A review by breecreative
Seed by Rob Ziegler
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!