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routergirl's review against another edition
2.0
Hmm. Interesting start, I enjoyed it until about halfway through, and then it all went a bit weird.
shawnofsulfur's review
A few lines of brilliant writing and prose are scattered among the first hundred pages, but the characters are nearly impossible to care about or for, and the plot is so obtuse and poorly conveyed there's little reason to pay it mind either. A textbook example of why explicit sex scenes are rarely necessary and nearly always cringe inducing events that make the books worse.
purlewe's review
4.0
I can't tell if I liked this or not.
It truly makes us humans look the most inhumane than any other sci-fi book I've ever read.
Simon, a kind of attache to the gov't, is sent to a party in place of his boss. Katharine is an altered human, a native to the planet who has taken drugs and surgery to make herself look as human as possible. She is devoted to religious icons, she plays the piano, she has attended private schools with other human girls. She is at the party with her wealthy father. Both Katharine and Simon are captured during a raid of aboriginals who hate humans. Cut off from her medications, Katharine is slowly returning to her native form. Which is dark and wild and rich and more connected to the world they live on than any human could ever hope to understand.
You see the book thru both their eyes. And the end is full of hopelessness. I think that is what gets me. It has no hope. Humans continue to bulldoze their way past anything that they can't understand. Making others conform or be eradicated. You could see this parallel with say any dominate culture over another. And this is what is upsetting.. altho good to see it done in such a complete way. You GET why Katharine is adjusting to her original state.. and you GET why Simon is continuing in the only way he knows. And yet is is hopeless.
It truly makes us humans look the most inhumane than any other sci-fi book I've ever read.
Simon, a kind of attache to the gov't, is sent to a party in place of his boss. Katharine is an altered human, a native to the planet who has taken drugs and surgery to make herself look as human as possible. She is devoted to religious icons, she plays the piano, she has attended private schools with other human girls. She is at the party with her wealthy father. Both Katharine and Simon are captured during a raid of aboriginals who hate humans. Cut off from her medications, Katharine is slowly returning to her native form. Which is dark and wild and rich and more connected to the world they live on than any human could ever hope to understand.
You see the book thru both their eyes. And the end is full of hopelessness. I think that is what gets me. It has no hope. Humans continue to bulldoze their way past anything that they can't understand. Making others conform or be eradicated. You could see this parallel with say any dominate culture over another. And this is what is upsetting.. altho good to see it done in such a complete way. You GET why Katharine is adjusting to her original state.. and you GET why Simon is continuing in the only way he knows. And yet is is hopeless.
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