jeriendhal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jeriendhal) wrote2011-01-01 04:44 am
jeriendhal) wrote2011-01-01 04:44 am
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Quick Review: Cachalot, by Alan Dean Foster
Summary: A marine biologist and her scatterbrained music obsessed daughter are summoned to the ocean planet of Cachalot to help find a cause for the destruction of five floating industrial towns. Lacking any evidence of human attack, suspicion turns to the original colonists of the world, Earth's great whales, who immigrated to escape their destruction on their home world and still aren't very fond of humans at all.
Review: Another one of my ancient re-reads, I remember this novel not being nearly as engaging as ADF's Flinx or Icerigger books and my opinion still holds. The main character is divorced and still wary of emotional commitment and spends much of the book bitching at her daughter for not being more like herself, which makes for unpleasant company for the reader. Plotwise everyone stumbles around until the main villains finally show up in the last fifth of the book and then are dealt with summarily by the Chekov's Gun the daughter has been carting around the whole book.
It is interesting to note that when confronted with the native life forms' motivations for wanting humans off their planet, that their brain patterns actually hurt for the great psionic creatures to feel, the main human administrator's attitude is "They'll have to suck it in and deal, or be destroyed." A bit jarring for the mostly benevolent Humanx Commonwealth and a stark contrast to the anti-colonialist subtext of ADF's later The Deluge Drivers.
Oh, and there's a bit of a wallbanger (or perhaps Zeerust) as Our Heroes narrowly escape the destruction of a sixth town and float for several days awaiting rescue. Because you see, despite four previous towns being destroyed, no one thinks to make regular checks over the radio to make sure the remaining ones are okay.
Review: Another one of my ancient re-reads, I remember this novel not being nearly as engaging as ADF's Flinx or Icerigger books and my opinion still holds. The main character is divorced and still wary of emotional commitment and spends much of the book bitching at her daughter for not being more like herself, which makes for unpleasant company for the reader. Plotwise everyone stumbles around until the main villains finally show up in the last fifth of the book and then are dealt with summarily by the Chekov's Gun the daughter has been carting around the whole book.
It is interesting to note that when confronted with the native life forms' motivations for wanting humans off their planet, that their brain patterns actually hurt for the great psionic creatures to feel, the main human administrator's attitude is "They'll have to suck it in and deal, or be destroyed." A bit jarring for the mostly benevolent Humanx Commonwealth and a stark contrast to the anti-colonialist subtext of ADF's later The Deluge Drivers.
Oh, and there's a bit of a wallbanger (or perhaps Zeerust) as Our Heroes narrowly escape the destruction of a sixth town and float for several days awaiting rescue. Because you see, despite four previous towns being destroyed, no one thinks to make regular checks over the radio to make sure the remaining ones are okay.