurt my head. And yet I cared about the characters and I have no idea what I just read. Someone looking for a challenging but odd relatively near-future on-planet book, you might as well as give this one a try.
abhrasach's review against another edition
3.0
So. Very. Bleak. If Butler's Parable of the Sower had too cheery an outlook for you, look no further for your dystopian needs! Careful worldbuilding, solid writing, but expect to loathe humanity by the end. Much darker than this reader was seeking at the time.
lisagray68's review against another edition
My rule is 100 pages before I give up on a book. However, 50 pages in I still have no idea what is going on and no interest in any of the characters. The premise sounded good, but nothing here intrigues me.
folklaureate's review against another edition
3.0
More reviews at Rondo of a Possible World: YA Book Reviews
Rob Ziegler does a great job on divulging his view on a post-apocalyptic tale. A dreary and devastated world with characters struggling with the hardships and the eruption of a company that has accumulated large amount of power and dictation.
For the most part I liked the descriptions, the view of the world Ziegler had created. The only thing that put me off was the overindulgence of information and characters given to the reader. I felt overwhelmed at parts to the point where I couldn't follow and had to step back to sort out everything.
The cover and the synopsis (very long but it did draw me in) were enough to get me to look into this story. Though for what I thought it was going to be, I was disappointed to the extent of how I expected this book to be.
For a science fiction novel I give it credit where it is due, for it did captivate me in its field. If I didn't have to step back and sort through the different POVs and articulate what happened in different scenes, I probably would have enjoyed this much more.
Rob Ziegler does a great job on divulging his view on a post-apocalyptic tale. A dreary and devastated world with characters struggling with the hardships and the eruption of a company that has accumulated large amount of power and dictation.
For the most part I liked the descriptions, the view of the world Ziegler had created. The only thing that put me off was the overindulgence of information and characters given to the reader. I felt overwhelmed at parts to the point where I couldn't follow and had to step back to sort out everything.
The cover and the synopsis (very long but it did draw me in) were enough to get me to look into this story. Though for what I thought it was going to be, I was disappointed to the extent of how I expected this book to be.
For a science fiction novel I give it credit where it is due, for it did captivate me in its field. If I didn't have to step back and sort through the different POVs and articulate what happened in different scenes, I probably would have enjoyed this much more.
maddylogic's review against another edition
3.0
While I thought the writer did a good job, I ultimately felt like the story really went nowhere. You get to know these characters but ultimately in the end there was not change or growth.
breecreative's review against another edition
4.0
I had a really hard time getting into this one at first, I have to admit. I felt that the book started without much of an explanation of what was going on, and I was confused and admittedly, a little bit bored. I couldn’t understand why these people traded Seed like money and lived a nomadic lifestyle instead of stopping and planting it somewhere and setting themselves up. It gets explained a little further on in the book, but at first I felt confused and frustrated by it.
Once I got past that and started understanding what was happening, the story got a lot better. There were several seemingly unconnected plot lines running at the same time, and while a little disorienting at first because of their stark differences to each other – one a nomadic group consisting of 2 boys and an old man, another a military officer in DC, and then the Satori (the source of Seed) and it’s DNA-spliced “children”. But as the plot moves along, all three come together at an amazing pace and I was left reeling.
There are some very awkward scenes in this book – like when the Satori engineers (who are genetically created twins and siblings) “connect”, if they are actually siblings it’s incest and pretty gross to think about. But, I think what the author was trying to get across is that these weren’t human beings, they were genetically modified with animal DNA and they weren’t normal.
The idea of Satori was really well done – this odd dome-like area that is actually living, breathing, thinking. It cares for those inside of it, provides “meat” and seems all-knowing. The people *running* Satori were corrupt, but in a world that was as bad this dystopian future, Satori itself was something powerful and good.
The characters were not that likeable at first, but they grew on me with time. Brood and Pollo are wandering like so many others, what they are looking for is not really clear. They are thieves, taking what they want or need under the cover of darkness. But through the story, the author tells about their past and Brood starts shaping up as a good kid (Pollo as well). Sienna Doss is military and has some very bizarre ideas about right and wrong, but I ended up admiring her personality towards the end. I also really liked the “rogue bio-engineer”, I felt she was trying to do the right thing away from Satori, and was upset with the way society and government decided to deal with it.
Ultimately, this was really well written. While it doesn’t seem like something feasible like some dystopian stories, the world was so intricately created and well-told that I felt I was there in that society, hoping for something good to come out of the corruption. I almost wish it *was* real. If you like dystopian stories, then you should definitely pick this one up!
Once I got past that and started understanding what was happening, the story got a lot better. There were several seemingly unconnected plot lines running at the same time, and while a little disorienting at first because of their stark differences to each other – one a nomadic group consisting of 2 boys and an old man, another a military officer in DC, and then the Satori (the source of Seed) and it’s DNA-spliced “children”. But as the plot moves along, all three come together at an amazing pace and I was left reeling.
There are some very awkward scenes in this book – like when the Satori engineers (who are genetically created twins and siblings) “connect”, if they are actually siblings it’s incest and pretty gross to think about. But, I think what the author was trying to get across is that these weren’t human beings, they were genetically modified with animal DNA and they weren’t normal.
The idea of Satori was really well done – this odd dome-like area that is actually living, breathing, thinking. It cares for those inside of it, provides “meat” and seems all-knowing. The people *running* Satori were corrupt, but in a world that was as bad this dystopian future, Satori itself was something powerful and good.
The characters were not that likeable at first, but they grew on me with time. Brood and Pollo are wandering like so many others, what they are looking for is not really clear. They are thieves, taking what they want or need under the cover of darkness. But through the story, the author tells about their past and Brood starts shaping up as a good kid (Pollo as well). Sienna Doss is military and has some very bizarre ideas about right and wrong, but I ended up admiring her personality towards the end. I also really liked the “rogue bio-engineer”, I felt she was trying to do the right thing away from Satori, and was upset with the way society and government decided to deal with it.
Ultimately, this was really well written. While it doesn’t seem like something feasible like some dystopian stories, the world was so intricately created and well-told that I felt I was there in that society, hoping for something good to come out of the corruption. I almost wish it *was* real. If you like dystopian stories, then you should definitely pick this one up!
jeffreyp's review against another edition
3.0
Some really interesting concepts, and a solid ending, but it felt a bit forced, plot-wise. Look forward to reading more Ziegler books in the future though.
eviljosh's review against another edition
4.0
This book was sold to be as absolutely amazing and "all that."
It wasn't.
It was quite good, and I need to resist being disappointed because it wasn't actually superbly great.
This is a post-soft apocalypse book, much like [b:Soft Apocalypse|10075553|Soft Apocalypse|Will McIntosh|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KcFR%2BgF3L._SL75_.jpg|14972161], in some ways, but ultimately more upbeat.
It follows three or four (depending on how you look at it) different groups of characters. The first, and in my opinion least enjoyable/relateable, are a group of scavengers living in the great American desert that sprung up at global warming began to cause run-away positive feedback loop climate changes in the mid 21st century. Their lives are desperate and short and completely lacking in information about the world around them, except for rumor and prayer.
The second group is a number of U.S. government operatives. They work with limited resources, somewhat poor communications and intelligence (the satellite network is slowly failing), and a serious inferiority complex for the halcyon days of yore. The government has largely been reduced to nothing more than an armed escort for highway engineers trying to keep the roads intact, and for seed distributors, distributing seed that will grow in modern climates, made by the biotech company/commune/nation/monster Satori.
The third group is the set of four Satori Designers. Genetically engineered, based off a human template, to be perfectly suited to making new gene splices (including the seed), their true mission is actually to develop a form of immortality for the natural human board members of Satori. But they begin to rebel.
These three strands of narrative and characterization stay largely separate, but come together in the end to a satisfying, but somewhat deus-ex-machina, result. A lot of interesting storylines and characters simply disappear as they die before they can take their plans past step one. It's realistic, but the sci-fi fanatic in me wanted all those possible future to be explored in more depth.
It wasn't.
It was quite good, and I need to resist being disappointed because it wasn't actually superbly great.
This is a post-soft apocalypse book, much like [b:Soft Apocalypse|10075553|Soft Apocalypse|Will McIntosh|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KcFR%2BgF3L._SL75_.jpg|14972161], in some ways, but ultimately more upbeat.
It follows three or four (depending on how you look at it) different groups of characters. The first, and in my opinion least enjoyable/relateable, are a group of scavengers living in the great American desert that sprung up at global warming began to cause run-away positive feedback loop climate changes in the mid 21st century. Their lives are desperate and short and completely lacking in information about the world around them, except for rumor and prayer.
The second group is a number of U.S. government operatives. They work with limited resources, somewhat poor communications and intelligence (the satellite network is slowly failing), and a serious inferiority complex for the halcyon days of yore. The government has largely been reduced to nothing more than an armed escort for highway engineers trying to keep the roads intact, and for seed distributors, distributing seed that will grow in modern climates, made by the biotech company/commune/nation/monster Satori.
The third group is the set of four Satori Designers. Genetically engineered, based off a human template, to be perfectly suited to making new gene splices (including the seed), their true mission is actually to develop a form of immortality for the natural human board members of Satori. But they begin to rebel.
These three strands of narrative and characterization stay largely separate, but come together in the end to a satisfying, but somewhat deus-ex-machina, result. A lot of interesting storylines and characters simply disappear as they die before they can take their plans past step one. It's realistic, but the sci-fi fanatic in me wanted all those possible future to be explored in more depth.