This looks really interesting!
The link will take you to a review by Jo Walton at tor.com. Here’s the bit that caught my eye:
What’s better than a first novel with awesome aliens that includes really well done alien points of view? A first novel with two lots of different awesome aliens that includes two different alien points of view!
My immediate response: must read this.
Walton goes on: There’s a human expedition to Ilmatar, which an alien Europa—a planet with an ocean under the ice. The solar system of today is in many ways more exciting than the solar system we imagined before we sent robots out to explore it for us, and one of the surprises was the oceans under the ice on the Galilean moons. Cambias has clearly thought a lot about what an ocean like that might be like, because there are aliens in Ilumatar, living around hot vents, aliens who may have a million years of history, but who are living in pitch dark icy water and who are very very alien, but also absolutely adorable. We see them from their own point of view, as well as from the point of view of the humans studying them. And then, as the humans are starting to study the Ilmatarans at a safe distance, another set of aliens shows up, the Sholen, more advanced than humanity, and quite sure that they know best. And all of them, in their own very different ways, are scientists.
And there you go. I don’t always agree with Jo Walton’s take on specific books, but this? This is definitely right up my alley. I’m picking it up right now.
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Mike and I both liked this book a lot; I’ll almost certainly be nominating it for a Hugo. I agree with Jo Walton that the human characters are less interesting than the aliens, which may explain why I had a little trouble getting into the book at first. I’ll be interested to see what you think of it.
Great, Linda! I’ll be sure to keep in mind this one may take a bit to get into.
I just noticed this in the library and grabbed it. Will let my husband have first crack as he’s been grumbling about the lack of new SF. Last month, when he was in a bookstore he didn’t find any.
I really mean he didn’t find any. Not that he liked, just none at all, it was all fantasy, mostly paranormal romance, he says.
I also spotted PEACEMAKER – the latest atevi novel, which is my next read.
Elaine, a few years ago I was in a bookstore and my impression then was that absolutely nothing was on the SFF shelves other than paranormal and UF. This can’t actually be true, but it sure seemed that way.