This Alien Shore (Alien Shores, #1) in Beyond Reality

Mar 10, 2020 DivaDiane SM rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, diane-s-meager-effort, sffbc-book-shelf

I really, really enjoyed this book! Despite having been written 20+ years ago about digital technologies it did not seem at all dates to me. I’m not in
IT, so I wouldn’t know if there was anything ridiculously implausible, so I bought it. Once we settled on a couple of core characters and the plot threads started coming together it started getting really fascinating and quite breathless. I found the ending to be quite satisfying. I liked the basic premise around Neuro diversity too.

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Aug 25, 2008 Stephen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sf-space-opera

5.0 stars (would give it more if i could). This is the sixth book of C. S. Friedman's that I have read and they have all been outstanding and several of them (including this one) are on my list of all-time favorites. This book has a massive scope and is some of the best world-building I have ever seen (especially for a stand alone novel). It also has very well thought out and extremely interesting concepts and aliens. Finally, to complete the trifecta, this book has well drawn, complex character ...more

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Mar 12, 2010 Christine rated it it was amazing

A great SciFi book!!! When an overcrowded earth sends humans off to distant worlds, they eventually find that the spaceships drive causes DNA mutations in the people aboard; they immediately abandon all space travel effectively marooning those who have already left. This book is set at a distant time well after this happens when trravel between habitats is via the annique (some sort of rapid transit which runs like a vein through space) on ships piloted by members of The Guild who are the only h ...more

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Nov 17, 2009 Kerry rated it really liked it

Shelves: 9-out-of-10, sf, 2010, ebooks

I picked this book up several years ago, caught by both the blurb and (I’m shallow, I admit it) the beautiful cover. But for some reason, I never got around to reading it. It has remained on the TBR list, because, really, I did want to read it, but somehow it never graduated to “reading it now”. Every so often I would toss it out as a nomination for the monthly SF read on the Beyond Reality book group (great group by the way, I recommend it) in the hope if it got picked, I would get myself organ I picked this book up several years ago, caught by both the blurb and (I’m shallow, I admit it) the beautiful cover. But for some reason, I never got around to reading it. It has remained on the TBR list, because, really, I did want to read it, but somehow it never graduated to “reading it now”. Every so often I would toss it out as a nomination for the monthly SF read on the Beyond Reality book group (great group by the way, I recommend it) in the hope if it got picked, I would get myself organised and actually read it. Finally, it was selected for the group’s March read and yes, I did read it.

And now, it’s taken me well over a month to get to reviewing it. Since it has been so long, I’m just going to start typing and see what appears on the screen, as I’m not sure that I can manage a “proper review”.

This is one of those books that tosses you into the deep end of the story and leave you to drown or swim. As my updates on Goodreads show, I spent almost the first half of the book in a state of confused fascination. The set up is well done – by tossing Jamisia in to the action with no idea of what’s going on Ms Friedman gives the reader a character to follow who is learning what is happening at the same time the reader does.

Slowly, Jamisia works out what has been done to her, even if the why of it remains elusive. Interspersed with Jamisia’s flight across the galaxy, we also follow the Guerans (who hold the monopoly on spaceflight due to initially unexplained mutations) who are trying to track and destroy a virus that is killing their space pilots. This section of the book slowly leads to the why of what has been done to Jamisia.

It is only at the end that all the pieces come together and you learn exactly what has been going on and how it all fits. I really enjoyed the mystery of This Alien Shore and slowly being able to work it all out. As I said above, it took me a while to figure out what was going on, but I thought Ms Friedman placed all the clues and important of pieces of information in plain sight right from the beginning and all the hints built on each other until I had enough to figure it out.

Some of the Beyond_Reality readers felt that the book failed because there were no characters in it that they could identify with. I certainly agree that this is a book about ideas and concepts more than anything else, but I didn’t have any problem with the characters. They too were mysteries to be explored, but unlike many books where the goal is to discover who the characters are, this time it was more a case of what and why. I am usually a character reader myself, but this time the lack of intense characterisation didn’t bother me and I loved the book all the same. I think a lot of that is because the mystery element is so strong within an SF story, so I still got lots of things I like.

The SF aspects of the book are more than just a background to the mystery though. They are the very reason for the mysteries facing the characters. The basic idea is that when mankind first left Earth for the stars, the drive system used caused massive mutations in the human genome (some of this seemed a little far fetched to me as I’m not quite sure how humans turn in octopus-like creatures etc). When the people back on Earth discovered this they immediately cut off all their colonies. Much later, those colonies (or more specifically, specific Guerans) discovered a new, safer form of space travel and went home to Earth, only to find their mutations despised by the supposedly “pure” humans. This conflict is integral to both the set-up and resolution of the book and I felt it was well developed.

So all in all, I really enjoyed This Alien Shore and I’m glad that I have finally read it. I apologise to those Beyond-Reality members who didn’t enjoy my choice, but it worked for me.

This Alien Shore
C. S. Friedman
9/10
Read: 12-2-10 to 22-2-10 ...more

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Feb 28, 2010 Marty rated it it was ok

The characters didn't get enough of my interest. ...more

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Dec 29, 2009 Grey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, cyborgs-androids, disability

Pretty good book. Good, complex story. I really like the idea of Gueran social structure.

My only complaint is the author's tendency to switch rapidly from one POV to another. Or perhaps that was 3rd person omniscient POV. In any case, it's disorienting at times. Fortunately, it's usually only employed at the beginning of chapters. ...more

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