Alien Earth
Megan Lindholm
Voyager
Reviewed by Gail Jamieson, 2003
Humanity has finally killed the Earth. Fortunately for the Human race, a
race called the Arthroplana had set up a rescue mission and evacuated them all
to a pair of alien planets they have called Castor and Pollux. This has
happened far enough in the past so that humanity is being changed by the way
in which they are being forced to live. They have been indoctrinated to
believe that they must make no impact at all on their adopted planets. Their
life span has been extended and they are becoming progressively smaller in
stature. They also mature very late so that their intellectual abilities are
not hormonally impaired.
Most of humanity accepts this change in their fate, after all, if they do
not they are mentally reconditioned. Captain John Gen-93-Beta, who has
managed to avoid this reconditioning has agreed to Captain a Beastship back to
the dead planet Earth to prove once and for all that humanity will never
be able to recolonise it.
To make things interesting, his Crew is Connie who has been reconditioned but
not very successfully and lives in fear that she will be uncovered and
have to undergo this process again. Tug the Arthroplana and the Beastship
Evangeline live in a symbiotic relationship and Tug thinks that he is
fully in control. The final spice in the mixture is a human stowaway, Raef,
whom Tug has kept alive using "Waitsleep" for millenia. Tug has
been allowed mix with humans in order to understand their literature before
it is all erased and holds long conversations with John, who collects banned
poetry; tries to talk to Connie who doesn't understand poetry and rules
Evangeline with an iron rod.
On the long voyage John plots to be able to land on Earth - which is
strictly forbidden. Connie comes to terms with herself and Evangeline finds
Raef with whom she forms an immediate bond. She slowly develops into a
character with her own ideas and feelings and finally throws off Tug's
enslavement.
John and Connie end up on Earth, which is inhospitable but not deadly and
are left there for some time. They both start to mature as they are
not longer under the control of Tug and then find each other as human beings
and not just Captain and Crew. Tug and Evangeline also come to a very
different relationship to the one they started with.
This is a novel with new and different ideas which are presented in a very
entertaining manner. I like the writing of Megan Lindholm, (who also writes as
Robin Hobb.) Her characters are believable, and she made me keep turning the
pages, so that I was reluctant to put the novel down. The book is a complete
story, which is great. I will keep reading her books.
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