Matcher Rules

by Mary Holland

Novi colony is inhumanly peaceful and John Jerzy has been sent to find out why. Jerzy's last assignment ended in disaster, his career has stalled, and he plans to unravel this minor mystery the Novians call the Matcher and get a real assignment as soon as possible.

Stella has lived on Novi all her life and she's going to the Matcher to find her affinity group. She sees no reason to change and she plans to live happily ever after.

Max Bari wants to change Novi from a backwater colonial planet to an interstellar power, with himself at the helm. All he needs is to fix the Matcher. He has a plan.

Three people, three plans. But the Matcher has no plans. Only rules.

Genres: Science Fiction

20 pages, Audiobook

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Mary Holland is the author of Matcher Rules, The Bone Road, and The Dog of Pel. After managing a corporate research library in Silicon Valley for twenty-five years, mostly to support her fantasy and science-fiction habit, she now writes full-time.
She lives among the redwoods in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains with three cats and an assortment of wildlife. Find her online at www.mary-holland.com.

Reviews

[Julie Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up when Podiobooks.com released it recently. The basic concept of the Matcher (a sentient rock?) is interesting as is the conflict between the retros and the affinities (two opposing ways of organizing family life on the planet).

Here's the basic description.

Novi colony is inhumanly peaceful and John Jerzy has been sent to find out why. Jerzy's last assignment ended in disaster, his career has stalled, and he plans to unravel this minor mystery the Novians call the Matcher and get a real assignment as soon as possible. Stella has lived on Novi all her life and she's going to the Matcher to find her affinity group. She sees no reason to change and she plans to live happily ever after. Max Bari wants to change Novi from a backwater colonial planet to an interstellar power, with himself at the helm. All he needs is to fix the Matcher. He has a plan. Three people, three plans. But the Matcher has no plans. Only rules.

The author narrates the book and her style is rather flat and sometimes the pace is a bit off. However, it isn't enough to detract from my interest in her story.

UPDATE
I really enjoyed this book. The inventive social structure, the contrast between the way that the Novians and the off-planet born view The Matcher, and, above all, Stella's and Jerzy's progress in picking their way through the minefield of friend versus foe were absorbing. I was riveted to the last few chapters and found the conclusion both satisfying and inventive.

[Toote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great concept of a post-space conquest humanity. Just a bit of politics and economics around a lot of human interaction.

[Puddlyduck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book free from netgalley - thank you!

Surprisingly, for a book describing such an alien society, you are thrown straight into the story with little explanation as to how the world works. Instead you have to rely on your own inferences and speculations to make sense of the characters' actions. I prefer this to an 'info dump' but a little more background information would have been helpful.

At first the idea of polyamorous relationships made me a little uncomfortable. People are grouped by the mysterious Matcher into parties of two, three, four or five. Stella, the main protagonist one daughter of a trio. However, much further into the story it is explained that the group affinities are not necessarily sexual, but can be a group of business partners, colleagues or simply best friends. Emphasis is placed more upon the support they give each other; so for readers feeling a little uneasy, don't fear, read on and clarity will emerge!

Matcher Rules is told from a number of different viewpoints. We follow Stella Sem, a girl working in a transport office, with no firm future plans. Desperately wanting to find her own affinity group, she's decided that her future will be shaped by the bond and strengths she brings to her membership. Although things don't go to plan, her actions following the Match do turn out to be defined by her relationships and her new role as Solo. As the tale unfurls Stella grows into a a more confident and self-aware person. It is interesting, that in a role that would lend itself more to anonymity, Stella becomes more aware of her own desires and capabilities. This kind of character progression makes for fantastic reading!

I particularly enjoyed reading Max Bari's point of view. Although Bari is an antagonist, his motives, strengths and weaknesses are gradually explored through each encounter with him. Holland has made him into a villain to be pitied and understood rather than simply despised. Perhaps reading from Amber's (or Georg's) troubled and fanatical perspective would have provided similarly intriguing insights into their journey.

Although the two main obstacles are (seemingly) overcome at the end of the tale, there are plenty more directions this story could be taken. If Holland writes a sequel I would be very interested in reading it.

[Rob Slaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual I received this book for free so I'd review it; this time from NetGalley. Also as usual I give my scrupulously honest opinions below.

For the purposes of categorization, this book falls into the same basic premise as the Dragonriders of Pern. Human colonists found a colony on an alien planet and find "thing" that completely changes their way of life. Saying much of anything else will constitute a spoiler so I leave it at that.

To the positive side of assessing this novel, the author's crafting of location is exceptionally intriguing. It's the sort of book that makes you want another 47 set in the same world just to wrap up various nuances of this alien society. Holland has created a world filled with endless possibilities that this book only begins to touch on. From a writing perspective the style is easily, accessible almost juvenile; I'd recommend it to my own children except for some references to sex which I am far too cowardly to explain to a teenager.

On the negative side, like all books of this sort, the beginning 10 pages or thereabouts were a bit of a struggle. This is somewhat unavoidable as the book is busy giving new and alien names to things but it could have been a bit less compressed. Those first pages are a bit daunting but worth getting through to get to the rest. Additionally, the ending seemed far too tidy and wrapped up with a too nice, too neat bow. Perhaps my reaction is at least in part because I want the other 47 books but the ending here is too pristine to even tease a sequel. In general the start and end seemed rushed endcaps to a beautiful middle.

In summary, this is a wonderful little concept for a society and I merely wish fervently that there were more of it. Given proper treatment there is so much of human nature to explore here but as a single stand-alone novel this came up a bit wanting. Again though, that may be at least in part my opinion because I wanted 47 more books.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pro tip: don't do what I did and set this book aside early on because you think it's just an apologetic for polyamory. First of all, it's not that at all, and secondly, it's really good.

I listened to the (free) Podiobooks version, but as is my policy with Podiobooks I enjoy, I'll be buying the ebook in order to support the author. It's for sale on both Smashwords and Amazon. I took a look at the first couple of pages of the Smashwords sample, and it looks competently punctuated and I didn't spot any horrible typos, which puts it ahead of a good many other books right away.

More than that, though, I found the characters' motivations always believable, and was surprised several times by plot twists I hadn't seen coming - but they always made sense. Other than the society's point of difference (an alien device that enables people to form strong groups), the worldbuilding was fairly thin - standard space-opera, only set on a planet - but the focus was, quite rightly, on that point of difference, and the story is the better for it. As the author's Amazon profile says, she's more interested in how people would live on alien worlds than in the rocket ships they arrived on.

So am I, on the whole, and I found this book thoroughly enjoyable.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

My many thanks to the Author, Publisher, and Goodreads for being selected to receive this free novel to read and review.

Was not too sure about this novel. Just because it was a Science-Fiction novel that alone caught my utmost interest.

Without going into the plot and any major comments of it I'm only going to state how I felt upon completion.

Great story! Science-Fiction without going all technical and then losing the reader due to having explain everything in scientific jargon or pages upon pages of boring facts. Strong storyline and characters. Quite an enjoyable reading experience and I am glad to had read.

Kudos to the Author for her hard work on developing this terrific and very original Sci-Fi novel.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the book and was glad that my expectations were not met since I liked that i had to readjust to what was coming. I got this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed the book - actually listened to the podio Book and went looking for others by the same author.

I have now purchased the Kindle version so it is added to my library.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very original Scifi-Story. I liked especially that it hard to expect what happens next.
At the beginning i thought "Oh its one of those stories" but it wasnt.
I realy enjoyed it.

[Verity]

sound good

[Lo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I downloaded this book on librivox. A beautiful voice that transforms the book into people and places from the authors and the listeners imagination.

The story is not set into a standard SF / fantasy world; this gives the true narrative better focus on people and their relationship to each other and the communitives they libe in.

A good book about loneliness, family, friendship and responsibility.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concepts and some engaging characters. Story is easy to read and interesting, but I felt there was more that the writer could have realised from the setting she created.

[Viking Jam · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://koeur.wordpress.com/2014/03/23...






Publisher: Mary Holland
Genre: SciFi
Publishing Date: March 2014
Rating: 2/5

Publisher Description: Novi colony is inhumanly peaceful and John Jerzy has been sent to find out why. Jerzy’s last assignment ended in disaster, his career has stalled, and he plans to unravel this minor mystery the Novians call the Matcher and get a real assignment as soon as possible. Stella has lived on Novi all her life and she’s going to the Matcher to find her affinity group. She sees no reason to change and she plans to live happily ever after. Max Bari wants to change Novi from a backwater colonial planet to an interstellar power, with himself at the helm. All he needs is to fix the Matcher. He has a plan. Three people, three plans. But the Matcher has no plans. Only rules…

Review: I liked the author’s writing but the story-line (for off-world Scifi) was kind of ho-hum.

The premise that an ancient alien construct (big crystal rock) chooses a solo person as a conduit to form the best matches for a hive like society, is a snooze fest. The idea that everyone is more complete when all their needs are met (emotional, physical, spiritual etc.) through appropriate matches of usually three or more people is kind of boring. It reads like a liberals wet dream of the colonized mind where everyone has the same ideals and the “Retros” are well, bad because they don’t want some alien fucking with their minds.

The Retros are painted as diminished in myriad ways, but I identified more with their plight of resistance than traipsing down the hippy trail with Stella, Jerzy and their band of vacuous followers. The Retros, imho, are justifiably angry at the people of Novi for tying to push their pogrom of alien coercion upon them. The matcher and ITS followers seem to know what’s best for everyone and when the Retros try to fight back, the matcher kills them. Yay! Fug.

This is a great novel if you can’t think for yourself, are afraid of being alone and need a collective to feel complete.

[Erica Boudette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The basic premise, a possibly sentient object matches people into lifelong partnerships of 2-5 people which creates an incredibly peaceful society, was unique and interesting to read, and definitely made reflect on some of the benefits and drawbacks of our own society.

The world of a multitude of colonized planets with differing social structures made me think of some of Le Guin's work, as it very much had the feel of a thought experiment into different ways of living. It was certainly not as sophisticated as Le Guin; the characters were much more simplistic and it lacked the rich background of world building that Le Guin is able to create, but it had similar elements in terms of making the reader reflect on our own societal norms.

Also, the story was just a lot of fun to read! I really enjoyed the different affinity groups, and the process of matching, and while the end was a bit far fetched, it felt like a satisfying conclusion that wrapped it all up. In many ways, even though of course you know that something extraordinary will happen to the main character and you will get sucked into the conflict of the book, I really didn't want that to happen so that I could just explore the world as it was because it seemed so interesting.

3.5 stars.