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Genellan #1
Genellan: Planetfall
Genellan - beautiful, Earthlike world where intelligent cliff-dwellers waited in fear for the day the warlike bear people would return... Genellan - the only refuge for a ship's crew and a detachment of spacer marines, abandoned by a fleet fleeing from alien attackers. Stranded on Genellan, the humans struggled to make a home for themselves until - they hoped against hope - the fleet could rescue them. Lt. Sharl Buccari tried desperately to hold on to the threads of command over both the civilians and the marines - to keep her people together. Winter was coming. No one knew if the winged natives would be friend or foe. And now the bear people were returning, bent on destroying every human - but not before stealing the secret of hyper light drive, the key to interstellar flight...
460 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1993
2 people are currently reading
250 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 5, 2020
Picked this one off my shelves in search of something REALLY DIFFERENT from "The Mirror and the Light," Hilary Mantel's semi-massive ending to her Cromwell saga. It looks like this will fill the bill. So far it seems to be a well-crafted and engrossing space opera, but I've only read the first few pages. Not a lot of G'reads exposure here - only 22 reviews for this 1995 book. In the first few pages is a list of other "Del Ray Discoveries"(I assume Lester Del Ray had something to do with this line of books). Never heard of any of the authors. Hey, it's a tough, competitive world out there for sci-fi writers.
At least one of the G'reviewers expresses dismay at all the military lingo being batted around staccato-style. Going along with the Star Trek theme, the space people and their hardware is made to seem very Navy-like. I guess that makes sense. The language isn't bothering me so far. I'm sensing the need for more plot speed, however. All the cryptic military trivial detail yakking does have the potential to slow things down. We'll see ...
Still going strong, if not in an exactly original direction. Good aliens ... bad aliens. Both! The continual detailed techie stuff reminds of "The Martian." Our cardboard humans are somewhat slow on the uptake creature-wise. Their ship WAS scanned by radar when the went into orbit, although the scanners were evidently not the resident aliens. Still ...
- There's a connection with "Aliens" as both that movie and this book refer to aliens as "bugs."
Past the halfway point in this space adventure story. The human crew's numbers slowly diminish as various disasters, including poor decision-making, take their toll. Lucky for them that those quite intelligent, plucky and courageous(if not very attractive - think flying baboons) resident aliens are around to help them out. The very nasty winter environment made me think of Jack London, "Drop City," and that Star Trek movie where Chris Pine gets chased into a cave by a nasty snow beast. LOTS of dicey native critters on Genellan. Us readers are being set up for a hoped for exciting and interesting second half, which will include doins with the "bear people," another alien species(from an adjacent planet) that will be making for complications when the nasty winter is done.
And now the end of the adventure nears. Apparently this book was successful enough for the author to produce a series of Genellan books. There's nothing particularly noteworthy in this book. It's a pretty good adventure story set mostly on an almost-Earth planet. Every so often a monster pops up to cause a bunch of mayhem and now the book replays the GIGANTIC SPACE BATTLE scenario, just as it began. This time the result is different, but I won't know the final score until tonight.
Finished this last night a peace breaks out all around, but not before plenty of bodies pile up. The ending is an open-ended cliffhanger and an invitation to keep on reading with the sequels. This I will not do unless I happen upon one of the sequels by chance. Still, not a bad bit of sci-fi diversion, all things considered.
The cover illustration show a couple of space marines doing battle with a couple of the flying cliff-dwellers. This does NOT happen in the story. False advertising.
- 3.25* rounds down to 3*.
At least one of the G'reviewers expresses dismay at all the military lingo being batted around staccato-style. Going along with the Star Trek theme, the space people and their hardware is made to seem very Navy-like. I guess that makes sense. The language isn't bothering me so far. I'm sensing the need for more plot speed, however. All the cryptic military trivial detail yakking does have the potential to slow things down. We'll see ...
Still going strong, if not in an exactly original direction. Good aliens ... bad aliens. Both! The continual detailed techie stuff reminds of "The Martian." Our cardboard humans are somewhat slow on the uptake creature-wise. Their ship WAS scanned by radar when the went into orbit, although the scanners were evidently not the resident aliens. Still ...
- There's a connection with "Aliens" as both that movie and this book refer to aliens as "bugs."
Past the halfway point in this space adventure story. The human crew's numbers slowly diminish as various disasters, including poor decision-making, take their toll. Lucky for them that those quite intelligent, plucky and courageous(if not very attractive - think flying baboons) resident aliens are around to help them out. The very nasty winter environment made me think of Jack London, "Drop City," and that Star Trek movie where Chris Pine gets chased into a cave by a nasty snow beast. LOTS of dicey native critters on Genellan. Us readers are being set up for a hoped for exciting and interesting second half, which will include doins with the "bear people," another alien species(from an adjacent planet) that will be making for complications when the nasty winter is done.
And now the end of the adventure nears. Apparently this book was successful enough for the author to produce a series of Genellan books. There's nothing particularly noteworthy in this book. It's a pretty good adventure story set mostly on an almost-Earth planet. Every so often a monster pops up to cause a bunch of mayhem and now the book replays the GIGANTIC SPACE BATTLE scenario, just as it began. This time the result is different, but I won't know the final score until tonight.
Finished this last night a peace breaks out all around, but not before plenty of bodies pile up. The ending is an open-ended cliffhanger and an invitation to keep on reading with the sequels. This I will not do unless I happen upon one of the sequels by chance. Still, not a bad bit of sci-fi diversion, all things considered.
The cover illustration show a couple of space marines doing battle with a couple of the flying cliff-dwellers. This does NOT happen in the story. False advertising.
- 3.25* rounds down to 3*.
January 21, 2019
Lots going on in this novel, perhaps too much. Three alien races, stranded humans in a life and death struggle. Some good editing would help, but still a fun read. 3.5 stars.
September 28, 2013
I enjoyed Genellan: Planetfall. It has the elements I like in a space epic: Marines check, women leaders check, paranoid alien species check, friendly aliens check, battles between crafts in space check, battle with small units on the ground check, difficult situations to survive check.
The story maintained a balance between hope and unlikelihood of survival.
It was frustrating that almost every female on the human team becomes pregnant. Although it is great that the team is fighting to protect their babies, you can't get better motivation than that. But, is that the what women are consigned to in the future? I always like when horses can be made to play a part in a space adventure! We don't get that enough.
The military tactics seemed rudimentary, but that is OK for me, I don't see this as military fiction. During many battles, I was thinking, why don't they move their units differently, But after all the leaders are not experienced soldiers, they are doing the best they can. The final battle sequence was heartbreaking and the question was in doubt until the very end.
I think the ideal audience for this book is someone looking for light space adventure. It is not hard science or hard military. The reader must like horses, bats and babies. I enjoyed it and have bought the next one in the series to start.
The story maintained a balance between hope and unlikelihood of survival.
It was frustrating that almost every female on the human team becomes pregnant. Although it is great that the team is fighting to protect their babies, you can't get better motivation than that. But, is that the what women are consigned to in the future? I always like when horses can be made to play a part in a space adventure! We don't get that enough.
The military tactics seemed rudimentary, but that is OK for me, I don't see this as military fiction. During many battles, I was thinking, why don't they move their units differently, But after all the leaders are not experienced soldiers, they are doing the best they can. The final battle sequence was heartbreaking and the question was in doubt until the very end.
I think the ideal audience for this book is someone looking for light space adventure. It is not hard science or hard military. The reader must like horses, bats and babies. I enjoyed it and have bought the next one in the series to start.
December 24, 2011
I didn't get much more then a quarter of the way through this book before I realized it was impenetrable. The dialogue is focused on the science and the narrative suffers for it. Unlike some of the great science fiction authors the technical data on how an advance culture survives crash landing on an alien planet is not engrossing in the slightest. I would suggest this book only to hard core sci-fi lovers that will stick it out no matter how slow it gets!
June 24, 2017
A-, enjoyed it. Good first novel.
Free ebook available at Baen, http://www.baen.com/categories/free-l...
Free ebook available at Baen, http://www.baen.com/categories/free-l...
December 31, 2015
It took 11 chapters, a whole quarter of the book, for the main plot line mentioned in the book blurb to show signs of beginning. Those 11 or so preceding chapters are filled with almost impenetrable military jargon and engineering technobabble as the spaceship everyone is on becomes irreparably damaged and then they ferry everyone down to the planet surface in an orderly manner. That's pretty much it other than some short interludes from the aliens perspective (basically them flapping about going "WTF is going on?!") and some "we left them behind!" angst from the people who shouldn't have left the spaceship behind. At this point, being utterly underwhelmed with the return I'd got from already investing several hours in this novel, I decided to call a DNF because I had no trust in the author to turn things around and make things actually interesting. Or at least more understandable.
Maybe I'll come back to this another time, but honestly I don't think I will. I wouldn't go as far as to say I wasn't the intended audience for this since I've enjoyed plenty of (military) sci-fi in the past, but I think this one would definitely be appreciated more by those who enjoy their sci-fi full of technical details (though some of the science is already outdated by the standards of today) and an old school vibe that favours macho, smack-talking space marines and very few women.
Maybe I'll come back to this another time, but honestly I don't think I will. I wouldn't go as far as to say I wasn't the intended audience for this since I've enjoyed plenty of (military) sci-fi in the past, but I think this one would definitely be appreciated more by those who enjoy their sci-fi full of technical details (though some of the science is already outdated by the standards of today) and an old school vibe that favours macho, smack-talking space marines and very few women.
March 20, 2019
The surviving crew of a ship damaged in an interstellar fight, must put down on an unknown planet and find a way to live. Complicating things there are large, carnivorous animals and two non human intelligent species to deal with.
This is an excellent adventure.
This is an excellent adventure.
Read
April 5, 2020Fear of the day the warlike bear people will come😅😂😂
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
July 30, 2025
Pretty good read
This book was a pretty good read, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series and seeing how it turns out
This book was a pretty good read, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series and seeing how it turns out
November 14, 2015
There's a lot of good worldbuilding and realistic technical dialog, as well as good description of various settings. However, there seems to be a total lack of urgency to the plot. There was no planning for future goals that we the reader could get interested in. It was more like a slow plodding walk through some interesting settings. Character building was pretty rough as well; there was little to distinguish most of the survivors apart from each other, and there was surprisingly little character development or interaction between the survivors. This combined with the book's length made it feel as though it was not worth the time investment in reading it. I will pass on reading the rest of the series.
June 14, 2013
Although the author doesn't show much imagination when it comes to alien races, this remains a highly enjoyable adventure story. The indigenous life-forms of Genellan are basically direct analogues of Earth creatures. The sentient aliens are so recognizably human in their psychology that the only significant barrier to understanding between the species is the lack of a common language. Nevertheless, the depiction of stranded humans struggling to survive is compelling and, despite the abovementioned misgivings, I found myself moved at times by the struggle to find common cause among the various species.
April 10, 2014
Read in Kindle version. Survivors of a space battle land on a rare habitable planet, Genellan, and struggle to stay alive. This involves reaching accommodation with intelligent, prototechno batlike natives and spacefaring bearlike residents of a neighboring planet. I like the premise, casting and plot, but think the author spends far too much time world building--particularly on the bears' planet, to which he keeps returning though it is never visited by the humans in this episode and so is really incidental. Also, except for the bats the author made Genellan another Earth (of a lyrically utopian sort) with very nearly the same animals, plants and microbiota. That's just lazy. C
June 23, 2014
i really liked this book. It tries to depict the struggle a group of people would face stranded on a strange and wild land.
In this case, a new planet. They make contact with not one but two civilizations, one more technologically advanced and one somewhat primitive.
What i most liked of this story was how the author managed to place us on in the perspective of the cliff dwellers (primitive aliens). It conveyed a sense of the alien in us humans from the perspective of them.
What i did not liked from this book was how easy was to communicate with not one but both alien species. It seemed they were thinking same, had the same concepts, just had different languages.
In this case, a new planet. They make contact with not one but two civilizations, one more technologically advanced and one somewhat primitive.
What i most liked of this story was how the author managed to place us on in the perspective of the cliff dwellers (primitive aliens). It conveyed a sense of the alien in us humans from the perspective of them.
What i did not liked from this book was how easy was to communicate with not one but both alien species. It seemed they were thinking same, had the same concepts, just had different languages.
September 20, 2016
Although the author doesn't show much imagination when it comes to alien races, this remains a highly enjoyable adventure story. The indigenous life-forms of Genellan are basically direct analogues of Earth creatures. The sentient aliens are so recognizably human in their psychology that the only significant barrier to understanding between the species is the lack of a common language. Nevertheless, the depiction of stranded humans struggling to survive is compelling and, despite the abovementioned misgivings, I found myself moved at times by the struggle to find common cause among the various species.
February 11, 2016
This is a wonderful and sadly overlooked series. Definitely worth tracking down, and I believe you can buy directly from the author (I did that for the final book, because I had to know what happened!)
This series has the feel of early David Weber (before he became overcome with writing about political machinations of star nations!) mixed with the world building abilities of David Brin. The characters are very well written, the action is exciting, and the underlying mystery of the planetary system they found is pretty cool.
A fast moving and awesome read!
This series has the feel of early David Weber (before he became overcome with writing about political machinations of star nations!) mixed with the world building abilities of David Brin. The characters are very well written, the action is exciting, and the underlying mystery of the planetary system they found is pretty cool.
A fast moving and awesome read!
September 7, 2011
The survivors of a space battle semi-crash land on a habitable planet and learn to survive and even proper a bit.[return][return]Space marines land on Genellan and find that their training comes in handy in surviving. Genellan is a hard place to live and the marines find that out all too quickly. Winter just about conquers them when they make contact with natives who take them in.[return][return]The marines are getting along ok, even having babies, when highly paranoid aliens from a sister planet arrive and make trouble.[return][return]A fun read. Quick and entertaining.
June 11, 2012
This was one of those books that took me a while to get into, but the storyline was pretty good. The author just got a bit carried away with the minutae at times.
It's a story about first contact, with not one, but two intelligent species in the same solar system. The author did well in relating these species, as well as the others on the planets, with things we are familiar with.
This book is free from Baen, and is formatted better than the paid version on Amazon. There are, however, quite a few OCR errors, such as joined words.
It's a story about first contact, with not one, but two intelligent species in the same solar system. The author did well in relating these species, as well as the others on the planets, with things we are familiar with.
This book is free from Baen, and is formatted better than the paid version on Amazon. There are, however, quite a few OCR errors, such as joined words.
December 5, 2013
Mixed feelings about this book. From a larger perspective, this is an excellent book. The dynamics between all the alien species, and within those species themselves, are *very* well done, and highly enjoyable. I didn't enjoy the human/human interactions while they were on the planet. They felt.....amateurish. Not the writing itself, just the characters interactions. It felt like high school. A decent read, and maybe further entries in the series address that. I do plan to read at least the next one.
June 1, 2015
I'm tempted to give this 3 stars because it wasn't that bad. I expected it to be different. I thought this was military sf. It can be classed that way because it's a sf story about characters in the military but it lacks sf military engagements except for a brief and disappointing one towards the end that doesn't even involve the main characters. This is a story about a small group of military people stranded on an earth-like world with just enough accounts from other worlds to qualify as space opera. I'm hesitant to check out the next book in this series but might.
April 6, 2013
One of my favorite Sci-Fi novels. Colonizing an earth like planet with future tech and finding sentient dinosaur like creatures, enough said! Read it if you loved Jurassic Park and are a sucker for anything Sci-Fi.
April 17, 2015
Painfully slow, and I really mean slow. The story didn't start to pick up pace and become tolerable until maybe 85-90% of the way through. Poor narrative overshadowed by a constant overbearing need to describe any and all technical or scientific explanation at tedious length.
November 25, 2015
I found this to be a good read. Several reviewers found the book too technical but it is mostly just space jargon for something not functioning or something getting repaired and it all goes away once the spacecraft is out of the story.
October 27, 2010
Free download from Baen.com
This is a wonderful story. The aliens are alien not just humans with different skin. The struggle is realistic and the interactions are believable. Would you survive?
This is a wonderful story. The aliens are alien not just humans with different skin. The struggle is realistic and the interactions are believable. Would you survive?
February 4, 2014
pretty decent book
I have read a lot worse that a far more widespread
if you can find a copy it is worth a read
I have read a lot worse that a far more widespread
if you can find a copy it is worth a read
January 22, 2015
Enjoyed the story, yes was over technical at times but maintained a good pace.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews