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A review by futuregazer
Serengeti by J. B. Rockwell
2.0
I have had a hard time determining what to rate this book. On the one hand, I got very little actual enjoyment out of it, so normally that would be hands-down a one-star. On the other hand, it has a good premise, reasonable themes, and seems like it would have been a very good book if I had come across it in the second grade. Unfortunately, I have no idea what age level audience the piece was originally aimed at, and although all the parts are there that could make this a stellar novel, it is as if those parts were simply set in front of the reader in a pile and were never assembled. It was just the most.....milktoast version of Robinson Crusoe in space with AI personalities that I have ever encountered (yes, there are definitely more of this paradigm).
So, do I give it 2 stars because it had a good idea, but did not follow through with good execution? Maybe.....the other thing that leans me towards that is that this feels very much like a first novel, which gets credit where due in my estimation. Though....hmmmm.....apparently not according to goodreads publication years? Perhaps then a novel that was worked on early with others that got published before it. Anyway, my point is, it's not bad, just not good.
I suppose I should point out the other thing that makes me lean towards 1 star is the portrayal of the potentially interesting AI characters as entirely human. Not just human-ish, but with some unique features of their character that are hard to parse since they are AI, and not just human-like because they feel and therefore are like us. No, they are portrayed as humans. The AI ship with no hands is constantly touching, stroking, and rubbing fingers along the brains of the robots. They all blush. It takes me completely out of the story - for though the "fingers" are obviously analogy for the electronic interaction of systems; maintaining this analogy is distracting and leads to some foolishness at times. For instance, there is the analogy that the ship is speaking aloud to the robots. Yet, at one point, she "bypasses" the regular comms channel with the robots in order to be quiet, and analogously "speaks directly to them" instead. This makes no scientific sense, since any communication between them and the ship must be mediated by some sort of electromagnetic interaction. If it had been written as "she used an unusually low, hard to detect frequency", then that would have been fine. It is a small mistake, but only made because the characters are so drawn as human that the author forgets how they can and should be different, and that convenient analogies only work as long as they make sense. A similar thing happens when early on, the ship is unable to use sounds to speak to the robots, because the air in the ship is gone. Bravo. But, then later in the book, the ship is constantly "hearing" the burbles and beeps of the robots. Is this a mistake? Or are the burbles and beeps analogy for something other than sound that was not made entirely clear? Hearing all these things so often takes me out of the story, there is a lot of repetition of these actions, including the "blushing". And in the end, the characters, although lightly empathetic, are just too weak and undeveloped to make me really care about them.
Gah, it is that feeling of wanting to like something, and knowing you would if only a few of its basics were changed. But, I have no doubt that the author and writing will improve in time. The only way for that to happen is more books, so it is all to the reading community's benefit in the end I suppose!
So, do I give it 2 stars because it had a good idea, but did not follow through with good execution? Maybe.....the other thing that leans me towards that is that this feels very much like a first novel, which gets credit where due in my estimation. Though....hmmmm.....apparently not according to goodreads publication years? Perhaps then a novel that was worked on early with others that got published before it. Anyway, my point is, it's not bad, just not good.
I suppose I should point out the other thing that makes me lean towards 1 star is the portrayal of the potentially interesting AI characters as entirely human. Not just human-ish, but with some unique features of their character that are hard to parse since they are AI, and not just human-like because they feel and therefore are like us. No, they are portrayed as humans. The AI ship with no hands is constantly touching, stroking, and rubbing fingers along the brains of the robots. They all blush. It takes me completely out of the story - for though the "fingers" are obviously analogy for the electronic interaction of systems; maintaining this analogy is distracting and leads to some foolishness at times. For instance, there is the analogy that the ship is speaking aloud to the robots. Yet, at one point, she "bypasses" the regular comms channel with the robots in order to be quiet, and analogously "speaks directly to them" instead. This makes no scientific sense, since any communication between them and the ship must be mediated by some sort of electromagnetic interaction. If it had been written as "she used an unusually low, hard to detect frequency", then that would have been fine. It is a small mistake, but only made because the characters are so drawn as human that the author forgets how they can and should be different, and that convenient analogies only work as long as they make sense. A similar thing happens when early on, the ship is unable to use sounds to speak to the robots, because the air in the ship is gone. Bravo. But, then later in the book, the ship is constantly "hearing" the burbles and beeps of the robots. Is this a mistake? Or are the burbles and beeps analogy for something other than sound that was not made entirely clear? Hearing all these things so often takes me out of the story, there is a lot of repetition of these actions, including the "blushing". And in the end, the characters, although lightly empathetic, are just too weak and undeveloped to make me really care about them.
Gah, it is that feeling of wanting to like something, and knowing you would if only a few of its basics were changed. But, I have no doubt that the author and writing will improve in time. The only way for that to happen is more books, so it is all to the reading community's benefit in the end I suppose!