Z’s Reviews > Alien Clay > Status Update

Overall, I enjoyed this but not as much as Shroud b/c we got to see more character development and direct contact between Earlings and native creatures than in this book

The author clearly has a way with words and great ideas, this is just not their best work imo but I am glad to have read it, but once again, needs a good trimming

4*

POV being an academic made it more blunt in his tone but his dry humor did come out

I think the revolution ideas are there but as scaffolding, and the politics can slow down the thrills but the mystery persists

+writing
+creatures gave me the creeps
+dry humor
-ancillary characters could’ve used a litttttttle more impact
-can be bogged down by politics
-revolution Lite

There’s not a right/wrong distinction in turning on your friends but a humanistic approach like these ppl only did it after torture, starvation, abuse etc it was not ill will it was desperation and loss

I do think it wasn’t a strong character story and more of an idea story if that makes sense. It was a slower read but not dense and like a revolution lite

In a similar vein to mites on ants feet or some creature that eats a fish tongue, those two invaders must still perform the task of whatever they’re replacing or else their host dies and they do too

I like that Kiln collective is not a hive mind as we’ve seen before where they share a mind but actually just awareness subconsciously like if Arton looks at something the others would be vaguely aware of it now as well

Using prison labor when machines became too high maintenance

Notes that Earthlings try to figure them out intellectually and Kilnians try to figure them out biologically on the protein level

Some of these creature descriptions gives me the heebie jeebies

The Commandant both repels academics due to his Orthodoxy but also desperately wants Arton to validate his ideals

Arton thinks of what next, ships will keep coming and they will keep saving them and eventually the Mandate might even abandon Kiln as a lost cause orrrrr Dr. P, Ilmus or the engineer could go on the ship back to earth (their faces specifically would allow entry) and they could TAKE EARTH

Start with a waking and end with an awakening as the opening line says.

ELEPHANT DAD APPEARS slamming onto the building roof (it was a second elephant like creature that idk if I mentioned but it like stalked them for a bit) and it brought friends, Rasmussen also releases her spores into the air mummy style and is shot but all the Commandants men either die or are joined and it’s jsut him locked in his office and they leave him there not particularly wanting him to join anywho

The forces are closing in and all seems lost since yes they have knowledge and numbers and support but no guns and no supper power …..

There are warm/wet and dry/cold periods and during the former new structures are built and old structures altered, the builders are everything the whole planet and thru humans’ complex brain they were able to re-awaken early and remember themselves (so the builders ironically do look like humans this time)

he cuts Arton out of his cell and Arton says Rasmussen is coming too nonnegotiable and trusts that once she’s out she’ll sane up, she does

Vessikhan locks them in metal container so they can’t track implant in Arton’s neck, R takes cutter, slices it out of him and it’s kinda poetic he leans on her mentally and she supports him through the pain, and finally finallllllly Arton tells V the truth about the architects