Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Tor Science Fiction (1995), Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages
Description
Orson Scott Card, bestselling author of Ender's Game, teams up with Kathryn H. Kidd to launch an epic science fiction saga of space exploration-and a dramatic conflict between human and nonhuman intelligence. On the Ark, a colony ship bound outward across the stars, not everyone is a volunteer-or even human. Lovelock is a capuchin monkey engineered from conception to be the perfect servant: intelligent, agile, and devoted to his owner. He is a "witness," privileged to spend his days and nights recording the life of one of Earth's most brilliant scientists via digital devices implanted behind his eyes. But Lovelock is something special among witnesses. He's a little smarter than most humans: smart enough to break through some of his conditioning, smart enough to feel the bonds of slavery-and want freedom. Set against the awesome scope of interstellar space, and like Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide before it, Lovelock probes the provocative interface between humanity and another sentient species.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
Reminded me a lot of Card's later Ender books. Although the action takes place in an exotic setting (on a colony ship, just about to set off in search of a suitable planet) the action really has to do with small-town dramas. (leaving one's old life behind irrevocably is very traumatic to
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relationships, Card theorizes). Against this background, our protagonist, an "enhanced" monkey, gradually comes to a sense of self-awareness - and a desire for respect and equality. Show Less
LibraryThing member biblioconnisseur
Very interesting spin in this book. Worth a read. I hope they finish the series!
LibraryThing member LeeHallison
This was the first book of Orson Scott Card's that I read, many years ago. I looked for more and discovered his voluminous writings - Kathryn H. Kidd didn't write with him anymore (or finish this story) but she is still a reader of his (see his dedications - she's thanked a few times). I loved this
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story. I don't care that the trilogy wasn't finished, this book is well written, clever, and interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member wodfest
Hmmmm. Orson starts this with what I take to be a concern about the reduced quality that can arise from some collaborations. How appropriate this turns out to be. I've not read any of Kathryn Kidd's work that I can recall but this is definitely well below what I expect of Orson Scott Card on his
The biggest hurdle with these books is that the main protagonist and narrator is so completely unsympathetic. Critical and hate-filled how could you feel any sympathy?
I suspect this was meant to be an introduction to the evils of slavery and the mistreatment of animals as servants of people but ... Lovelock is so scathing even of other animals in his position that it seems the be a perpetuation of the evil.... and perhaps that is meant to be part of the point - but it just doesn't work. and yet I will probably look up other works by Kathryn Kidd and I know I will keep a sympathetic eye out for work by Orson. Perhaps this really is only as variable as many other works by Orson.
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own. i seriously doubt the subsequent two books in the series will ever be written and I suspect that might well be for the best as it will allow both authors to get on with something worthwhile. I can only hope that this paid some bills. and yet... I think I would read the sequels if they came out. The biggest hurdle with these books is that the main protagonist and narrator is so completely unsympathetic. Critical and hate-filled how could you feel any sympathy?
I suspect this was meant to be an introduction to the evils of slavery and the mistreatment of animals as servants of people but ... Lovelock is so scathing even of other animals in his position that it seems the be a perpetuation of the evil.... and perhaps that is meant to be part of the point - but it just doesn't work. and yet I will probably look up other works by Kathryn Kidd and I know I will keep a sympathetic eye out for work by Orson. Perhaps this really is only as variable as many other works by Orson.
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LibraryThing member WinonaBaines
Lovelock is an enhanced capucin monkey who acts as a recorder for Carol Jeanne, a gaiologist, who is embarking on a modern day ark. This story is about going to the spaceship ark and also Lovelock's growing self awareness and ability to assert same.
LibraryThing member librisissimo
The story did not interest me at all.
LibraryThing member LHTide
SIX REASONS WHY YOU’LL LOVE ‘LOVELOCK’!
I must read and re-read it:
Lovelock is a book that I read many years ago, in its hardback version, and these last weeks, I’ve re-read it, in its eBook version (I lost the printed book during a move).
I had felt a lot of pleasure reading it in the past,
Not an ordinary protagonist:
And really, what a character…
A capuchin monkey flying toward the stars!
Well, not an ordinary male capuchin monkey, no… an “enhanced” one, genetically engineered by humans of the future. He is intelligent, efficient… but all these improvements have not been made to give to this capuchin monkey called Lovelock any personal advantage.
Lovelock is what is called a Witness, an animal which must follow a human being everywhere, in the case of the story a female celebrated Scientist, Carole Jeanne. But in fact, Lovelock is more a slave, a possession, like a personal toaster. His goal, for which he has been conditioned, is to please the Gaialogist (a Scientist seeing the ecology of a planet as a unique living being), and to notably record her life. That’s why micro cameras have been inserted behind the retinas of the monkey, recording her life in a memory bank, and the transfer of the data accumulated on external memories and TV screens, via a computer cable extending out of Lovelock’s head.
In this far future ear, it is customary for humans to have their witness with them, and when Carole Jeanne decides to help terraform a far distant planet, she is part of the interstellar journey going there, with her witness, her husband, their children, and her stepfather and stepmother.
Watching ourselves another way:
What is most interesting is that we discover the story through the personal and secret diary of Lovelock. This way of narrating the story using the first person instead of the third, and especially through the observations of an animal, is original, and very profound.
Like a nod to an old text of French literature:
His analysis of our human society, his observations and remarks, have a special connotation for me, a French reader and writer. I have a double French and English-American culture, and the text remembers me vaguely about, in my French part, a story written and published by Montesquieu in 1721, “Les Lettres Persanes”, “The Persian letters”. In it, two Persian noblemen travel through the France of the 18th century, and watch it through their foreign eyes and culture.
This more than an animal, which has been given by humans a higher consciousness, nevertheless judges us, humans, and our society. It’s interesting too, here, to see how its view of us through the filter of its mind can tell us many things about ourselves.
A fight for freedom:
The capuchin monkey gets progressively aware of his slave’s condition, and progressively fights against all his conditionings. He will work for his freedom aboard the interstellar Ark which is preparing for its fantastic journey, preparing his own future.
A change of perspective
I encourage everyone to read this memorable novel… after having read it, you will no more see your life and the world the same way!
Humanly, a rewarding experience…
Post scriptum:
This story was previewed to be the first book of the Mayflower trilogy, but the second and, foremost, the third one, were never written!
I loved so much Lovelock that, for me, it’s kind of dramatic…
Please, Mister Card, write the two next books, complete the trilogy!
Post scriptum 2 : Kathryn H. Kidd cowrote the book with him, sorry it I forgot that.
I must read and re-read it:
Lovelock is a book that I read many years ago, in its hardback version, and these last weeks, I’ve re-read it, in its eBook version (I lost the printed book during a move).
I had felt a lot of pleasure reading it in the past,
Show More
but during my last read, this pleasure was really exacerbated! Is it because, reaching an age of half a century, I’ve read it with a more experienced, mature mind? One thing is sure for me: the author wrote a text with a great depth, about the main character of the novel.Not an ordinary protagonist:
And really, what a character…
A capuchin monkey flying toward the stars!
Well, not an ordinary male capuchin monkey, no… an “enhanced” one, genetically engineered by humans of the future. He is intelligent, efficient… but all these improvements have not been made to give to this capuchin monkey called Lovelock any personal advantage.
Lovelock is what is called a Witness, an animal which must follow a human being everywhere, in the case of the story a female celebrated Scientist, Carole Jeanne. But in fact, Lovelock is more a slave, a possession, like a personal toaster. His goal, for which he has been conditioned, is to please the Gaialogist (a Scientist seeing the ecology of a planet as a unique living being), and to notably record her life. That’s why micro cameras have been inserted behind the retinas of the monkey, recording her life in a memory bank, and the transfer of the data accumulated on external memories and TV screens, via a computer cable extending out of Lovelock’s head.
In this far future ear, it is customary for humans to have their witness with them, and when Carole Jeanne decides to help terraform a far distant planet, she is part of the interstellar journey going there, with her witness, her husband, their children, and her stepfather and stepmother.
Watching ourselves another way:
What is most interesting is that we discover the story through the personal and secret diary of Lovelock. This way of narrating the story using the first person instead of the third, and especially through the observations of an animal, is original, and very profound.
Like a nod to an old text of French literature:
His analysis of our human society, his observations and remarks, have a special connotation for me, a French reader and writer. I have a double French and English-American culture, and the text remembers me vaguely about, in my French part, a story written and published by Montesquieu in 1721, “Les Lettres Persanes”, “The Persian letters”. In it, two Persian noblemen travel through the France of the 18th century, and watch it through their foreign eyes and culture.
This more than an animal, which has been given by humans a higher consciousness, nevertheless judges us, humans, and our society. It’s interesting too, here, to see how its view of us through the filter of its mind can tell us many things about ourselves.
A fight for freedom:
The capuchin monkey gets progressively aware of his slave’s condition, and progressively fights against all his conditionings. He will work for his freedom aboard the interstellar Ark which is preparing for its fantastic journey, preparing his own future.
A change of perspective
I encourage everyone to read this memorable novel… after having read it, you will no more see your life and the world the same way!
Humanly, a rewarding experience…
Post scriptum:
This story was previewed to be the first book of the Mayflower trilogy, but the second and, foremost, the third one, were never written!
I loved so much Lovelock that, for me, it’s kind of dramatic…
Please, Mister Card, write the two next books, complete the trilogy!
Post scriptum 2 : Kathryn H. Kidd cowrote the book with him, sorry it I forgot that.
Show Less
Awards
Prometheus Award (Nominee — Novel — 1995)
Original publication date
1994-07
Physical description
320 p.; 6.7 inches
ISBN
0812518055 / 9780812518054