Paranoia is rife and the colonists struggle both with the dangerous planet itself and their failing technology. The first generation story is the usual coming-to-a-new-planet exploration, and the first interactions with a plant called the Snow Vine create a horror-like atmosphere. Soon it’s hard to tell who the villains are, and as the bamboo becomes more human and experiences emotion the colonists become more pragmatic when they meet the original city’s inhabitants and decide that forced peace is better than no peace at all. Redacted earth books and a failing constitution proclaiming peace are not enough to stave off human degeneracy jealousy, murder, and power plays follow. Who left the old city though, and is the bamboo too smart for the remaining humans? As the years come and go the colonists are also faced with their own monstrosities. As the fear of the first generation bleeds away the colonists discover an abandoned city and a new plant, Rainbow Bamboo, which appears to want to help them. Each chapter is narrated by a new generation, a new person. What unfolds is a story seven generations in the making. While the colonists speak of peace and idealistic starts the network of roots beneath their feet begins to plot. As the new denizens band together to overcome a bad landing and some other problems, they fail to realize that the plants colonized this world first.
The new planet, named Pax, has flying min-lizards, floating cactus gardens, killer ground birds, adorable little green creatures called “cats” (these make me think of Pokemon’s Eevee), and lush plants with delectable fruit. Of course, what you and I think of as a friendly new world and what a computer program hypothesizes is an inhabitable planet are two separate things. While they’re frozen, the ship will track through space until it finds a hospitable planet where humankind can start again. The story starts with a group of brilliant people, each with a different specialty, fleeing a doomed Earth in a fancy automated spaceship. I was dubious starting Semiosis, but it was the March read for my new addiction, a GoodReads group called Creatures, Creatures Everywhere! My creature loving tendencies are usually more horror oriented, and sci-fi rarely captivates me, but the write-up hinting at forbidding planets and sentient plants was intriguing, so I dove in.
A Sweeping Sci-Fi Drama of Society, Idealism, & Sentient Plants
0 kommentar(er)
