Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
DAW Books (New York, 1984). 1st edition, 1st printing. 221 pages. $2.95.
Description
Rafe Murray, his sister Jillian, and Jillian's husband Paul Gaines, like many other out-of-luck spacers, had come to newly-built Endeavor Station to find their future. Their tiny ship, Lindy, had been salvaged from the junk heap, and fitted to mine ore from the mineral-rich rings which circled Endeavor. But their future proved to be far stranger than any of them imagined, when a "collision" with a huge alien vessel provided them with the oddest first contact experience possible!
User reviews
LibraryThing member SChant
Not her usual Alliance/Union universe story, this is a first-contact novel with elements of horror. A small 3-person ore-prospecting ship is swept up almost casually by a passing ancient alien vessel, who's Minds study them down to the sub-atomic detail and replicate them as simulacra so
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meticulously that they think, feel and react as the humans they once were. It's quite a confusing book to get through because of the mutiplicity of replicas and the names of the alien minds formatted as symbols, but it is very worthwhile. Show Less
LibraryThing member helver
A small ship in a great big world gets caught up by an intelligence so vast with a ship so powerful that escape and evasion simply is not possible. The crew of three humans is captured and unwillingly and unwittingly serve to foment a mutiny and to quash it. At the end, the crew have left their
A very short book - quick read. The hardest part was dealing with the names of the aliens - and and > and with they are used as names don't make for easy reading. The psychological analyses done on the crew and the manipulations that the aliens put the crew through are concerning. The end result reminded me quite a bit of a Moorcock-style Eternal Champion final battle with three or four becoming one in order to combat the combined champion of evil.
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corporeal forms and elect to travel through the universe with their captor/executioner/friend.A very short book - quick read. The hardest part was dealing with the names of the aliens - and and > and with they are used as names don't make for easy reading. The psychological analyses done on the crew and the manipulations that the aliens put the crew through are concerning. The end result reminded me quite a bit of a Moorcock-style Eternal Champion final battle with three or four becoming one in order to combat the combined champion of evil.
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LibraryThing member quondame
One of Cherryh's dream state novels. I know I've re-read it before, but I can't remember details beyond the specific - the space suit fastened to Lindy's exterior as an EVA pod. Sometimes Cherryh's writing re-tunes my consciousness in such a way that I can't remember what happened in what I read,
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even though it seems like familiar territory while I'm reading. Not a fun read, more an exploration of identity and self knowledge. Show Less
LibraryThing member Ranjr
At first, the story did catch my attention especially when the small miner craft, the Lindy, collided with the massive alien vessel, and the three main characters wake up inside of the craft. However, I should have realized the warning signs that I was not going to like this book. First, there was
The three lead characters are really bland and barely distinguishable from one another. It only gets worse when they start getting "Cloned", right when I almost started to care the story gave me several and quickly multiplying reasons not to. Another peeve is that the story is mostly dialogue between these characters, their copies, and the alien minds. It got old quick.
I did like an idea that was revealed pretty much upfront after the inciting incident of the crash. The idea that the alien ship could store any mind as a "template" (i.e. file) and thus could make endless copies and backups and allow them to roam the ship as holograms. Although, I feel that this premise was lost in the story which mostly consisted of the bland leads panicking as they met their holographic clones. There were a few scenes in there that I liked but they felt as if they were in the wrong place or just came too late. The ending was a kind of "gotcha" ending which just threw the rest of the story into doubt because of its bad execution.
I did not like this book and do not recommend it to anyone. It had a few good ideas in there but overall it was a thin story with very little plot and thin uninteresting characters. In addition, using keyboard symbols for names was not a good idea here either.
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no atmosphere at all due to almost no descriptions of anything. Second, and this was okay at first as it occurred in a limited fashion, was the use of symbols for the names of the alien intelligence and its "passengers". That got ridiculous later on, it really kicked me out of the story. I would include a quote from the text here but GoodReads keeps trying to interpret the symbols as formatting.The three lead characters are really bland and barely distinguishable from one another. It only gets worse when they start getting "Cloned", right when I almost started to care the story gave me several and quickly multiplying reasons not to. Another peeve is that the story is mostly dialogue between these characters, their copies, and the alien minds. It got old quick.
I did like an idea that was revealed pretty much upfront after the inciting incident of the crash. The idea that the alien ship could store any mind as a "template" (i.e. file) and thus could make endless copies and backups and allow them to roam the ship as holograms. Although, I feel that this premise was lost in the story which mostly consisted of the bland leads panicking as they met their holographic clones. There were a few scenes in there that I liked but they felt as if they were in the wrong place or just came too late. The ending was a kind of "gotcha" ending which just threw the rest of the story into doubt because of its bad execution.
I did not like this book and do not recommend it to anyone. It had a few good ideas in there but overall it was a thin story with very little plot and thin uninteresting characters. In addition, using keyboard symbols for names was not a good idea here either.
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Awards
Philip K. Dick Award (Nominee — 1984)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1984-04 (First US Edition)
1984
1985-08 (First UK Edition)
Physical description
7 inches
ISBN
0879979208 / 9780879979201
Local notes
"PROPERTY OF (over) JANET GOWER" stamped on first page.