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Alien Shores #1
This Alien Shore
It is the second age of space colonization. The first age, humanity's initial attempt to people the stars, ended in disaster when it was discovered that Earth's original super-luminal drive did lasting genetic damage to all who used it - permanently mutating Earth's far-flung colonists in mind and body. Abandoned by their home planet, exiles in alien star systems, these variant humans had no choice but to survive any way they could.
Jamisia has always lived in Shido Habitat, a corporate satellite in Earth's outer orbit. She has no memories of her parents, but has been nurtured by the fatherly care of her tutor. Protected by her biological brain-ware systems, and accompanied by the many voices in her head, she has grown into a resourceful, if unusual, young woman. When Shido is viciously attacked by corporate raiders, Jamisia's tutor risks his life to smuggle her onto a ship bound for the nearest ainniq - the Gueran jump station to the Up-and-Out. But before he dies, he tells her something which rocks the foundation of her world - the raiders were searching for her....
Jamisia has always lived in Shido Habitat, a corporate satellite in Earth's outer orbit. She has no memories of her parents, but has been nurtured by the fatherly care of her tutor. Protected by her biological brain-ware systems, and accompanied by the many voices in her head, she has grown into a resourceful, if unusual, young woman. When Shido is viciously attacked by corporate raiders, Jamisia's tutor risks his life to smuggle her onto a ship bound for the nearest ainniq - the Gueran jump station to the Up-and-Out. But before he dies, he tells her something which rocks the foundation of her world - the raiders were searching for her....
565 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
320 people are currently reading
3965 people want to read
About the author
C.S. Friedman
49 books1,276 followersCelia S. Friedman is a science fiction and fantasy author. She has also been credited Celia S. Friedman and Celia Friedman.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 327 reviews
May 12, 2020
This was a very surprising read.
I had read a trilogy by C. S. Friedman before and while it was mostly fantasy, it had some really great SF elements. This one was entirely cyberpunk with a very cool, very deep worldbuilding Space-Opera storyline.
What did it remind me of?
A mix between Cherryh's Downbelow Station and a post-cyberpunk civilization with a rather heavy focus on sophisticated and interesting hacking ethos.
For 1998, it has a lot of the Stephenson sensibility while remaining true to the core idea of societal divergence, a diaspora of genes, and alien inculturation. I almost feel like I'm reading Cherryh's more complicated and fascinating works.
But who was the real star in this novel? I'd say it's the computer virus. :)
This novel really brings me back to the days when SF used to be 3rd-person limited viewpoint. The vast array of worldbuilding potential always feels much greater than other, more modern fiction, but this time period, right before most SF turned into a much more limited or first-person viewpoints, is much more developed and richer with ideas.
I have to admit I miss this kind of thing.
I had read a trilogy by C. S. Friedman before and while it was mostly fantasy, it had some really great SF elements. This one was entirely cyberpunk with a very cool, very deep worldbuilding Space-Opera storyline.
What did it remind me of?
A mix between Cherryh's Downbelow Station and a post-cyberpunk civilization with a rather heavy focus on sophisticated and interesting hacking ethos.
For 1998, it has a lot of the Stephenson sensibility while remaining true to the core idea of societal divergence, a diaspora of genes, and alien inculturation. I almost feel like I'm reading Cherryh's more complicated and fascinating works.
But who was the real star in this novel? I'd say it's the computer virus. :)
This novel really brings me back to the days when SF used to be 3rd-person limited viewpoint. The vast array of worldbuilding potential always feels much greater than other, more modern fiction, but this time period, right before most SF turned into a much more limited or first-person viewpoints, is much more developed and richer with ideas.
I have to admit I miss this kind of thing.
January 10, 2014
TL;DR version: The bastard love-child of Dune and Neuromancer, but the awesome kind of bastard-child, the one that ends up forging his own destiny and writing his name in the stars.
Longer version:
I read this book as a teenager, and was deeply affected by it. Later, I read it as an adult, as was not-quite-so impressed anymore, but C.S. Friedman's world had sunk its claws into my mind, deep: the idea of Code as poetry, as art, became a bit of an obsession with me.
If this review is vague and lacking in some specific details, it's mostly because I think other reviewers have discussed the plot and the characters -- book's been out for a while, after all -- and I think my contribution needs to be centered around my personal experience. For everything else, there's google.
I read this again today. And the critiques of it--from my early twenties--withered and died till only one of them was left.
This Alien Shore is one of the most beautiful implementations of starfairing humanity I've seen. The Guild is a hybrid of the Bene Gesserit and the Navigator's Guild of Dune, with politics and powerplays and complexity, but ultimately an entirely *ethical* worldview and objective. It's Dune without the soul-twisting. And the treatment of FTL...the anniq, the dragons...it will leave readers breathless. Without ever truly *talking* about it, the entire novel expresses and uplifts the hunger for starflight, the hunger to extend the threshold of our reach as individuals and as a species.
The plot has two threads--one follows a young girl, a repository of great and unknown secrets, on the run from Earth and its corporations. The other is Lucifer: a virus that is wrecking havoc on the Guild's navigators, threatening the foundations of mankind's salvation--FTL travel through the rifts of space that bind all the worlds together.
The computer/bioware aspects of this have many neuromancer-like components, but without the dystopian grit.
The characters are true--true to themselves, if not to our expectations of them--they are individuals, deeply meaningful, their lives and hopes and dreams and fears sketched out in vibrant 3D. Relationships-professional, romantic, adversarial-all are true to their function and form, and heartbreaking in some cases, liberating in others.
The complaints of my early-twenties were plot-related - that the pacing was off, certain scenes went on too long, others were not in the right places. This remains a mild criticism, tempered by the realization that back then I was young and impatient, and wanted to get to the "good bits". As a writer, I slowed down, appreciated the prose, the development, the subtle-but-necessary touches that made everything more. The one criticism that remains is that while the two plot-threads deepened and strengthened each others' themes, ultimately their intersection was not one of mutual resolution but of mutual understanding. That is...not a bad thing. But it doesn't bring the story full-circle in terms of action. The fear-and-threat felt so viscerally by the MC is not vindicated in a quite-satisfying way. Minus one star. But since this is getting graded on a 6-star scale, specially-made by me for the works that have influenced me so deeply, a full set of five stars remain.
This is a beautiful novel, full of hope for the future. Humanity's discarded children rise above the pettiness-of-soul that characterizes so much of mankind's history. Deeply flawed individuals display nobility of spirit, and the diverse, the mad, the broken, make their way to where they truly belong--the stars.
Read it. You'll be happy you did. And when you're done, perhaps you'll come to the same conclusion I did: We are all Variants, and Guera is our home.
Longer version:
I read this book as a teenager, and was deeply affected by it. Later, I read it as an adult, as was not-quite-so impressed anymore, but C.S. Friedman's world had sunk its claws into my mind, deep: the idea of Code as poetry, as art, became a bit of an obsession with me.
If this review is vague and lacking in some specific details, it's mostly because I think other reviewers have discussed the plot and the characters -- book's been out for a while, after all -- and I think my contribution needs to be centered around my personal experience. For everything else, there's google.
I read this again today. And the critiques of it--from my early twenties--withered and died till only one of them was left.
This Alien Shore is one of the most beautiful implementations of starfairing humanity I've seen. The Guild is a hybrid of the Bene Gesserit and the Navigator's Guild of Dune, with politics and powerplays and complexity, but ultimately an entirely *ethical* worldview and objective. It's Dune without the soul-twisting. And the treatment of FTL...the anniq, the dragons...it will leave readers breathless. Without ever truly *talking* about it, the entire novel expresses and uplifts the hunger for starflight, the hunger to extend the threshold of our reach as individuals and as a species.
The plot has two threads--one follows a young girl, a repository of great and unknown secrets, on the run from Earth and its corporations. The other is Lucifer: a virus that is wrecking havoc on the Guild's navigators, threatening the foundations of mankind's salvation--FTL travel through the rifts of space that bind all the worlds together.
The computer/bioware aspects of this have many neuromancer-like components, but without the dystopian grit.
The characters are true--true to themselves, if not to our expectations of them--they are individuals, deeply meaningful, their lives and hopes and dreams and fears sketched out in vibrant 3D. Relationships-professional, romantic, adversarial-all are true to their function and form, and heartbreaking in some cases, liberating in others.
The complaints of my early-twenties were plot-related - that the pacing was off, certain scenes went on too long, others were not in the right places. This remains a mild criticism, tempered by the realization that back then I was young and impatient, and wanted to get to the "good bits". As a writer, I slowed down, appreciated the prose, the development, the subtle-but-necessary touches that made everything more. The one criticism that remains is that while the two plot-threads deepened and strengthened each others' themes, ultimately their intersection was not one of mutual resolution but of mutual understanding. That is...not a bad thing. But it doesn't bring the story full-circle in terms of action. The fear-and-threat felt so viscerally by the MC is not vindicated in a quite-satisfying way. Minus one star. But since this is getting graded on a 6-star scale, specially-made by me for the works that have influenced me so deeply, a full set of five stars remain.
This is a beautiful novel, full of hope for the future. Humanity's discarded children rise above the pettiness-of-soul that characterizes so much of mankind's history. Deeply flawed individuals display nobility of spirit, and the diverse, the mad, the broken, make their way to where they truly belong--the stars.
Read it. You'll be happy you did. And when you're done, perhaps you'll come to the same conclusion I did: We are all Variants, and Guera is our home.
January 7, 2020
I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would! I was really astounded by the thought Friedman put into the social aspects and how she seemed to presage what issues we'd have with the internet and human-machine interactions.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things to love:
-The opener. The opening sequence was just *chef's kiss.* Emotion, setting, action...it was all so vibrant and taut. Brilliant.
-The concepts. The idea of how humanity would spread and change, how the political, personal, and technological are all entwined...there were so many cool things to think about. Also? It made hacking cool to watch. She found a way to engage all the concepts of cyber security, and then made them at once somewhat plausible and not just someone furiously copy/pasting commands. In 1998. Astonished.
-The worlds. Wow. Each one was sooo unique in terms of environment and population. I really could not stop gushing about what a great grasp she had on these things she was making. The blurbs in the beginning from books from her fictional universe were fascinating and showed just how deep she'd thought about what she was doing.
-The issues. Remember this was written in 1998. But there's such a lot of experimentation here--with how we see our government, with mental illness, with sexuality as a viable social tool...it isn't "perfect" but I found a lot that I thought did a much better job than anything else I've seen from that time period, and since. She was really ahead of her time with this one.
Things I wish had been tightened up:
-My kingdom for an editor. I think 50-70 pages could have been removed, there were continuity issues, typos everywhere...why didn't someone catch this when it went to reprint??
-The characters. A little flat. Some of it I think would have been difficult to address, but I think if there had been someone who actually edited this, they could have helped a lot to craft these characters. The author had the insight, just needed some feedback.
-The plot. Again I think this was an editing issue, but I got a little lost in it.
Really glad I read this--I think I see a lot of seeds that were used in later works that I think she did at least as well if not better, with the minimal input she could have had, what with space travel and the internet being what it was in 1998. I wish it had been edited better, but even with glaring structural issues, I was very intrigued with the thought experiment.
If you were curious about the playlist I made for this book based on my status updates, you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jG...
February 3, 2024
4.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/TK6ITg3Q_SM
This was such a suspenseful and addictive read. The science fiction elements felt light and so I appreciated this work more as a thriller. The work was so immersive andI found myself sucked into the nostalgic adventure. The story was just a good blend of adventure with a touch of romance, reminding me of a story of my teenage years. Objectively this isn't the most revolutionary or unique story. In fact it's rather tropey.
However I really loved it and would recommend it to anyone looking for an escapist sci fi thriller.
Video Review: https://youtu.be/TK6ITg3Q_SM
This was such a suspenseful and addictive read. The science fiction elements felt light and so I appreciated this work more as a thriller. The work was so immersive andI found myself sucked into the nostalgic adventure. The story was just a good blend of adventure with a touch of romance, reminding me of a story of my teenage years. Objectively this isn't the most revolutionary or unique story. In fact it's rather tropey.
However I really loved it and would recommend it to anyone looking for an escapist sci fi thriller.
January 7, 2020
This Alien Shore is a standalone science fiction book. I'd read probably 25% before I suddenly realized I was reading a cyberpunk book and actually enjoying it. It’s obviously cyberpunk from the beginning, really, it’s just that the tone is so different from most I’ve read and I hadn’t paused before then to try to categorize what I was reading. Some of the main characters are different from what I typically expect in cyberpunk, the politics and philosophies are also pretty different, and the world-building is different. I often feel like authors of cyberpunk overdo their world-building in an attempt to make it “punky”(?) enough, ending up with a big mess that is neither coherent nor logical. I really liked the world-building in this book. It was creative and detailed and, best of all, it made sense.
In the beginning, we’re introduced to a teenage girl named Jamisia as her tutor comes to help her escape an attack on her home habitat. There seem to be a lot of mysteries surrounding Jamisia, one of which is that there’s apparently something in her head that people want and she doesn’t know why. She has to flee by herself, and people who are a lot smarter and more experienced than she is are trying very hard to find her. This isn’t the entire story, and Jamisia is only one of several POV characters. The book alternates between her story and another plot about a computer virus that’s started killing spaceship pilots.
Despite being published in 1998, this didn’t feel dated to me. The only piece of technology that broke my immersion a bit was the wellseeker. Everybody apparently has a wellseeker inside of them that monitors their vital signs and offers to provide them with chemicals to help stabilize them. For example, if they’re scared, it can give them a sedative, in appropriate amounts to take the edge off depending on just how scared they are. I sometimes got distracted wondering about the logistics of that, which weren’t discussed at all. How do all these fluids get replenished? How much can the wellseeker hold and how often does it need to be replenished for the average person? Is information tracked when an individual’s wellseeker gets replenished? If so, that information would surely get leaked or hacked on occasion and used against a person by their political enemies.
I was completely captured by Jamisia’s part of the story from the beginning, but my interest fluctuated with the more traditionally cyberpunky parts, at least in the first half. A little bit into the second half, the pace really picked up and I was engrossed by all the chapters. I debated a bit between 3.5 or 4 stars, but I think I enjoyed it enough to give it the full 4.
Just a few more random comments for the spoiler tags:
In the beginning, we’re introduced to a teenage girl named Jamisia as her tutor comes to help her escape an attack on her home habitat. There seem to be a lot of mysteries surrounding Jamisia, one of which is that there’s apparently something in her head that people want and she doesn’t know why. She has to flee by herself, and people who are a lot smarter and more experienced than she is are trying very hard to find her. This isn’t the entire story, and Jamisia is only one of several POV characters. The book alternates between her story and another plot about a computer virus that’s started killing spaceship pilots.
Despite being published in 1998, this didn’t feel dated to me. The only piece of technology that broke my immersion a bit was the wellseeker. Everybody apparently has a wellseeker inside of them that monitors their vital signs and offers to provide them with chemicals to help stabilize them. For example, if they’re scared, it can give them a sedative, in appropriate amounts to take the edge off depending on just how scared they are. I sometimes got distracted wondering about the logistics of that, which weren’t discussed at all. How do all these fluids get replenished? How much can the wellseeker hold and how often does it need to be replenished for the average person? Is information tracked when an individual’s wellseeker gets replenished? If so, that information would surely get leaked or hacked on occasion and used against a person by their political enemies.
I was completely captured by Jamisia’s part of the story from the beginning, but my interest fluctuated with the more traditionally cyberpunky parts, at least in the first half. A little bit into the second half, the pace really picked up and I was engrossed by all the chapters. I debated a bit between 3.5 or 4 stars, but I think I enjoyed it enough to give it the full 4.
Just a few more random comments for the spoiler tags:
October 2, 2020
Weaving together recognizable elements from such sci-fi classics as Dune and Neuromancer Friedman has created a unique and intriguing far future world. This is a world where Earth, dominated by mega corporations, has become increasingly xenophobic and insular, while the "out" worlds are populated by a diverse set of physically and/or mentally divergent human "variants" who have learned to work together for their shared prosperity.
One of these, the Guerans, includes a "guild" of space navigators that act as gatekeepers between worlds that would otherwise be isolated if not for their unique abilities to traverse a vast network of hyperspace hubs known as the Ainniq, while simultaneously evading the mysterious predators that lurk within. The Guerans employ a complex system of temporary facial tattoos, known as Kaja, that serve to facilitate communication and societal status. While a fascinating, I found it difficult to wrap my mind around this concept.
The plot develops in fits and starts, frequently languishing in drawn out stretches as the female protagonist, Jamisia, struggles to come to grips with her psyche, host to multiple personalities, as she attempts to evade capture; or gets caught up in the political machinations and schemings of the many guild factions. These elements mix somewhat awkwardly with the elements of an engaging cyberpunk thriller that follows a genius scientist and a rogue hacker investigating the origins of a highly sophisticated and deadly computer virus, dubbed Lucifer, that threatens mass upheaval. The details of the technological landscape are particularly intriguing, and include both complex embedded systems tied directly into the human nervous system as well as a vast and all encompassing virtual reality cyberspace.
The story, while engaging for the most part, develops fairly predictably, including a conclusion that is unsurprising and falls a bit flat. Typically, the interleaving plot lines in a story are designed to come to a head for dramatic effect and take on a greater, expanded significance, but I can't help but feel that here they end up narrowly missing each other by the time the final curtain drops, remaining somewhat too distinct. Still, I give it high marks for some of Friedman's novel concepts and fascinating world building.
One of these, the Guerans, includes a "guild" of space navigators that act as gatekeepers between worlds that would otherwise be isolated if not for their unique abilities to traverse a vast network of hyperspace hubs known as the Ainniq, while simultaneously evading the mysterious predators that lurk within. The Guerans employ a complex system of temporary facial tattoos, known as Kaja, that serve to facilitate communication and societal status. While a fascinating, I found it difficult to wrap my mind around this concept.
The plot develops in fits and starts, frequently languishing in drawn out stretches as the female protagonist, Jamisia, struggles to come to grips with her psyche, host to multiple personalities, as she attempts to evade capture; or gets caught up in the political machinations and schemings of the many guild factions. These elements mix somewhat awkwardly with the elements of an engaging cyberpunk thriller that follows a genius scientist and a rogue hacker investigating the origins of a highly sophisticated and deadly computer virus, dubbed Lucifer, that threatens mass upheaval. The details of the technological landscape are particularly intriguing, and include both complex embedded systems tied directly into the human nervous system as well as a vast and all encompassing virtual reality cyberspace.
The story, while engaging for the most part, develops fairly predictably, including a conclusion that is unsurprising and falls a bit flat. Typically, the interleaving plot lines in a story are designed to come to a head for dramatic effect and take on a greater, expanded significance, but I can't help but feel that here they end up narrowly missing each other by the time the final curtain drops, remaining somewhat too distinct. Still, I give it high marks for some of Friedman's novel concepts and fascinating world building.
May 25, 2020
This was a truly fascinating read, a novel full of compelling ideas about future societies, the vulnerability we might face in a data-driven culture, and the nature of madness. Unlike in some other cyberpunk works I’ve read, the hacking scenes were vividly and lucidly rendered, and the depictions of the brilliant and eccentric hackers rang true. Having said all this, I would have liked a little more emotional depth overall, but there was more humanity than in most tech-centered SF I’ve read, which I appreciated. Even though this novel was written over 20 years ago, its vision of issues around cyber security and what might happen if human beings are always connected to some sort of net powerfully resonate today.
December 19, 2020
I really, really enjoyed this book! Despite having been written 20+ years ago about digital technologies it did not seem at all dates to me. I’m not in
IT, so I wouldn’t know if there was anything ridiculously implausible, so I bought it. Once we settled on a couple of core characters and the plot threads started coming together it started getting really fascinating and quite breathless. I found the ending to be quite satisfying. I liked the basic premise around Neuro diversity too.
IT, so I wouldn’t know if there was anything ridiculously implausible, so I bought it. Once we settled on a couple of core characters and the plot threads started coming together it started getting really fascinating and quite breathless. I found the ending to be quite satisfying. I liked the basic premise around Neuro diversity too.
January 10, 2020
This Alien Shore delights with a detailed thought-out worldbuilding on a technical as well as a social level. Friedman created an intriguing scenario of the human evolution due to space travel. While humans on Earth try to eradicate all mental imbalances, humans on some of the abandoned colonies revel in different forms of neurodiversity and use face tattoos to give signals for correct interaction. A fascinating concept that convinced me.
A large part of the story explores topics of cyberpunk, a genre I'm quite critical of ever since I read Gibson's Neuromance and had no use for it at all. But Friedman writes her technologies understandably and in parts even interesting (in other parts I started skimming a bit, I admit … but then I'm just no fan of long cybertechnique descriptions).
As so often with these kind of stories there is a load of characters, fractions and politics which makes for elaborate intrigues and thriller elements but keeps me away from getting invested in any of the protagonists.
Therefore these are solid 4 stars for a professionally structured and written story, which left me emotionally a bit wanting.
A large part of the story explores topics of cyberpunk, a genre I'm quite critical of ever since I read Gibson's Neuromance and had no use for it at all. But Friedman writes her technologies understandably and in parts even interesting (in other parts I started skimming a bit, I admit … but then I'm just no fan of long cybertechnique descriptions).
As so often with these kind of stories there is a load of characters, fractions and politics which makes for elaborate intrigues and thriller elements but keeps me away from getting invested in any of the protagonists.
Therefore these are solid 4 stars for a professionally structured and written story, which left me emotionally a bit wanting.
May 3, 2020
Fascinating and cerebral scifi! A little too long for my tastes, but it was a well written and engaging read. A complex psychological chase plot that starts better than it ends. Looks like a sequel is coming out in October 2020 called This Virtual Night. Twenty-two years later! Yep, it's on the tbr...
Edited to add: Everyone needs a wellseeker. This technology should have been invented years ago. We need it now!!
4 Stars
Read on kindle
Edited to add: Everyone needs a wellseeker. This technology should have been invented years ago. We need it now!!
4 Stars
Read on kindle
October 20, 2008
5.0 stars (would give it more if i could). This is the sixth book of C. S. Friedman's that I have read and they have all been outstanding and several of them (including this one) are on my list of all-time favorites. This book has a massive scope and is some of the best world-building I have ever seen (especially for a stand alone novel). It also has very well thought out and extremely interesting concepts and aliens. Finally, to complete the trifecta, this book has well drawn, complex characters (especially the non-human, or should I say, the non-terran ones). Very highly recommended!!!
May 11, 2024
I had pretty high hopes for this one-- cyberpunk, strange human 'variants', deep intrigue, nasty corporations, all tied up in a rather unique world. Unfortunately, This Alien Shore turned into something of slog, felt rather dated, and bogged down repeatedly in detailed depictions of, well, stuff. Bit of a back story first. When humanity first reached the stars with a FTL drive, it soon became apparent that those who travelled thus became genetically mutated. Deep space colonization stopped and Earth abandoned its colonies. Hundreds of years latter, the Guera, one 'race' of mutated humanity, discovered another way to travel FTL, not via a drive, but by tapping into spacetime irregularities, e.g., the ainniq. What exactly is the ainniq? Some bizarre other dimension full of strange enemies starving for human souls.
While Friedman takes a pass at really developing the ainniq, the only people able to navigate it are Guera pilots, who have some odd brain mutation (at least that is the story). Hence, the Guera have a de facto monopoly on deep space travel and now constitute the 'Guild', which sought out all the abandoned colonies and reunited humanity. Terrans, for the most part, view their mutated kindred as monsters, but the rich corporations still trade with the 'outspacers'. It seems, however, one nasty corporation decided to break the Guera monopoly and field its own pilots. Through some rather bizarre brain implants and such, the subject, Jamisia, is growing up blissfully unaware of what the 'mad doctors' did to her brain until the excrement hits the spinning blades and she is forced to flee for her life into Outspace...
Many of the pages her come populated with hackers, coders, and such, and tales of the outernet dominate the text. The outernet is basically an internet for all of outspace. Everyone born has some basic brainware installed, with things like health programs to monitor/adjust vitals, and via headsets connect to the internet. Some nasty person, however, as designed a virus that attacks outspace pilots when they enter the ainniq, killing them. It has also killed lots of hackers. Who designed it, and for what purpose? A mystery, but one the guild must uncover, and punish the perpetrator.
I love cyberpunk, but this aspect here was overblown and felt more like Tron than Gibson. Endless discussion of 'rovers', 'data sniffers', 'viruses', data, code, etc., just got tiring and, well, boring. I think Friedman tried to make this future internet as 'realistic' as possible and bombed the reader with endless details.
Our main protagonist Jamisa? Well, whatever the mad doctors did to her brain, it seems she has several distinct personalities, or even personas, stuck in her head. She can have conversations with them and they can take over her body, etc. A rival corporation (the one who launched the raid on her habitat in Earth space) is determined to track her down and bring her back. The Guild quickly learns about her, and starts tracking her as well. Our poor, defenseless gal must use her feminine wiles and guts to try to survive in outspace and that is the gist of the tale.
The creative world building in the end became just a back drop to the mysterious virus and the hunt for its creator, however. The human variants were never really developed in detail, except for the Guera, who all have some bizarre mental 'issues' while appearing physically normal. I can see why some people may really love this one, but for me, it felt bloated and just too long. 2.5 stars, rounding up as I finished it.
While Friedman takes a pass at really developing the ainniq, the only people able to navigate it are Guera pilots, who have some odd brain mutation (at least that is the story). Hence, the Guera have a de facto monopoly on deep space travel and now constitute the 'Guild', which sought out all the abandoned colonies and reunited humanity. Terrans, for the most part, view their mutated kindred as monsters, but the rich corporations still trade with the 'outspacers'. It seems, however, one nasty corporation decided to break the Guera monopoly and field its own pilots. Through some rather bizarre brain implants and such, the subject, Jamisia, is growing up blissfully unaware of what the 'mad doctors' did to her brain until the excrement hits the spinning blades and she is forced to flee for her life into Outspace...
Many of the pages her come populated with hackers, coders, and such, and tales of the outernet dominate the text. The outernet is basically an internet for all of outspace. Everyone born has some basic brainware installed, with things like health programs to monitor/adjust vitals, and via headsets connect to the internet. Some nasty person, however, as designed a virus that attacks outspace pilots when they enter the ainniq, killing them. It has also killed lots of hackers. Who designed it, and for what purpose? A mystery, but one the guild must uncover, and punish the perpetrator.
I love cyberpunk, but this aspect here was overblown and felt more like Tron than Gibson. Endless discussion of 'rovers', 'data sniffers', 'viruses', data, code, etc., just got tiring and, well, boring. I think Friedman tried to make this future internet as 'realistic' as possible and bombed the reader with endless details.
Our main protagonist Jamisa? Well, whatever the mad doctors did to her brain, it seems she has several distinct personalities, or even personas, stuck in her head. She can have conversations with them and they can take over her body, etc. A rival corporation (the one who launched the raid on her habitat in Earth space) is determined to track her down and bring her back. The Guild quickly learns about her, and starts tracking her as well. Our poor, defenseless gal must use her feminine wiles and guts to try to survive in outspace and that is the gist of the tale.
The creative world building in the end became just a back drop to the mysterious virus and the hunt for its creator, however. The human variants were never really developed in detail, except for the Guera, who all have some bizarre mental 'issues' while appearing physically normal. I can see why some people may really love this one, but for me, it felt bloated and just too long. 2.5 stars, rounding up as I finished it.
May 14, 2024
Study the parts of the soul that hide from daylight, the quirks and terrors of our insecurities, the inner conflicts that are the very foundation of our human identity. There you will find a creature truly alien, nearly incomprehensible, and as awesome in its potential as it is terrifying in its capacity for self-destruction.
This is the third Science Fiction novel by Friedman I have read, the other two being The Madness Season and In Conquest Born. Interestingly, in each one of them the author envisions a totally different imagined future. I found This Alien Shore to be the best of the three, and in fact one of the best novels I have read in some time, which is saying a lot.
For a moment he almost stopped breathing. A concept had taken shape within his brain, and for a moment he felt that if he moved – or even thought too much – he would lose it.
This novel succeeds on many levels. It has some great ideas, strong characters, and a fantastically presented future setting. It also exceeds all expectations as a mystery novel, and readers will likely find themselves in breathless anticipation towards the closing chapters, waiting for all to be revealed.
People are calling this a Neuromancer / Dune hybrid, that’s to say, in more general terms, a Cyberpunk / Space Opera hybrid. That's as fair a summation as any, although I wouldn’t want to pin it down to just that, it is actually a really enjoyable story that should appeal to readers of all kinds of Science Fiction.
It was beautiful. It was horrible. It was chaos, utter chaos and the mind couldn’t even focus on it without feeling the boundaries of sanity give way.
The concept of the first and second ages of space colonization, with its ramifications, is really well thought out. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail in this review, otherwise I will just start rambling.
This is another of those novels that have the kind of heft which makes me wonder why it wasn’t nominated for any awards (even though there is a blurb on the cover stating that it was a New York Times “notable book of the year”).
This is the third Science Fiction novel by Friedman I have read, the other two being The Madness Season and In Conquest Born. Interestingly, in each one of them the author envisions a totally different imagined future. I found This Alien Shore to be the best of the three, and in fact one of the best novels I have read in some time, which is saying a lot.
For a moment he almost stopped breathing. A concept had taken shape within his brain, and for a moment he felt that if he moved – or even thought too much – he would lose it.
This novel succeeds on many levels. It has some great ideas, strong characters, and a fantastically presented future setting. It also exceeds all expectations as a mystery novel, and readers will likely find themselves in breathless anticipation towards the closing chapters, waiting for all to be revealed.
People are calling this a Neuromancer / Dune hybrid, that’s to say, in more general terms, a Cyberpunk / Space Opera hybrid. That's as fair a summation as any, although I wouldn’t want to pin it down to just that, it is actually a really enjoyable story that should appeal to readers of all kinds of Science Fiction.
It was beautiful. It was horrible. It was chaos, utter chaos and the mind couldn’t even focus on it without feeling the boundaries of sanity give way.
The concept of the first and second ages of space colonization, with its ramifications, is really well thought out. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail in this review, otherwise I will just start rambling.
This is another of those novels that have the kind of heft which makes me wonder why it wasn’t nominated for any awards (even though there is a blurb on the cover stating that it was a New York Times “notable book of the year”).
January 3, 2020
This is a mix of space opera and cyberpunk. While published in 1998, it has several quite prophetic notes on today’s world. I read is as a part of monthly reading in January 2020 at SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.
It is described by another reviewer as a bastard child of Dune and Neuromancer. I have to add that it also has a great thriller action feel to it as well.
It starts on Earth satellite, were a protagonist, Jamie, wakes up one morning to find out that someone is after her and she has to run even if she doesn’t know why. What she knows that she had some holes in her memories and this is extremely serious for Earth is hard on any psychic deviation. In this world about two millennia earlier a faster than light travel with the help of Hausman drive and it was used to spread humanity from the overpopulated motherworld. However, later negative effects were discovered: it worked irreparable genetic damage on anyone making that journey. This frightened Terrans, who destroyed all possibilities for further travel. Earth could have relied upon machines to maintain contact, at least until the colonies had what they needed to survive. Those colonists, who survived are called Hausman Variants.
The parallel storyline takes a programmer/scientist from Gera, one of Hausman Variants, named Dr. Kio Masada, whose mutation is some form of autism with great attention to computer code and awkward social interaction. He is hired by the Guild of navigators, who replaced Hausman ships as means for travel in warp (this not only reminds of Dune but of the partially Dune’s based universe of Warhammer 40’000). The Guild faced a deadly virus, which affects brainware of navigators and wants to stop it and find who is behind it.
A lot of action adventure follows.
What is very interesting is some currently relevant stuff like:
"Outworld etiquette said it was rude to indulge in a lengthy internal dialogue when there was a real person sitting right in front on you. Not that folks didn't do it all the time anyway, but with strangers he liked to be proper"
“Let every government see to it that each child is implanted with the tools it needs to communicate, calculate, and process data. Let each government make sure that rich and poor alike, dirtborn and outworlder, Terran and Variant, all have equal access to the outernet and its resources. Let them do that, and we will see something the galaxy has never seen before: a time of true equality, unequaled prosperity, and the kind of conceptual innovation that can only take place when every human being is functioning at peak capacity, 100% of the time.”
It is described by another reviewer as a bastard child of Dune and Neuromancer. I have to add that it also has a great thriller action feel to it as well.
It starts on Earth satellite, were a protagonist, Jamie, wakes up one morning to find out that someone is after her and she has to run even if she doesn’t know why. What she knows that she had some holes in her memories and this is extremely serious for Earth is hard on any psychic deviation. In this world about two millennia earlier a faster than light travel with the help of Hausman drive and it was used to spread humanity from the overpopulated motherworld. However, later negative effects were discovered: it worked irreparable genetic damage on anyone making that journey. This frightened Terrans, who destroyed all possibilities for further travel. Earth could have relied upon machines to maintain contact, at least until the colonies had what they needed to survive. Those colonists, who survived are called Hausman Variants.
The parallel storyline takes a programmer/scientist from Gera, one of Hausman Variants, named Dr. Kio Masada, whose mutation is some form of autism with great attention to computer code and awkward social interaction. He is hired by the Guild of navigators, who replaced Hausman ships as means for travel in warp (this not only reminds of Dune but of the partially Dune’s based universe of Warhammer 40’000). The Guild faced a deadly virus, which affects brainware of navigators and wants to stop it and find who is behind it.
A lot of action adventure follows.
What is very interesting is some currently relevant stuff like:
"Outworld etiquette said it was rude to indulge in a lengthy internal dialogue when there was a real person sitting right in front on you. Not that folks didn't do it all the time anyway, but with strangers he liked to be proper"
“Let every government see to it that each child is implanted with the tools it needs to communicate, calculate, and process data. Let each government make sure that rich and poor alike, dirtborn and outworlder, Terran and Variant, all have equal access to the outernet and its resources. Let them do that, and we will see something the galaxy has never seen before: a time of true equality, unequaled prosperity, and the kind of conceptual innovation that can only take place when every human being is functioning at peak capacity, 100% of the time.”
June 28, 2016
This book was incredible. It reads like a thriller and has some incredible world-building.
This is in the far future. Mankind's first experience had tragic effects. It scarred the early pioneers and destroyed spaceflight on the homeworld. In this future, there are many innovations. This is yet another book I've read - along with the Budayeen trilogy by George Alec Effinger and Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds - where man has developed a society and a dependence on technology implants.
This is very disturbing. In fact, some of the most disturbing elements of the story is where this goes wrong.
I can also imagine this book as a YA thriller. But it was written in the days before YA. This may have been since a lot of science fiction was aimed at the young anyway.
Only one thing really bothered me and that was the ending. The book starts with one character and spends about equal time with the different characters. However, the ending gives short-shrift to the younger characters while spending plenty of time on the villain. Most disappointing.
It's too bad that the author never made a follow-up to it.
This is in the far future. Mankind's first experience had tragic effects. It scarred the early pioneers and destroyed spaceflight on the homeworld. In this future, there are many innovations. This is yet another book I've read - along with the Budayeen trilogy by George Alec Effinger and Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds - where man has developed a society and a dependence on technology implants.
This is very disturbing. In fact, some of the most disturbing elements of the story is where this goes wrong.
I can also imagine this book as a YA thriller. But it was written in the days before YA. This may have been since a lot of science fiction was aimed at the young anyway.
Only one thing really bothered me and that was the ending. The book starts with one character and spends about equal time with the different characters. However, the ending gives short-shrift to the younger characters while spending plenty of time on the villain. Most disappointing.
It's too bad that the author never made a follow-up to it.
February 17, 2020
Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded to 3
We wear human bodies, but it takes drugs and software to make us truly human.
Finally finished, after a month and a half! This is by no means a bad story -- its world-building and attention to detail is absorbing, and the Gueran culture with its kaja system is intriguing. Those features alone make this space-opera good enough for the rating given. Unfortunately, though I found myself interested whenever I picked up This Alien Shore, I found myself not caring enough when I wasn't reading it.
The point of view shifts often, between many characters -- even new characters 70% into the novel! -- and I never felt connected to any of them. We spend a fair amount of time with a few of them, like Jamisia, but her characterization is stereotyped to excess. Or, at least parts of her are stereotyped. Particularly Katlyn and Derik. Don't get me started on gender characterization. Other characters who could have been interesting (the Belial twins, for example) disappear, never to be seen or spoken of again.
I get it. This story isn't about characters as much as it is about ideas and concepts, hence my rating. However, for a book about Big Ideas, there are an awful lot of characters who amount to practically nothing.
We wear human bodies, but it takes drugs and software to make us truly human.
Finally finished, after a month and a half! This is by no means a bad story -- its world-building and attention to detail is absorbing, and the Gueran culture with its kaja system is intriguing. Those features alone make this space-opera good enough for the rating given. Unfortunately, though I found myself interested whenever I picked up This Alien Shore, I found myself not caring enough when I wasn't reading it.
The point of view shifts often, between many characters -- even new characters 70% into the novel! -- and I never felt connected to any of them. We spend a fair amount of time with a few of them, like Jamisia, but her characterization is stereotyped to excess. Or, at least parts of her are stereotyped. Particularly Katlyn and Derik. Don't get me started on gender characterization. Other characters who could have been interesting (the Belial twins, for example) disappear, never to be seen or spoken of again.
I get it. This story isn't about characters as much as it is about ideas and concepts, hence my rating. However, for a book about Big Ideas, there are an awful lot of characters who amount to practically nothing.
November 12, 2024
I need to make a hurried review because I've been slack about all my adult responsibilities surrounding the holiday season, and that big fat roc has come home to roost today.
Finished this up on audio. A merging of hard-ish SF and cyberpunk, there were a couple of physics-related plot holes that annoyed me, but otherwise, a pretty good possible future of humankind. Jamisia was a good character, as well as Dr. Kio Masada; I look forward to the other books in the series/trilogy.
Finished this up on audio. A merging of hard-ish SF and cyberpunk, there were a couple of physics-related plot holes that annoyed me, but otherwise, a pretty good possible future of humankind. Jamisia was a good character, as well as Dr. Kio Masada; I look forward to the other books in the series/trilogy.
dnf
January 6, 2020DNF @ 20%
Way too little science, far too much YA melodrama. Not my kind of scifi.
Way too little science, far too much YA melodrama. Not my kind of scifi.
August 22, 2024
A great book. Cyberpunk for people (like me) who don’t care much for cyberpunk.
I recently read another book by C.S. Friedman, The Madness Season, which I loved. This Alien Shore is very different in style and story but, once again, Friedman displays such creative talent in building a detailed setting and bringing a range of interesting characters to life.
I’m eager to see what Friedman does in the recently published sequel, This Virtual Night, written so many years later.
I recently read another book by C.S. Friedman, The Madness Season, which I loved. This Alien Shore is very different in style and story but, once again, Friedman displays such creative talent in building a detailed setting and bringing a range of interesting characters to life.
I’m eager to see what Friedman does in the recently published sequel, This Virtual Night, written so many years later.
January 21, 2020
Phew, This Alien Shore took me quite a long time to read – I mean listen. In part I found the book dragged a bit, but mostly, this was not the books fault! I had a very busy January so far and had to re-listen to several passages to be very sure, that I understood the story enough. I guess this is another book, that would have been better read – so my audio-experiments are still not fully successful. Despite this, there were some absolute brilliant passages. One of the first was the opening scene where . Another one that comes to mind is the ending In fact, I think these two make me round up my overall rating of 3.5 to 4 stars. Not my normal book, sometimes hard earned, but a good overall experience.
What bugged me most, were the exhaustive use of sedatives, the male protector or the helplessness of Jamisia despite her “abilities”. This book also needed a lot of concentration from me because of the many switches between time and place or the profound insights into the human psyche. What I really enjoyed was the author’s technological insight – I’m not sure, I’d dare to read a book by her written today: It might be too true on what the future might bring. I also liked the introductions in each chapter that were insightful into these many worlds or often included a brilliant piece on human’s behaviour. Recommended, but read when you have enough time to fully experience.
What bugged me most, were the exhaustive use of sedatives, the male protector or the helplessness of Jamisia despite her “abilities”. This book also needed a lot of concentration from me because of the many switches between time and place or the profound insights into the human psyche. What I really enjoyed was the author’s technological insight – I’m not sure, I’d dare to read a book by her written today: It might be too true on what the future might bring. I also liked the introductions in each chapter that were insightful into these many worlds or often included a brilliant piece on human’s behaviour. Recommended, but read when you have enough time to fully experience.
January 12, 2020
4.5 stars rounded up. It wasn't perfect but sure close. I am still not entirely sure how to survive the ainniq but I think that is the way the Guild wants it. So much to enjoy from the cyberpunk aspects to the exploring of other worlds to the reveals of Guild society. Friedman packed so much world building into this and still managed to create a compelling story. I felt for Jamisia as she tried to figure out what exactly she was, I liked the unwritten subtext that maybe we all have parts of these personalities swirling around in our heads just not so overt. I liked the foreshadowing of friends to come and the planet everyone seemed headed for.
Friedman added just enough of several parts to leave me wanting more, yet not so much that it interfered with the story. I would love an entire book about the many faceted Guild society. I would love an entire book flying through cyberspace inside Phoenix and Masada's heads. I would love a Becky Chambers like voyage to explore all of the Hausman worlds. What I got however was nearly perfect, along with the bittersweet ending, just enough to satisfy yet want more.
Friedman added just enough of several parts to leave me wanting more, yet not so much that it interfered with the story. I would love an entire book about the many faceted Guild society. I would love an entire book flying through cyberspace inside Phoenix and Masada's heads. I would love a Becky Chambers like voyage to explore all of the Hausman worlds. What I got however was nearly perfect, along with the bittersweet ending, just enough to satisfy yet want more.
March 10, 2025
Far too long for what I got out of it. I'll put some more thoughts here over the weekend. (Below!)
***
In This Alien Shore's universe, genetic mutations occurred when Earth made its first forays into deep space with the Hausmann drive. Earth cut itself off from those settlers out of xenophobic fear. Who knows how many centuries later, humans and variants are negotiating a détente at long last, and a number of people from within Earth's influence are now living in the variants' outspace.
Long-distance space can only be traversed safely via variant outspace Guild pilots who can perceive and avoid the dangers of an otherdimensional slipstream called the ainniq. The spread of a computer virus deadly to these pilots is one of the major plot threads of this novel. Dr. Kio Masada, a Gueran variant, is called upon to analyze the virus, cut off its spread, and seek out its source. He stumbles across Phoenix, a human hacker who has similar goals because a couple of his friends were killed when the virus invaded the computerized portions of their brains, and the two men decide to work together.
The other major plotline involves Jamisia, a citizen of an Earth corporation who experienced a terrible trauma early in her life. She's fleeing for her freedom after another corporation destroys her home as part of a plan to capture her and the suite of unique and powerful hard- and software in her brain. After a fraught trip across space with a crew of drug smugglers, she meets up with Phoenix when she needs help with untraceably accessing a debit chip her mentor gave her. (You'd think Phoenix was a main character, but he isn't really. These three characters do meet briefly in the latter part of the book.)
Some of the ideas in this book are very cool. The Guerans are the main Hausmann variants that we see, and their culture is fascinating. A deep study of variations in personality and mental health has led to a detailed, codified system of facial cosmetics and etiquette, where understanding--if not necessarily pure harmony--can readily be reached between very different people. Unfortunately, we don't see too much of the other variants, though representatives of a couple of the others are on the drug smuggling ship. We don't see much of the ainniq either--just a brief sequence in the last part of the book.
The narrative follows Masada and Jamisia--and a few other points of view along the way--from moment to moment as they pursue (Masada) and are pursued (Jamisia). The prose is propelling and easy to read, but I wouldn't call it bestseller-like at all. The hacking and virus investigation portions in particular are fun, allowing the reader to sit on Masada or Phoenix's shoulder as they deal with the tricky and dangerous Lucifer virus. I'm always a sucker for a space station with a giant shopping arcade and plenty of opportunity to people-watch, and there are a few of those along the way, both on Jamisia's journey and from Phoenix's point of view. (Michael Whelan's cover art is great, showing Jamisia's fear and isolation, and some of the variants on one of the space stations she visits during her flight across space. It's pulpy, but has a lot more character than the boring iconography we're getting thirty years later.)
There are a couple of major issues with this book, for me. Sexuality is both stiflingly binary and heteronormative. Jamisia has something that parses somewhat like dissociative personality disorder (or a 90s conception of it), and one of her personalities is a siren who knows the ways of seduction and can easily manipulate men into protecting her. Be attractive and fem, act vulnerable, show a bit of sideboob, and you're good to go.
Another thing that I had a hard time getting around after a while is that these characters are a lot like D&D adventurers. They show up in the story fully-formed, but you never learn a lot about what they were like before that. What's family like for a Gueran? How did the Guild Prima get to where she is today? How did Phoenix, as a human, come to be in outspace? Who knows? I sure don't. I'm not saying that a story like this has to go into the psychosocial development of every single person, but the near-complete absence of that kind of background for the characters made things less involving and immersive for me.
While the prose is skillful, even impressive, in depicting the aforementioned moment-to-moment events along with the characters, I wouldn't call it all that interesting. There just wasn't enough there there--prose, characterization, plot, emotion, theme, or concept--to justify its hefty word count. This Alien Shore was all too easy to put down, and hard to bring myself to pick up: so much so, that I ended up setting it aside for over two months about midway through.
A predictable, rushed conclusion, and a silly twist at the end, left me with a "meh" taste, but the last couple of pages of This Alien Shore was just as excellent as its gripping beginning. It both concluded the major story, and left the reader's imagination open to continue it into the future.
This could have easily become a personal favorite if only there'd been both less of it, and more of it. Having now read a few less-favorable reviews, I see readers who've enjoyed other novels by Friedman, so I'm definitely willing to give her another chance.
***
In This Alien Shore's universe, genetic mutations occurred when Earth made its first forays into deep space with the Hausmann drive. Earth cut itself off from those settlers out of xenophobic fear. Who knows how many centuries later, humans and variants are negotiating a détente at long last, and a number of people from within Earth's influence are now living in the variants' outspace.
Long-distance space can only be traversed safely via variant outspace Guild pilots who can perceive and avoid the dangers of an otherdimensional slipstream called the ainniq. The spread of a computer virus deadly to these pilots is one of the major plot threads of this novel. Dr. Kio Masada, a Gueran variant, is called upon to analyze the virus, cut off its spread, and seek out its source. He stumbles across Phoenix, a human hacker who has similar goals because a couple of his friends were killed when the virus invaded the computerized portions of their brains, and the two men decide to work together.
The other major plotline involves Jamisia, a citizen of an Earth corporation who experienced a terrible trauma early in her life. She's fleeing for her freedom after another corporation destroys her home as part of a plan to capture her and the suite of unique and powerful hard- and software in her brain. After a fraught trip across space with a crew of drug smugglers, she meets up with Phoenix when she needs help with untraceably accessing a debit chip her mentor gave her. (You'd think Phoenix was a main character, but he isn't really. These three characters do meet briefly in the latter part of the book.)
Some of the ideas in this book are very cool. The Guerans are the main Hausmann variants that we see, and their culture is fascinating. A deep study of variations in personality and mental health has led to a detailed, codified system of facial cosmetics and etiquette, where understanding--if not necessarily pure harmony--can readily be reached between very different people. Unfortunately, we don't see too much of the other variants, though representatives of a couple of the others are on the drug smuggling ship. We don't see much of the ainniq either--just a brief sequence in the last part of the book.
The narrative follows Masada and Jamisia--and a few other points of view along the way--from moment to moment as they pursue (Masada) and are pursued (Jamisia). The prose is propelling and easy to read, but I wouldn't call it bestseller-like at all. The hacking and virus investigation portions in particular are fun, allowing the reader to sit on Masada or Phoenix's shoulder as they deal with the tricky and dangerous Lucifer virus. I'm always a sucker for a space station with a giant shopping arcade and plenty of opportunity to people-watch, and there are a few of those along the way, both on Jamisia's journey and from Phoenix's point of view. (Michael Whelan's cover art is great, showing Jamisia's fear and isolation, and some of the variants on one of the space stations she visits during her flight across space. It's pulpy, but has a lot more character than the boring iconography we're getting thirty years later.)
There are a couple of major issues with this book, for me. Sexuality is both stiflingly binary and heteronormative. Jamisia has something that parses somewhat like dissociative personality disorder (or a 90s conception of it), and one of her personalities is a siren who knows the ways of seduction and can easily manipulate men into protecting her. Be attractive and fem, act vulnerable, show a bit of sideboob, and you're good to go.
Another thing that I had a hard time getting around after a while is that these characters are a lot like D&D adventurers. They show up in the story fully-formed, but you never learn a lot about what they were like before that. What's family like for a Gueran? How did the Guild Prima get to where she is today? How did Phoenix, as a human, come to be in outspace? Who knows? I sure don't. I'm not saying that a story like this has to go into the psychosocial development of every single person, but the near-complete absence of that kind of background for the characters made things less involving and immersive for me.
While the prose is skillful, even impressive, in depicting the aforementioned moment-to-moment events along with the characters, I wouldn't call it all that interesting. There just wasn't enough there there--prose, characterization, plot, emotion, theme, or concept--to justify its hefty word count. This Alien Shore was all too easy to put down, and hard to bring myself to pick up: so much so, that I ended up setting it aside for over two months about midway through.
A predictable, rushed conclusion, and a silly twist at the end, left me with a "meh" taste, but the last couple of pages of This Alien Shore was just as excellent as its gripping beginning. It both concluded the major story, and left the reader's imagination open to continue it into the future.
This could have easily become a personal favorite if only there'd been both less of it, and more of it. Having now read a few less-favorable reviews, I see readers who've enjoyed other novels by Friedman, so I'm definitely willing to give her another chance.
March 3, 2025
First, my processing of issues on this internet, lol. I'd been meaning to read this for a year, but was waiting for it to get voted in book club. I had a physical copy of it from my lovely friend, for months, but *somehow* I still managed to only read 30 or so pages of it before returning it to her, for her re-read. And with all that, didn't manage to read more than 2/3 of it until book club.
Glad I got that out of the way. Well, I finally finished and I think my take is that this should have been two books in the same world, because they tell two different stories that dovetail a little, maybe, but I don't think the plots ever coalesce into one, and even thematically, they feel a bit disparate. And even if this has over 500 pages, the two books feel incomplete in their own right with the dramatization and actually having plot at all.
But first, the good: the worldbuilding is pretty sensational and interesting, a universe in which Earth is all neurotypical, but we have the disabled, the neurodivergent, the mutant, living on outerworlds. I really liked most of the approach of this, especially because they're called Variants, which feels like much more of a neutral umbrella word for all those things! So all of the characters fall outside the norm, which is super cool! There's representation for (possibly, the conditions or categories aren't necessarily called that) autism, ADHD, DID, OCD, Tourette's, blindness and so on.
I'll comment on two of those! Masada is probably on the autism spectrum and I found the representation pretty good (while not being autistic myself, that I know of, even though I suspect I might be AuDHD, but who knows, I'm just a tired baby), with the possible exception of he not being sure if he had / could have loved his dead wife (also autistic). Not sure if that was an author error or a 'this world isn't perfect' sort of detail. And also, from my reading and trying to understand DID, Jamisia felt like good representation of that, even if Jamisia is a bit of a non-character herself (won't comment on the alters, cause it feels like it's not my place) and she is a bit passive all throughout the book, which can get to feel a bit exhausting.
The world we're in is cyberpunk and laden with space capitalism (and a very 90s aesthetic) and thus the society we see is intensely hierarchical and socially stratified. But somehow we don't get to see enough of it or how Variants interact with the system to understand it better. And the plot just kind of fizzles out, without much engagement or intensity. Plus, the whole kaja social system feels a bit static to me, and hacker Phoenix calls attention to that at some point and I didn't find the answer super satisfying.
Another great part of the book though: the interstitial flavor text / quotes that's such a scifi trope (that I love), they were great in this one. Will probably not read the next book in the series that came out a couple of years ago!
Glad I got that out of the way. Well, I finally finished and I think my take is that this should have been two books in the same world, because they tell two different stories that dovetail a little, maybe, but I don't think the plots ever coalesce into one, and even thematically, they feel a bit disparate. And even if this has over 500 pages, the two books feel incomplete in their own right with the dramatization and actually having plot at all.
But first, the good: the worldbuilding is pretty sensational and interesting, a universe in which Earth is all neurotypical, but we have the disabled, the neurodivergent, the mutant, living on outerworlds. I really liked most of the approach of this, especially because they're called Variants, which feels like much more of a neutral umbrella word for all those things! So all of the characters fall outside the norm, which is super cool! There's representation for (possibly, the conditions or categories aren't necessarily called that) autism, ADHD, DID, OCD, Tourette's, blindness and so on.
I'll comment on two of those! Masada is probably on the autism spectrum and I found the representation pretty good (while not being autistic myself, that I know of, even though I suspect I might be AuDHD, but who knows, I'm just a tired baby), with the possible exception of he not being sure if he had / could have loved his dead wife (also autistic). Not sure if that was an author error or a 'this world isn't perfect' sort of detail. And also, from my reading and trying to understand DID, Jamisia felt like good representation of that, even if Jamisia is a bit of a non-character herself (won't comment on the alters, cause it feels like it's not my place) and she is a bit passive all throughout the book, which can get to feel a bit exhausting.
The world we're in is cyberpunk and laden with space capitalism (and a very 90s aesthetic) and thus the society we see is intensely hierarchical and socially stratified. But somehow we don't get to see enough of it or how Variants interact with the system to understand it better. And the plot just kind of fizzles out, without much engagement or intensity. Plus, the whole kaja social system feels a bit static to me, and hacker Phoenix calls attention to that at some point and I didn't find the answer super satisfying.
Another great part of the book though: the interstitial flavor text / quotes that's such a scifi trope (that I love), they were great in this one. Will probably not read the next book in the series that came out a couple of years ago!
February 24, 2022
l 75% l
starting 2022 off ~great~
maybe i should read more sci-fi. maybe i should also make a list.
➪ was the plot good?
yes. very creative and original. i don’t usually read sci-fi because i’m not a huge fan of tech-y stuff and having to learn a bunch of new science mechanisms and i usually just get bored and confused, but i mostly understood the plot of this book, at least enough that it interested me.
➪ did i get confused?
absolutely. i don’t know why there are different variants and what’s the difference between variants and guerans and terrans and the guild and earth people, that was completely lost on me. i also don’t know what is where and what’s an iru or whatever the other species are. and wtf happened at the end?
➪ was it well-written?
yes. i didn’t think sci fi books usually had pretty writing or are particularly well-written but this one changed my mind. it was written excellently and developed so well at such a high quality.
➪ were the characters well-written?
i think so? i feel like i didn’t get to know them very well but they all seemed to be adequately developed and i could tell they had thought put into them.
➪ did i like the characters?
i liked most of them, my favorite character was katlyn, she was an iconic queen
➪ was the pacing done well?
i had no idea where the story was going so i can’t tell you if the pacing was good or not, i feel like things maybe dragged on for too long and were a little bit rushed at the end because i didn’t understand what happened in the end at all but other than that i really enjoyed the story so i think the pacing was good?
➪ were there any good romance or relationships?
not really, there were some but it didn’t really play a central part to the story which i actually appreciated because i don’t really like when romance is a central part of the plotline in these types of books. i liked the friendship between Jamisia and the Others.
➪ favorite part of the book?
i loved the concept with the Others thing, ive never read anything like it and i just thought it was so creative and cool. it’s never really been done before and it was executed really well.
➪ do i recommend this book?
yes, especially if you are a fan of science fiction and even if you aren’t this is a very enjoyable read and is very well-written.
tw for self-harm, etc
starting 2022 off ~great~
maybe i should read more sci-fi. maybe i should also make a list.
➪ was the plot good?
yes. very creative and original. i don’t usually read sci-fi because i’m not a huge fan of tech-y stuff and having to learn a bunch of new science mechanisms and i usually just get bored and confused, but i mostly understood the plot of this book, at least enough that it interested me.
➪ did i get confused?
absolutely. i don’t know why there are different variants and what’s the difference between variants and guerans and terrans and the guild and earth people, that was completely lost on me. i also don’t know what is where and what’s an iru or whatever the other species are. and wtf happened at the end?
➪ was it well-written?
yes. i didn’t think sci fi books usually had pretty writing or are particularly well-written but this one changed my mind. it was written excellently and developed so well at such a high quality.
➪ were the characters well-written?
i think so? i feel like i didn’t get to know them very well but they all seemed to be adequately developed and i could tell they had thought put into them.
➪ did i like the characters?
i liked most of them, my favorite character was katlyn, she was an iconic queen
➪ was the pacing done well?
i had no idea where the story was going so i can’t tell you if the pacing was good or not, i feel like things maybe dragged on for too long and were a little bit rushed at the end because i didn’t understand what happened in the end at all but other than that i really enjoyed the story so i think the pacing was good?
➪ were there any good romance or relationships?
not really, there were some but it didn’t really play a central part to the story which i actually appreciated because i don’t really like when romance is a central part of the plotline in these types of books. i liked the friendship between Jamisia and the Others.
➪ favorite part of the book?
i loved the concept with the Others thing, ive never read anything like it and i just thought it was so creative and cool. it’s never really been done before and it was executed really well.
➪ do i recommend this book?
yes, especially if you are a fan of science fiction and even if you aren’t this is a very enjoyable read and is very well-written.
tw for self-harm, etc
September 6, 2012
4.5 stars Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
This Alien Shore is another outstanding science fiction novel by an author who I’ve come to respect immensely for her extraordinarily creative worlds, fascinating ideas, complex characters, and elegant prose. If there’s one flaw (from my perspective) with Friedman’s work, it’s a difficulty in actually liking many of her characters, but even if you find that it’s hard to sympathize with them, it’s also hard not to admire them, or at least to see them as superb creations.
I think many readers will, however, sympathize with Jamisia, the protagonist of This Alien Shore. She’s on the run from unknown enemies who want the bioware that’s in her brain. She can’t feel safe anywhere because she has no idea why her brain is so valuable, or to whom. Is it the Guerran guild that oversees all intergalactic traffic? An Earth corporation who wants to break the guild’s monopoly? Maybe it’s a terrorist from the Houseman Variants — those former humans who were mutated by Earth’s first attempts to break out of the galaxy and now want to punish their Terran ancestors by isolating them.
As Jamisia is trying to evade her unidentified pursuers, she also has to deal with the extra people who live in her head. Humans on Earth have managed to cure all mental disorders, but Jamisia, for some reason, has not been cured of her multiple personality disorder — or perhaps her condition has been purposely created. If Earth finds out that she’s not normal, they will take her into custody.
Fortunately, Jamisia meets a few people who can give her some help, though they’ve got their own issues to deal with. In particular, Phoenix the hacker is trying to trace the origin of Lucifer, a computer virus that’s killing his friends when they’re hooked into the Outernet. Could it be a government plot designed to take out all those Moddies who’ve got illegal bioware installed in their brains? But Lucifer is not only stalking hackers — it’s invading the minds of the pilots who guide spaceships through the Ainniq, the dangerous crack in space/time that’s full of monsters but is the only way to travel to other galaxies. Could the virus be linked to Jamisia’s bioware?
Besides the exciting plot, the most impressive part of This Alien Shore is Friedman’s characterization of Jamisia’s multiple personalities. This was sometimes funny (especially when the emo boy took over), but it was also incredibly eerie. Also well done was Phoenix the hacker. Since I have a son with this type of personality, I can attest that she gets it just right — the arrogance, ambition, curiosity, single-mindedness, and dogged determination to solve a computer programming problem, even if it means ignoring all other aspects of life such as eating.
In many ways, C.S. Friedman’s work reminds me of William Gibson’s — unique settings, complex and fascinating (though not necessarily likeable) characters, cool ideas and technology, a smart and savvy style. Friedman’s plots are always tighter, though. If they haven’t yet, Gibson fans should give Friedman a try.
I listened to Audible Frontier’s production of This Alien Shore which was narrated by Kathleen McInerney. She was new to me, but I thought she was perfect for this story. She has a nice voice and cadence and was convincing in her various roles. This Alien Shore is highly recommended, especially in audio format.
This Alien Shore is another outstanding science fiction novel by an author who I’ve come to respect immensely for her extraordinarily creative worlds, fascinating ideas, complex characters, and elegant prose. If there’s one flaw (from my perspective) with Friedman’s work, it’s a difficulty in actually liking many of her characters, but even if you find that it’s hard to sympathize with them, it’s also hard not to admire them, or at least to see them as superb creations.
I think many readers will, however, sympathize with Jamisia, the protagonist of This Alien Shore. She’s on the run from unknown enemies who want the bioware that’s in her brain. She can’t feel safe anywhere because she has no idea why her brain is so valuable, or to whom. Is it the Guerran guild that oversees all intergalactic traffic? An Earth corporation who wants to break the guild’s monopoly? Maybe it’s a terrorist from the Houseman Variants — those former humans who were mutated by Earth’s first attempts to break out of the galaxy and now want to punish their Terran ancestors by isolating them.
As Jamisia is trying to evade her unidentified pursuers, she also has to deal with the extra people who live in her head. Humans on Earth have managed to cure all mental disorders, but Jamisia, for some reason, has not been cured of her multiple personality disorder — or perhaps her condition has been purposely created. If Earth finds out that she’s not normal, they will take her into custody.
Fortunately, Jamisia meets a few people who can give her some help, though they’ve got their own issues to deal with. In particular, Phoenix the hacker is trying to trace the origin of Lucifer, a computer virus that’s killing his friends when they’re hooked into the Outernet. Could it be a government plot designed to take out all those Moddies who’ve got illegal bioware installed in their brains? But Lucifer is not only stalking hackers — it’s invading the minds of the pilots who guide spaceships through the Ainniq, the dangerous crack in space/time that’s full of monsters but is the only way to travel to other galaxies. Could the virus be linked to Jamisia’s bioware?
Besides the exciting plot, the most impressive part of This Alien Shore is Friedman’s characterization of Jamisia’s multiple personalities. This was sometimes funny (especially when the emo boy took over), but it was also incredibly eerie. Also well done was Phoenix the hacker. Since I have a son with this type of personality, I can attest that she gets it just right — the arrogance, ambition, curiosity, single-mindedness, and dogged determination to solve a computer programming problem, even if it means ignoring all other aspects of life such as eating.
In many ways, C.S. Friedman’s work reminds me of William Gibson’s — unique settings, complex and fascinating (though not necessarily likeable) characters, cool ideas and technology, a smart and savvy style. Friedman’s plots are always tighter, though. If they haven’t yet, Gibson fans should give Friedman a try.
I listened to Audible Frontier’s production of This Alien Shore which was narrated by Kathleen McInerney. She was new to me, but I thought she was perfect for this story. She has a nice voice and cadence and was convincing in her various roles. This Alien Shore is highly recommended, especially in audio format.
May 13, 2009
Transcendently good, pardigm shifting, mind blowing SF. Can't say enough good things about this book--I haven't read an SF book that made me think this much since I first read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (ultimate high praise coming from me).
The novel deals with the cost to humans of interstellar travel, of, quite literally, what it means to be "human." In Friedman's world, the first "wave" of Faster Than Light (FTL) was accomplished by the Hausman drive, which, unbeknownst to its passengers, caused an almost infinite series of mutations in their offspring. Horrified, Earth stopped FTL travel, and left the "mutants" out in space. The novel is set perhaps a thousand years after Earth severed contact, when the mutants, not Earth humans, discover a safe FTL, try and find each other, and go looking for Earth. Now, Earth is just a tiny sliver of the human population, mere billions on Terra compared to the trillions of humans in the galaxy.
Great stuff about the merger of humanity and technology, thoughtful extrapolation of a number of things, including the nature of commerce and monopoly, and a real caution about what happens when information or data becomes the most valuable commodity of all.
This novel is one of big ideas, and yet it's told in the form of an engaging, rather gripping tale of Jamisia Capra, an Earth human who, unbeknownst to her, has been experimented on and who carries secrets in her brain coveted both my Earthers and by those "variants"--non-Earth humans who comprise most of humanity.
Can't say enough good things about this book.
The novel deals with the cost to humans of interstellar travel, of, quite literally, what it means to be "human." In Friedman's world, the first "wave" of Faster Than Light (FTL) was accomplished by the Hausman drive, which, unbeknownst to its passengers, caused an almost infinite series of mutations in their offspring. Horrified, Earth stopped FTL travel, and left the "mutants" out in space. The novel is set perhaps a thousand years after Earth severed contact, when the mutants, not Earth humans, discover a safe FTL, try and find each other, and go looking for Earth. Now, Earth is just a tiny sliver of the human population, mere billions on Terra compared to the trillions of humans in the galaxy.
Great stuff about the merger of humanity and technology, thoughtful extrapolation of a number of things, including the nature of commerce and monopoly, and a real caution about what happens when information or data becomes the most valuable commodity of all.
This novel is one of big ideas, and yet it's told in the form of an engaging, rather gripping tale of Jamisia Capra, an Earth human who, unbeknownst to her, has been experimented on and who carries secrets in her brain coveted both my Earthers and by those "variants"--non-Earth humans who comprise most of humanity.
Can't say enough good things about this book.
January 5, 2020
I found this book an amazing speculative and futuristic thriller. The ideas are an interesting mix of cyber espionage and more classic space opera. Part of the plot hearkens back to an era of books such as Dune where the Guild controls space travel through the ainniq. Another part projects forward to a complex web of the outernet, brainware, and complex viruses that blur the boundaries between silicon and brain.
The characters also are complex, rounded, and fascinating. There’s a touch of magic in Friedman’s writing that creates irresistible characters within a complex plot. That’s a rare combination. Usually, you get one or the other, but not both. I thought Friedman achieved both.
That said, I didn’t find it all great. There are long info dumps at the start of most chapters. I skipped over large swaths of writing and found I didn’t miss out on anything. Most of the interesting action happens towards the end of chapters that are probably too long, and you don’t really need it to figure out what’s happening.
If you can wade through the fat, there’s a great book inside.
The characters also are complex, rounded, and fascinating. There’s a touch of magic in Friedman’s writing that creates irresistible characters within a complex plot. That’s a rare combination. Usually, you get one or the other, but not both. I thought Friedman achieved both.
That said, I didn’t find it all great. There are long info dumps at the start of most chapters. I skipped over large swaths of writing and found I didn’t miss out on anything. Most of the interesting action happens towards the end of chapters that are probably too long, and you don’t really need it to figure out what’s happening.
If you can wade through the fat, there’s a great book inside.
January 24, 2020
This is maybe a 3.5 rather than a 3-star rating.
I enjoyed this, especially the worldbuilding and history Friedman thought up fort, but I never really connected with the characters.
I enjoyed this, especially the worldbuilding and history Friedman thought up fort, but I never really connected with the characters.
March 1, 2025
Update—my friend with DID has now started this book. After talking about it with them, I'm really impressed with the accuracy of the depiction and the care the author put into how to present it. Bumping up my rating because it gave me a great conversation with a good friend and encouraged them to share more of themselves with me.
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I liked how many ideas this novel grabbed at, but it doesn't manage to bring them together into anything particularly interesting, and has some writing flaws that get annoying in a book this long.
I especially appreciated the character with a dissociative identity disorder—and as far as I can tell from describing the book to a friend with DID, a reasonable depiction of it too. Very rare to explore that actual condition, and not just use a sci fi metaphor. (Pretty cool to see Oliver Sacks and Temple Grandin in the acknowledgements—two authors who explore interesting brain topics and who really liked my mom's book!) Even the 'angry violent dude' and 'sexy manipulative woman' personas did make sense to me—DID is a survival response and these personas focused on blunt social survival tools—but they are still dull stereotypes to read about, and they undermine actual character relationships. And I got quite bored by how many times we popped into another character's head to see commentary reacting to the outward signs of personality change. A frequent mistake in this book is showing the reader a scene from the perspective of someone who knows less than the reader does.
The '90s cyberpunk side of this is pretty fun, and I like how often it is emphasized that using a brain-computer link does use attention and change the way you approach life; twenty-five years later we're all a lot more familiar with the tradeoffs between having access to incredible information and using so much bandwidth to access it instead of being present in the real world. Themes and action scenes about hacking and counterhacking fell short for me though; the kayfabe fell completely apart for me in many scenes where someone clever goes 'aha but you see I knew that they would cover their tracks and therefore I checked for covered tracks' or some other silly explanation to make sure the plot moves forward.
Biggest missed opportunity for me was the Guild culture, which is so straightforwardly based on ruthless capitalism in its foreign dealings and ruthless hierarchical political competition internally. It's also a neurodivergent paradise enabled by metaphors using Inuit language with, perhaps, a noble goal about humanity... but it's not really, because see the first sentence. Every time they referenced this while enmeshed in brutal realpolitik I just wished I was reading a book about actual Inuit culture expressed in a spacefaring society.
=====
I liked how many ideas this novel grabbed at, but it doesn't manage to bring them together into anything particularly interesting, and has some writing flaws that get annoying in a book this long.
I especially appreciated the character with a dissociative identity disorder—and as far as I can tell from describing the book to a friend with DID, a reasonable depiction of it too. Very rare to explore that actual condition, and not just use a sci fi metaphor. (Pretty cool to see Oliver Sacks and Temple Grandin in the acknowledgements—two authors who explore interesting brain topics and who really liked my mom's book!) Even the 'angry violent dude' and 'sexy manipulative woman' personas did make sense to me—DID is a survival response and these personas focused on blunt social survival tools—but they are still dull stereotypes to read about, and they undermine actual character relationships. And I got quite bored by how many times we popped into another character's head to see commentary reacting to the outward signs of personality change. A frequent mistake in this book is showing the reader a scene from the perspective of someone who knows less than the reader does.
The '90s cyberpunk side of this is pretty fun, and I like how often it is emphasized that using a brain-computer link does use attention and change the way you approach life; twenty-five years later we're all a lot more familiar with the tradeoffs between having access to incredible information and using so much bandwidth to access it instead of being present in the real world. Themes and action scenes about hacking and counterhacking fell short for me though; the kayfabe fell completely apart for me in many scenes where someone clever goes 'aha but you see I knew that they would cover their tracks and therefore I checked for covered tracks' or some other silly explanation to make sure the plot moves forward.
Biggest missed opportunity for me was the Guild culture, which is so straightforwardly based on ruthless capitalism in its foreign dealings and ruthless hierarchical political competition internally. It's also a neurodivergent paradise enabled by metaphors using Inuit language with, perhaps, a noble goal about humanity... but it's not really, because see the first sentence. Every time they referenced this while enmeshed in brutal realpolitik I just wished I was reading a book about actual Inuit culture expressed in a spacefaring society.
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