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Jan. 14th, 2015 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been massively annoying everyone around me since about the New Year by going on about how much I like Julie Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy.
I read the first book, Survival, a while back and gushed extensively about it. To recap: the protagonist of the trilogy is salmon researcher Mac(kenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright) Connor, who is not particularly interested in the fact that in this future the human race is a minor part of a vast intersteller alliance composed of hundreds of different species linked by wormholes, because, look, guys, Earth biology is just so INTERESTING, there's so MUCH, who could ask for anything more?!
The plot, which is deeply concerned with xenobiology, disagrees.
Mac eventually finds herself at the center of ongoing research into a threat to basically every species in the universe. This does involve quite a few dramatic scenes of interstellar peril but also quite a lot of going to conferences and planning meetings and organizing crack teams of biologists and/or archaeologists and/or grad students.
An incomplete list of things I really love about this trilogy includes:
- the fact that the heroine is a middle-aged female scientist!
- the wide array of really interesting and distinct alien characters, none of whom are just green humans, and all of whom have specific cultures (though generally monocultures -- Julie Czerneda is a biologist, not a sociologist, and it shows)
- the fact that so much of the plot is driven by people DOING RESEARCH and ASKING QUESTIONS instead of running around and shooting things
- how cultural differences and misunderstandings are real and ever-present, and how much people get into trouble by making assumptions based on their own knowledge of the world
- the fact that Mac acquires a serious brain disorder that affects her ability to read text in the first book, and it's not A TRAGEDY but it has real consequences, and Mac has to learn to adapt her life around it, and it doesn't get magically fixed in the end
- also she loses a limb, and ... since it's the future and there are magic prostheses this actually doesn't have all THAT many consequences, but it's also not something that Czerneda forgets about
- (and how, not to be outdone, another character loses TWO limbs)
- Mac's feelings about her best science friend, Dr. Emily Mamani, and how they are the driving force of the series; Emily has dark secrets and they spend much of the story tragically separated but no matter what happens, Mac refuses to believe that their science love is not true! This may be the only series I've ever read where the main emotional drama centers around STAR-CROSSED RESEARCH PARTNERS.
- CHARLES MUDGE III, my favorite character of 2015 thus far, the fussy bureaucrat who oversees the protected wilderness site where Mac works. He appears in one scene in the first book to crankily approve Mac's grant proposals. In the second book, his APPALLED INDIGNATION over the TOTAL MESS that first book shenanigans left in A PROTECTED WILDERNESS SITE, GOD, PEOPLE, COME ON somehow launches him into the role of a second lead??? Charles Mudge III is my hero
- bureaucrats who organize meetings and make sure everyone's travel budgets are taken care of are heroes? BUREAUCRATS ARE HEROES
- Anchen, the world's sweetest alien hivemind
- the fact that the love interest (who is fine! he's a spy, it's moderately interesting I guess) is only onscreen for about fifty pages per book, so we can spend more time on Mac's relationships with her BEST ALIEN FRIENDS BRYMN AND ANCHEN and BEST SCIENCE FRIEND EMILY and WORST BUREAUCRAT FRIEND CHARLES MUDGE
- actually let's just give a whole bullet point to Mac's network of really significant platonic friendships, all of which have as much weight or more as her romance
- plus that one hilariously awkward grad student who thinks he is in a noona romance with Mac. (He is not.) He is completely irrelevant to the plot, seriously, I have no idea why his crush on Mac is even there, IT'S SO RANDOM
- actually let's have a bullet point also for all the rest of the flaily grad students
- and for the fact that Julie Czerneda is clearly having way too much fun describing the chaos of a field research facility full of obsessive biologists in loving detail
- the alien secret service agents straight out of Men in Black who read an advisory pamphlet on weird human ideas about aliens before they came and think it's HILARIOUS to try and prank unsuspecting humans by playing up every single one
- the various jerks that Mac dislikes who nonetheless prove to be useful and capable human beings, because you can find someone annoying but still respect their work
- the aliens who reproduce by LEAVING AN AMNIOTIC SAC OF BABIES IN A TREE. When the babies emerge from the amniotic sac, they latch onto the nearest adult, who gets a loud, abrupt, and adorably squalling welcome to parenthood! Why is this not the fic trope sweeping the nation!
- ...there's a whole bunch of other cool biological stuff too but I'm just really charmed by the amniotic sac of surprise babies, OK
The books are far from perfect! The pacing is pretty weird and often very clumsy, as aforementioned the aliens are all interesting but really Star Trek-monocultural, and I am sorry, Julie Czerneda, but the drunken antics of the gloomy cider-addicted teddy-bear aliens are not as funny as you think they are. Also, Julie Czerneda believes in biological imperatives for sentient species a lot more than I do. But I'm so charmed by everything else that I don't even care, guys, I really love these books.
I read the first book, Survival, a while back and gushed extensively about it. To recap: the protagonist of the trilogy is salmon researcher Mac(kenzie Winifred Elizabeth Wright) Connor, who is not particularly interested in the fact that in this future the human race is a minor part of a vast intersteller alliance composed of hundreds of different species linked by wormholes, because, look, guys, Earth biology is just so INTERESTING, there's so MUCH, who could ask for anything more?!
The plot, which is deeply concerned with xenobiology, disagrees.
Mac eventually finds herself at the center of ongoing research into a threat to basically every species in the universe. This does involve quite a few dramatic scenes of interstellar peril but also quite a lot of going to conferences and planning meetings and organizing crack teams of biologists and/or archaeologists and/or grad students.
An incomplete list of things I really love about this trilogy includes:
- the fact that the heroine is a middle-aged female scientist!
- the wide array of really interesting and distinct alien characters, none of whom are just green humans, and all of whom have specific cultures (though generally monocultures -- Julie Czerneda is a biologist, not a sociologist, and it shows)
- the fact that so much of the plot is driven by people DOING RESEARCH and ASKING QUESTIONS instead of running around and shooting things
- how cultural differences and misunderstandings are real and ever-present, and how much people get into trouble by making assumptions based on their own knowledge of the world
- the fact that Mac acquires a serious brain disorder that affects her ability to read text in the first book, and it's not A TRAGEDY but it has real consequences, and Mac has to learn to adapt her life around it, and it doesn't get magically fixed in the end
- also she loses a limb, and ... since it's the future and there are magic prostheses this actually doesn't have all THAT many consequences, but it's also not something that Czerneda forgets about
- (and how, not to be outdone, another character loses TWO limbs)
- Mac's feelings about her best science friend, Dr. Emily Mamani, and how they are the driving force of the series; Emily has dark secrets and they spend much of the story tragically separated but no matter what happens, Mac refuses to believe that their science love is not true! This may be the only series I've ever read where the main emotional drama centers around STAR-CROSSED RESEARCH PARTNERS.
- CHARLES MUDGE III, my favorite character of 2015 thus far, the fussy bureaucrat who oversees the protected wilderness site where Mac works. He appears in one scene in the first book to crankily approve Mac's grant proposals. In the second book, his APPALLED INDIGNATION over the TOTAL MESS that first book shenanigans left in A PROTECTED WILDERNESS SITE, GOD, PEOPLE, COME ON somehow launches him into the role of a second lead??? Charles Mudge III is my hero
- bureaucrats who organize meetings and make sure everyone's travel budgets are taken care of are heroes? BUREAUCRATS ARE HEROES
- Anchen, the world's sweetest alien hivemind
- the fact that the love interest (who is fine! he's a spy, it's moderately interesting I guess) is only onscreen for about fifty pages per book, so we can spend more time on Mac's relationships with her BEST ALIEN FRIENDS BRYMN AND ANCHEN and BEST SCIENCE FRIEND EMILY and WORST BUREAUCRAT FRIEND CHARLES MUDGE
- actually let's just give a whole bullet point to Mac's network of really significant platonic friendships, all of which have as much weight or more as her romance
- plus that one hilariously awkward grad student who thinks he is in a noona romance with Mac. (He is not.) He is completely irrelevant to the plot, seriously, I have no idea why his crush on Mac is even there, IT'S SO RANDOM
- actually let's have a bullet point also for all the rest of the flaily grad students
- and for the fact that Julie Czerneda is clearly having way too much fun describing the chaos of a field research facility full of obsessive biologists in loving detail
- the alien secret service agents straight out of Men in Black who read an advisory pamphlet on weird human ideas about aliens before they came and think it's HILARIOUS to try and prank unsuspecting humans by playing up every single one
- the various jerks that Mac dislikes who nonetheless prove to be useful and capable human beings, because you can find someone annoying but still respect their work
- the aliens who reproduce by LEAVING AN AMNIOTIC SAC OF BABIES IN A TREE. When the babies emerge from the amniotic sac, they latch onto the nearest adult, who gets a loud, abrupt, and adorably squalling welcome to parenthood! Why is this not the fic trope sweeping the nation!
- ...there's a whole bunch of other cool biological stuff too but I'm just really charmed by the amniotic sac of surprise babies, OK
The books are far from perfect! The pacing is pretty weird and often very clumsy, as aforementioned the aliens are all interesting but really Star Trek-monocultural, and I am sorry, Julie Czerneda, but the drunken antics of the gloomy cider-addicted teddy-bear aliens are not as funny as you think they are. Also, Julie Czerneda believes in biological imperatives for sentient species a lot more than I do. But I'm so charmed by everything else that I don't even care, guys, I really love these books.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 04:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 05:47 am (UTC)(Why yes I did imprint quite hard, why do you ask.)
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Date: 2015-01-15 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 06:09 am (UTC)Right; I would probably like him. Thank you.
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Date: 2015-01-15 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 07:05 pm (UTC)+1.
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Date: 2015-01-15 07:08 am (UTC)And absolutely agreed, the cider-swilling aliens did not deserve anywhere near as many pages as they got.
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Date: 2015-01-15 01:29 pm (UTC)The cider-swilling aliens were a great one-off joke! Aaand should have stayed that way.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 03:13 pm (UTC)But yeah, it was formally set in British Columbia. Haida Gawaii was briefly namechecked at one point, and the salmon art -- both the wooden salmon hanging in Mac's office, and the salmon icons used as spacers in the text -- are in a Northwest Coast style. And every time Mac goes for a walk, we get a long list of very PNW coastal plant names. If you're from around here, it's utterly recognizable as being set in BC.
But on a happier note! I totally did not expect Mudge to grow on me like he did! But he's so heroic! He makes the budget happen and the teams happen and the red-tape happen and the backup systems happen! And he is utterly reliable about having Mac's back -- reliable and competent! -- and keeping her anchored when she needs an anchor! I got to the point where I was swooning for him so. damn. hard.
And so many great non-romantic relationships! Complex and intense and difficult and loving! It was a great rec, and I'm very glad I took it.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 02:20 am (UTC)MUDGE IS SO AMAZING. The shriek of shocked delight I made when he flailed his way through six layers of interstellar security to yell at Mac at the beginning of Book 2 -- it's been a long time since I was so surprised and pleased by a character arc in a novel. MUDGE. <33333 And, like, man, I just feel like I so often read sff books where the protagonist disliking someone, or someone causing the protagonist difficulties, removes all possibility that that irritating person might have any redeeming features, and these books -- Mudge especially, but in other cases too -- are so the opposite of that. I love worldviews in which everyone has value.
(I'm glad you enjoyed the books overall! :D)
no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 03:14 pm (UTC)Which is to say: Maaaaaaaaac. ♥ ♥
no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 02:45 am (UTC)Frankly, I would read the terrible awkward adventures of Brymn Las trying to hit on Mac before I would easily remember we're supposed to care about Nik like that.