I am astonished by the five star reviews, because this book does not deserve them. The book's main themes are memory loss and shape change (and their interaction). Those themes are woven into plot lines that do not hold up to scrutiny.
A race of aliens (Tyr) with the intelligence of chimps are discovered by highly intelligent space-traveling aliens (Saudar). Somehow the Tyr overcome the Saudar, take over their space ships, and create a mastermind that links all Tyr. The masterminded Tyr flit around the galaxy conquering other intelligent species, including humans. The bulk of the story takes place hundreds of years after the conquest of Earth (although there are flashbacks to ancient Rome and the 19th and 20th centuries). The Tyr conquerers cull out intelligent and independent humans and use them to do research in domes on hostile planets or to establish primitive colonies on barely habitable planets.
Now Friedman injects human shape-shifters into the mix (yes, that's Friedman's explanation for werewolf and vampire legends). A shape-shifter human (who is hundreds of years old) acted too smart, was arrested by the Tyr, and is being transported to a colony planet. The story adds another alien race of chimp-intelligent predators (Hrass) who act as guards on the Tyr space ships and are totally controlled by the Tyr. Since all "good" Tyr are linked to the mastermind, any being that shows fear of the hrass (humans or unlinked Tyrs) is fair game for the hrass to kill and eat.
The humans want to revolt and free Earth, but they don't see any way to succeed. Our human shape-shifter (Daetrin) doesn't see how either, until after he gets dumped on a human colony planet run by the Tyr. There, he meets ANOTHER shape-shifter species, the Marra. They originally were unembodied energy entities that learned about matter and then learned how to duplicate and inhabit living matter. Unfortunately, the Marra keep forgetting their pasts and cannot seem to grasp the concept of recording thoughts and information.
After hundreds of pages of disjointed activities, the Marra, Daetrin, the human scientists, a renegade Tyr, and one hrass enact a plan to damage or destroy the Tyr mastermind. Despite the fact that human and Marra shape-shifters and the renegade Tyr keep losing their memories (the explanations for memory losses were unconvincing), they were successful. All the subjugated alien worlds were freed, and the humans, shape-shifters, and hrass lived happily ever after.
This novel read like someone took a bunch of unrelated sci-fi and fantasy stories and tossed them into a blender. The jumbled plots might have been offset by good character development. Alas, that was absent. So was an exciting plot line. So was any reason to give this novel more than two stars. |
The Madness Season (Daw Science Fiction) Books In Print, Audio Books.