The Terraformers

I was pretty excited for this book when I requested an arc, but then I saw many negative reviews and kept wondering if I should read it or not. It didn't help that my health isn't cooperating with reading much these days, and if not for the audiobook that Macmillan Audio sent me, this might have been languishing on my kindle shelf forever. But some good weather out, and me listening to the audio on my walks really made for a very unexpected and interesting experience.

I don't wanna give away too much about the book but I have to say that the concepts and themes the author tries to talk about here are very intriguing, and somewhat relatable too. The story might be taking place tens of thousands of years in the future on a terraformed planet called Sask-E, but all the discussions about biodiversity, keeping carbon footprints low, working together with all the species on the planet, the ethics of bioengineering humanoids and talking animals and robots and more but also limiting their rights and controlling their actions, the forever clash between democracy vs complete corporatization - they all are very much in line with the kinds of issues we are facing today on our planet and it felt fascinating to read them from a secondary world perspective.

And it was so amazing to meet so many interesting characters including multiple species of humans - both augmented and decanted - and many different animals with different levels of forced intelligences. But the bonds and friendships they shared with each other as well as the dedication they had to preserve their way of life on Sask-E as well as make it better for other persons was admirable. The only problem was that the book takes place in three parts, each with a time gap of thousands of years, and hardly any characters remains from one part to the other. So we always feel a bit dissatisfied because we never get a full picture of these wonderful characters' lives and what more they did in their lives. But it was also lovely to see the impacts they had on future generations centuries later, especially someone like Destry as well as the idea of creating the flying trains.

The production of this audiobook also definitely helped in keeping my interest. There are many sounds as per the context in the story, as well as music perfectly encapsulating what the characters are feeling. It's really a great audio, very well narrated by Emily Lawrence. Because no other cast is mentioned, I assume she did all the voices including the robots and animals and it's a phenomenal job.

While I did mention my dissatisfaction with not getting enough of the characters, I think it works well with the ideas in the book. It's about how individual people might contribute for a bigger movement and influence generations to come, but it's not always their names that stay behind but what they did. It's optimistic in its approach but also cautious, reminding us how easy it is to go with the flow and the status quo without fighting until it's too late. This book may not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it a lot. If you've enjoyed Ruthanna Emrys's A Half-Built Garden, I'm sure you'll like this too - they are very different books right from their setting, but the ideas and optimism in them are very similar and I'm excited to explore more sci-fi books like this in the future.

This one was a little tough for me to get through and is my least favorite book from this author so far. That said, I didn't think it was a bad book, just maybe not for me, and maybe it would have been a better trilogy than a book. The story was certainly ambitious, maybe too ambitious, as it encompassed thousands of years and generations of people and really had three distinct stories within it. I liked quite a few of the characters and loved the imagination behind the world.