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The Ceph: Reborn: A novel of Uplift and First Contact
An alien species almost annihilated with the dinosaurs. When they awaken in current times, will first contact be the end for humanity?Bright’s world of hunting and hiding has turned on its tentacles. Elevated by an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence to awareness, the sentient octopus learns her predecessors intended to guide Earth’s development 65 million years ago—only to be wiped out by the Chicxulub meteor. And with humans now on the brink of destroying the planet, she’s desperate to intervene before her founders arrive from space and eradicate the entire populace.
Stella Uren’s employees are family. So when her fishing vessel is attacked by giant killer squid, she burns with vengeance to hunt down the monsters who murdered her friend. But when she discovers the familiar octopus gardens have been rearranged into arrow shapes, her curiosity takes her down a path to a pivotal confrontation.
Leaving a trail for the revenge-seeking sailor, Bright hopes to stop a catastrophe triggered by her rogue sister but prepares to slaughter in self-defense. And as Stella closes in on her destiny, she can’t help but think she and her crew are headed for a bloody trap.
With all of humankind’s existence at stake, can two species work together to avert an apocalypse?
The Reborn is the expansive first book in The Ceph science fiction series. If you like driven protagonists, unique and action-packed takes on the genre, and impeccable research, then you’ll love Matthew W. Poehler’s fascinating vision.
Buy The Reborn to forge a new galactic future today!
Stella Uren’s employees are family. So when her fishing vessel is attacked by giant killer squid, she burns with vengeance to hunt down the monsters who murdered her friend. But when she discovers the familiar octopus gardens have been rearranged into arrow shapes, her curiosity takes her down a path to a pivotal confrontation.
Leaving a trail for the revenge-seeking sailor, Bright hopes to stop a catastrophe triggered by her rogue sister but prepares to slaughter in self-defense. And as Stella closes in on her destiny, she can’t help but think she and her crew are headed for a bloody trap.
With all of humankind’s existence at stake, can two species work together to avert an apocalypse?
The Reborn is the expansive first book in The Ceph science fiction series. If you like driven protagonists, unique and action-packed takes on the genre, and impeccable research, then you’ll love Matthew W. Poehler’s fascinating vision.
Buy The Reborn to forge a new galactic future today!
499 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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March 30, 2021Greetings everyone!
Thank you for coming to look at this book, it really means a lot to me as a new author that there is interest in my work. I have always been a voracious reader of science fiction. I started writing and found that it was as enjoyable for me to write as it was for me to read stories!
To the Ceph then. I am fascinated by origin stories, and therefore The Ceph deals with the Origins of a several different things. I enjoy hard science fiction, so all the things you read about in this book have their origins in actual technology that we either have or are studying now.
I am also interested in context, as a story in context is a harder hitting tale, so about 90% of everything in the Ceph books is real, to include times, places, people, and events. If you plug most anything described in this book into Google, you will see results pop up. The books then, are a never-ending series of Easter Eggs and that was fun to do.
Finally, before I let you go, I owe so much to previous art and authors, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. This is in a small way a repayment of that boost from people I know so well by having read their work.
Thank you!
Thank you for coming to look at this book, it really means a lot to me as a new author that there is interest in my work. I have always been a voracious reader of science fiction. I started writing and found that it was as enjoyable for me to write as it was for me to read stories!
To the Ceph then. I am fascinated by origin stories, and therefore The Ceph deals with the Origins of a several different things. I enjoy hard science fiction, so all the things you read about in this book have their origins in actual technology that we either have or are studying now.
I am also interested in context, as a story in context is a harder hitting tale, so about 90% of everything in the Ceph books is real, to include times, places, people, and events. If you plug most anything described in this book into Google, you will see results pop up. The books then, are a never-ending series of Easter Eggs and that was fun to do.
Finally, before I let you go, I owe so much to previous art and authors, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. This is in a small way a repayment of that boost from people I know so well by having read their work.
Thank you!
December 8, 2022
“The Ceph: Reborn” is an intriguing first contact story with uplift. An ancient, advanced cephalopod race seeds many worlds for life. These Ceph believed that planets were fragile places, so their long-term plans included the birth and death of star systems. Early Earth is seeded and then drastically changed by the unanticipated disaster that exterminated many dinosaur species.
Millions of years later, the Ceph make first contact with three groups, including Octopuses and Humans. The pace quickens further after Humans are included in the growing alliance. Adventure ensues, along with a nice splash of humor.
The Ceph implants in humans add creative, near-superman abilities. The characters are appealing as they deal with new complications and dangers. I particularly enjoyed the Ceph’s ethical, environmentally advantageous ways to create wealth. Our world could use these safe, diamond/nuclear batteries. Excellent story. Well done!
Millions of years later, the Ceph make first contact with three groups, including Octopuses and Humans. The pace quickens further after Humans are included in the growing alliance. Adventure ensues, along with a nice splash of humor.
The Ceph implants in humans add creative, near-superman abilities. The characters are appealing as they deal with new complications and dangers. I particularly enjoyed the Ceph’s ethical, environmentally advantageous ways to create wealth. Our world could use these safe, diamond/nuclear batteries. Excellent story. Well done!
April 16, 2021
Really interesting look at uplift and first contact
This is a gripping take of first contact from an alien pov. There is a really unusual take on uplift which drives the first half of the novel.
I will definitely follow this author
This is a gripping take of first contact from an alien pov. There is a really unusual take on uplift which drives the first half of the novel.
I will definitely follow this author
February 2, 2024
I am one of the judges of team Space Girls for the SPSFC3 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, it is still in the running for the contest, pending any official team announcements.
Status: Quarterfinalist
Read: 100%
What a thrilling read so far! Once again, I entered the book without reading the blurb and I had no idea what to expect. The book spends a good chunk of the early chapters writing from the POV of Ceph Central HQ relaying messages about colonists locating a few planets and moons in the early solar system that might be inhabitable.
One thing that really stroke me as very cool about this book is how Ceph have a very different mentality from humans. The author took good care to avoid anthropomorphizing their society. Oh, so this Ceph just committed cannibalism? No prob. We put thousand of Ceph colonists on the surface of Venus even though we know the planet will continue to be an uninhabitable furnace and nobody has accused us of murder. At first, it was a bit off-setting. And then, I soon became used to how this society functions more like a hive mind. What they care about is that at least 1 Ceph survives, somewhere within the galaxy. Since they can enter a dormant state, they can become immortal as long as they don't get injured. Their more laissez-farré society makes all these initially unsettling concepts fit right in.
Our story begins right when a small contingent of Ceph have started two successful ocean colonies on Earth... 64.9 million years ago. Yup, right when a certain meteor is about to hit modern-day Chicxulub, Yucatán. Before disaster strikes and is theorized to vaporize the entire colony, we get to meet our female governor and her brief totally not romantic dalliances with a former lover whose whereabouts become unknown (I am unsure if he went to work on the second vaporized colony or returned to a colonization space ship in search of other inhabitable planets).
At first, I wasn't quite sure what a Ceph even was. For a good chunk of the early story, they sounded like some kind of pink 2-3 foot tall shrimp that can walk on land, swim in the water... and also eject ink to make art. Hrmmm... They are also highly intelligent and they have some machine thingy called a Forge hidden deep within the Earth that can build pretty much anything from nearby matter. Humans have no idea such a nifty toy is hiding somewhere in the planet!
Now in the present day, a Ceph spaceship is traveling towards Earth to assist any survivors. After a 5.3 degree quake in the Californian coastline, the spaceship manages to recover Ceph wifi contact with some kind of Ceph machine that survived the comet. Robots are sent into the vicinity to find any colonist survivors. They find a few octopus and squid swimming around and believe the Ceph had to devolve into wild animals to survive.
And so, the story focuses on how the Ceph locate 2 octopus and a very restless female squid, inject something into their brains to slowly make them intelligent and restore what remains of the colony upon their prompt arrival. If these 3 individuals fail to impress them and form an alliance with the humans, apparently the Ceph spaceship commanded by Knotts will exterminate the artificially modified intelligent Ceph colony, kill most humans and colonize the planet. The AI system of the machine that helps and protects the Earthian Ceph are insanely vested in the colony's success.
This is one thing that was very cool about this book. Writing a story from the POV of an animal (even more so, an underwater one) and making the prose vivid while respecting their level of intelligence is certainly quite a feat. This book succeeds by a wide margin. I never felt jarred or bored by these chapters of our 3 accidental protagonists. Their successes hunting as they become increasingly intelligent makes you want to root for them. Even better, I am learning new things about Marine Biology which is a science subject I know very little about. It's like this book is the whole cannoli.
Surpassing the 30% of the novel, I did notice an occasional dip in writing quality. The message relay writing style where AIs communicate with each other worked very well in the early stage of the novel, but it does feel somewhat jarring when this is done when humans communicate with each other. However, given the way the novel focuses so much on using translator comm devices to help underwater Ceph communicate with humans on land, I felt this screenwriting dialogue style was probably the best solution. So, it bugged me, but it wasn't 100% a turn off.
I did quite like the cast of the fishing vessel that forms a friendship with the Ceph. Captain Stella owns two pet rats (I wonder what would happen if someone made the rats intelligent using the same tech that helped the octopus & squids), I liked her. Michael was also a pleasant character. I felt the book didn't quite flesh out the rest of the crew as much, everyone speaks with very similar mannerisms. Apparently Vic likes old Hollywood movies, I was never 100% certain if Elizabeth was an official crew member or just Michael's wife, and Helen seemed a bit like a mystery to me.
The way the crew meets the Ceph was nicely done for me. I do have the hunch other readers might groan by how campy the book becomes at times. Implants with full human body makeovers offer pretty nifty perks. The book seems to hint 1st generation humans with these modifications will live longer than average, but they will still age. There were some details about what happens to Michael that I felt could have had more of an emotional impact. The crew is sort of like oh bummer, um.. ok, let's drink some beer kind of vibe about it. I wouldn't want telenovela drama, but I thought a little bit of stakes would have been nice since the book offered high stakes during the chapters starring the antagonist squid named Brave.
There is some Spanish dialogue scattered over the book. Sometimes it is quite correct and I liked how the book mentions there isn't an exact translation for the slang phrase Money Shot. The translator robot in the story suggests Tiro de Dinero is a somewhat decent transliteration. It does sound funny, like if you were wearing two left sneakers, but easy to understand. I felt quite vexed about the sentence where Stella refers to herself as un héroe. It could have various connotations ranging between a book writing mistake to Stella referring herself in a more masculine self-identity on purpose. Spanish is a language where there's tons of innuendo that a person could hint with double meanings. I did spot some spelling mistakes. Bueña isn't a word, not even in purposely mistyped slang. Some of the sentences felt very google translatey. They aren't gramatically wrong per se, but they don't sound like something a native speaker would say to convey the idea. Spain and Mexican Spanish further have tons of minutiae and you can sometimes spot whether a book is written by an author born in Madrid in less than 20 words. It would have been curious to know which Spanish variant Stella was learning and whether her accent switched to the Spanish eseo manner of speech while she stayed in Spain. I can't pinpoint different subtypes of Spain accents, but I have heard Spaniards can tell exactly which region someone is from. Sort of similar to how I can pinpoint certain Latin American accents to a neighborhood in a specific city.
The ending of the book hints there is more than enough fuel for a sequel. From the way this bookends with a very uplifting Hallmark movie styled story, I'd expect the sequel to
In a nutshell, the book is endearing, quite different from what I have previously read, very utopic, but I did feel the writing quality was going up and down quite a lot over the story. Some chapters I ended up skimming, others enthralled me. A fun book that will certainly have its fans despite the hiccups. 3.5 stars!
Status: Quarterfinalist
Read: 100%
What a thrilling read so far! Once again, I entered the book without reading the blurb and I had no idea what to expect. The book spends a good chunk of the early chapters writing from the POV of Ceph Central HQ relaying messages about colonists locating a few planets and moons in the early solar system that might be inhabitable.
One thing that really stroke me as very cool about this book is how Ceph have a very different mentality from humans. The author took good care to avoid anthropomorphizing their society. Oh, so this Ceph just committed cannibalism? No prob. We put thousand of Ceph colonists on the surface of Venus even though we know the planet will continue to be an uninhabitable furnace and nobody has accused us of murder. At first, it was a bit off-setting. And then, I soon became used to how this society functions more like a hive mind. What they care about is that at least 1 Ceph survives, somewhere within the galaxy. Since they can enter a dormant state, they can become immortal as long as they don't get injured. Their more laissez-farré society makes all these initially unsettling concepts fit right in.
Our story begins right when a small contingent of Ceph have started two successful ocean colonies on Earth... 64.9 million years ago. Yup, right when a certain meteor is about to hit modern-day Chicxulub, Yucatán. Before disaster strikes and is theorized to vaporize the entire colony, we get to meet our female governor and her brief totally not romantic dalliances with a former lover whose whereabouts become unknown (I am unsure if he went to work on the second vaporized colony or returned to a colonization space ship in search of other inhabitable planets).
At first, I wasn't quite sure what a Ceph even was. For a good chunk of the early story, they sounded like some kind of pink 2-3 foot tall shrimp that can walk on land, swim in the water... and also eject ink to make art. Hrmmm... They are also highly intelligent and they have some machine thingy called a Forge hidden deep within the Earth that can build pretty much anything from nearby matter. Humans have no idea such a nifty toy is hiding somewhere in the planet!
Now in the present day, a Ceph spaceship is traveling towards Earth to assist any survivors. After a 5.3 degree quake in the Californian coastline, the spaceship manages to recover Ceph wifi contact with some kind of Ceph machine that survived the comet. Robots are sent into the vicinity to find any colonist survivors. They find a few octopus and squid swimming around and believe the Ceph had to devolve into wild animals to survive.
And so, the story focuses on how the Ceph locate 2 octopus and a very restless female squid, inject something into their brains to slowly make them intelligent and restore what remains of the colony upon their prompt arrival. If these 3 individuals fail to impress them and form an alliance with the humans, apparently the Ceph spaceship commanded by Knotts will exterminate the artificially modified intelligent Ceph colony, kill most humans and colonize the planet. The AI system of the machine that helps and protects the Earthian Ceph are insanely vested in the colony's success.
This is one thing that was very cool about this book. Writing a story from the POV of an animal (even more so, an underwater one) and making the prose vivid while respecting their level of intelligence is certainly quite a feat. This book succeeds by a wide margin. I never felt jarred or bored by these chapters of our 3 accidental protagonists. Their successes hunting as they become increasingly intelligent makes you want to root for them. Even better, I am learning new things about Marine Biology which is a science subject I know very little about. It's like this book is the whole cannoli.
Surpassing the 30% of the novel, I did notice an occasional dip in writing quality. The message relay writing style where AIs communicate with each other worked very well in the early stage of the novel, but it does feel somewhat jarring when this is done when humans communicate with each other. However, given the way the novel focuses so much on using translator comm devices to help underwater Ceph communicate with humans on land, I felt this screenwriting dialogue style was probably the best solution. So, it bugged me, but it wasn't 100% a turn off.
I did quite like the cast of the fishing vessel that forms a friendship with the Ceph. Captain Stella owns two pet rats (I wonder what would happen if someone made the rats intelligent using the same tech that helped the octopus & squids), I liked her. Michael was also a pleasant character. I felt the book didn't quite flesh out the rest of the crew as much, everyone speaks with very similar mannerisms. Apparently Vic likes old Hollywood movies, I was never 100% certain if Elizabeth was an official crew member or just Michael's wife, and Helen seemed a bit like a mystery to me.
The way the crew meets the Ceph was nicely done for me. I do have the hunch other readers might groan by how campy the book becomes at times. Implants with full human body makeovers offer pretty nifty perks. The book seems to hint 1st generation humans with these modifications will live longer than average, but they will still age. There were some details about what happens to Michael that I felt could have had more of an emotional impact. The crew is sort of like oh bummer, um.. ok, let's drink some beer kind of vibe about it. I wouldn't want telenovela drama, but I thought a little bit of stakes would have been nice since the book offered high stakes during the chapters starring the antagonist squid named Brave.
There is some Spanish dialogue scattered over the book. Sometimes it is quite correct and I liked how the book mentions there isn't an exact translation for the slang phrase Money Shot. The translator robot in the story suggests Tiro de Dinero is a somewhat decent transliteration. It does sound funny, like if you were wearing two left sneakers, but easy to understand. I felt quite vexed about the sentence where Stella refers to herself as un héroe. It could have various connotations ranging between a book writing mistake to Stella referring herself in a more masculine self-identity on purpose. Spanish is a language where there's tons of innuendo that a person could hint with double meanings. I did spot some spelling mistakes. Bueña isn't a word, not even in purposely mistyped slang. Some of the sentences felt very google translatey. They aren't gramatically wrong per se, but they don't sound like something a native speaker would say to convey the idea. Spain and Mexican Spanish further have tons of minutiae and you can sometimes spot whether a book is written by an author born in Madrid in less than 20 words. It would have been curious to know which Spanish variant Stella was learning and whether her accent switched to the Spanish eseo manner of speech while she stayed in Spain. I can't pinpoint different subtypes of Spain accents, but I have heard Spaniards can tell exactly which region someone is from. Sort of similar to how I can pinpoint certain Latin American accents to a neighborhood in a specific city.
The ending of the book hints there is more than enough fuel for a sequel. From the way this bookends with a very uplifting Hallmark movie styled story, I'd expect the sequel to
In a nutshell, the book is endearing, quite different from what I have previously read, very utopic, but I did feel the writing quality was going up and down quite a lot over the story. Some chapters I ended up skimming, others enthralled me. A fun book that will certainly have its fans despite the hiccups. 3.5 stars!
September 24, 2022
A lot more to this story than expected
Wow. A great read, there was a lot more to this story than I expected. It’s hard to say too much about the plot without giving out spoilers but there are some great concepts here: panspermia, quantum entanglement, genetic engineering, and multi-dimensional physics to name a few.
The story unfolds rather slowly and there was a point where I almost moved on to another book. I’m glad I stuck it out because the plot development was much more satisfying towards the last third of the book. The writing was near excellent with almost no errors or omissions. The editing could use a little polish as there were blocks of text with different colors or backgrounds which I found annoying and accounts for the 4-star rating. Would have given 4.5 if the option was there. For a first novel, this is an excellent entry. Good work Mr Poehler. Looking forward to the sequel.
Wow. A great read, there was a lot more to this story than I expected. It’s hard to say too much about the plot without giving out spoilers but there are some great concepts here: panspermia, quantum entanglement, genetic engineering, and multi-dimensional physics to name a few.
The story unfolds rather slowly and there was a point where I almost moved on to another book. I’m glad I stuck it out because the plot development was much more satisfying towards the last third of the book. The writing was near excellent with almost no errors or omissions. The editing could use a little polish as there were blocks of text with different colors or backgrounds which I found annoying and accounts for the 4-star rating. Would have given 4.5 if the option was there. For a first novel, this is an excellent entry. Good work Mr Poehler. Looking forward to the sequel.
September 22, 2023
Self published books, or rather vanity publishing is a truly bad sign in the non-fiction world. In fiction however it can be a success provided the text is zany, abstract, funny, satirical.
Just writing an imitative genre fiction piece isn't as likely to catch on, an issue being that MacMillan subsidiary Tor Publishing had produced a title - Children of Ruin - with a similar concept earlier. Actually, Denis Villeneuve's film Arrival deal with giant leathery cephalopods wobbling about with near-mystical portend as well.
Again however, writing doesn't have to be super-original, just entertaining. What happens here though is the author leaves in a lot of copy editing issues - chapter heading layout and spelling are below standard, overall the concept works but the text (ie: the product) isn't crafted enough.
The book cover looks awful and somewhat dated also, produced by James Bennett, a notoriously dishonest and self-aggrandizing film operator based in Aotearoa/NZ.
Just writing an imitative genre fiction piece isn't as likely to catch on, an issue being that MacMillan subsidiary Tor Publishing had produced a title - Children of Ruin - with a similar concept earlier. Actually, Denis Villeneuve's film Arrival deal with giant leathery cephalopods wobbling about with near-mystical portend as well.
Again however, writing doesn't have to be super-original, just entertaining. What happens here though is the author leaves in a lot of copy editing issues - chapter heading layout and spelling are below standard, overall the concept works but the text (ie: the product) isn't crafted enough.
The book cover looks awful and somewhat dated also, produced by James Bennett, a notoriously dishonest and self-aggrandizing film operator based in Aotearoa/NZ.
January 21, 2025
This is an aggressive, in your face, no holds barred optimistic book. Right now in my life, I really needed something this hopeful about our future, even if it is at the hands of benevolent aliens. Possibly made it more realistic.
Despite the bright through-line of the plot, it is not afraid to tackle difficult subjects, as well as the road ahead for humanity. Amazingly, it made me ready to pick up and read the next book, despite not ending on a nail-biting cliff hanger!
There is the surface level that feels perfectly in place in Golden Age sci fi, where everything is perfect, but scratch that surface, and you see the dangers of overconfidence in technology, and the tremendous damage it can do if not wielded with the utmost caution. With a primary antagonist in this arc that you can only feel increasing amounts of pity for as she spirals into a hell paved with the best of intentions, this book really resonated with me from start to finish.
Despite the bright through-line of the plot, it is not afraid to tackle difficult subjects, as well as the road ahead for humanity. Amazingly, it made me ready to pick up and read the next book, despite not ending on a nail-biting cliff hanger!
There is the surface level that feels perfectly in place in Golden Age sci fi, where everything is perfect, but scratch that surface, and you see the dangers of overconfidence in technology, and the tremendous damage it can do if not wielded with the utmost caution. With a primary antagonist in this arc that you can only feel increasing amounts of pity for as she spirals into a hell paved with the best of intentions, this book really resonated with me from start to finish.
January 19, 2022
An excellent first novel, and got me to read the second (and look forward to the third) too.
I love hard sci-fi and this is a really good story based on believable science without overloading the reader with details. It's got a very positive vibe to it, which makes a nice change with all the grimdark entertainment and grimmerdarker news going on right now. It's set almost contemporary to reading it and did a nice job of blending the real with the imaginary without making either one or the other seem out of place.
I love hard sci-fi and this is a really good story based on believable science without overloading the reader with details. It's got a very positive vibe to it, which makes a nice change with all the grimdark entertainment and grimmerdarker news going on right now. It's set almost contemporary to reading it and did a nice job of blending the real with the imaginary without making either one or the other seem out of place.
March 16, 2024
Matthew Poehler's The Ceph: Reborn is a hard science fiction book that revolves around an extraterrestrial race named the Ceph. It's an excellent read that introduces fascinating concepts. It's tough to say much without revealing any spoilers, but the novel contains some great ideas.
This is a great start to his series.
If you crave a meaty sci-fi experience with the potential for grand-scale storytelling and intriguing alien concepts, The Ceph: Reborn might be a worthwhile gamble.
It is well worth the read.
This is a great start to his series.
If you crave a meaty sci-fi experience with the potential for grand-scale storytelling and intriguing alien concepts, The Ceph: Reborn might be a worthwhile gamble.
It is well worth the read.
September 1, 2021
A tour de force for a first book - takes a new lens to an old sci-fi trope and reimagines our prehistory in a well thought out and engaging fashion. Accelerates into a solid sci-fi romp through interspecies conflict, drug lords and how humanity might deal with the reality we are not alone.
Totally worth the read, and a hard book to put down once you get going.
Totally worth the read, and a hard book to put down once you get going.
June 22, 2022
Unusual but captivating
The story narrative is presented in an unusual style but held my attention to the end. I enjoyed the cast of characters and the way the book jumped between perspectives was well done (normally I prefer a book to follow the MC exclusively). I’m off to look for the second book now.
The story narrative is presented in an unusual style but held my attention to the end. I enjoyed the cast of characters and the way the book jumped between perspectives was well done (normally I prefer a book to follow the MC exclusively). I’m off to look for the second book now.
September 17, 2022
Original concept good story and enjoyable read
Original concept written well makes for an enjoyable story. Just need to suspend belief and ignore some of the details. The time line is a little squirrelly but is worked well into the story line. It will be interesting to see where the author takes the story in the next book.
Original concept written well makes for an enjoyable story. Just need to suspend belief and ignore some of the details. The time line is a little squirrelly but is worked well into the story line. It will be interesting to see where the author takes the story in the next book.
November 16, 2024
Positive, hard sci -fi series that octos and squid (deca - ten legs) are diverged descendents of alien cephalopods who arrived just before dino killer (Chicxulub) and ai super powered ansibles, reawakening and uplifting the earth ceph to sapience and (humans too) implants and upgrades
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2024
Disclaimer: Read as a judge for SPSFC3 - the opinion and rating are my own. Other Judge's opinions may will vary.
So, when I was reading the beginning of this book I thought I was heading down the Lovecrathian road to Eldritch horrors (not that is a negative at all in my book) so imagine my surprise it was not that way inclined at all. So far in the percentage I've read, it has been an interesting and enlightening first contact book. If you're a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series and love the idea of the POV from the animals therein then this book will certainly be of interest to you. In this case the POVs switch between Celaphods (Octopi and Squid) - intelligent creatures in their own right but with some enhancement from long ago ancestors and Humans who have first contact with them. This book is beautifully optimistic and I look forward to reading this to the end. It is certainly a YES vote from me to move forward to the next phase.
So, when I was reading the beginning of this book I thought I was heading down the Lovecrathian road to Eldritch horrors (not that is a negative at all in my book) so imagine my surprise it was not that way inclined at all. So far in the percentage I've read, it has been an interesting and enlightening first contact book. If you're a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series and love the idea of the POV from the animals therein then this book will certainly be of interest to you. In this case the POVs switch between Celaphods (Octopi and Squid) - intelligent creatures in their own right but with some enhancement from long ago ancestors and Humans who have first contact with them. This book is beautifully optimistic and I look forward to reading this to the end. It is certainly a YES vote from me to move forward to the next phase.
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