Gabrielle's Reviews > The Terraformers

Have you ever been stuck in a conversation with someone, and you agree with everything they say while also wishing they would stop talking? That was what reading this book felt like.

I will start by saying that the concept of this book and its world-building is very clever and very creative. The idea of a far future where humans have not only explored space but also started terraforming new planets is amazing, and I appreciate the realism of assuming corporations will have taken that idea and ruined it by privatizing everything and trademarking the genetic modifications that have allowed hominids to live long and healthy lives. What does that mean for the daily lives of those sworn to protect the ecosystem, or people simply trying to live their lives peacefully? Will space exploration and new planets really solve the problems we created on Earth?

This book is composed of three separate but connected stories, set on the planet Sask-E, several hundreds of years apart. Those stories are about trans-humanism, ecological preservation, sustainability, person-hood, freedom of actions and speech, housing accessibility. All things that I consider to be very important and that I want to see discussed more in sci-fi, which has traditionally always been a wonderful genre with which to discuss real world issues. And yet, I couldn't wait to be done with this damn book, I really dragged my heels every time I picked it up.

It has been compared to Becky Chambers' "Wayfarer" series, which I love passionately. I'm sorry to say it's not on the same level. Chambers writes characters that I wanted to be friends with, whose lives I wanted to be a part of and for whom I rooted, even when they were dickish characters (looking at you, Corbin!). Of course I was on Newitz's characters' side, but more because they themselves stood up to corporations and greedy, disconnected executives who only cared for their own ambitions than because I felt anything for them.

This was a bummer. I wanted to love it, I wanted it to make me feel the way Chambers' books make me feel, and it just grated me. For all it's claim to be about people, this book's characters did not have the flesh and blood feeling that would have made me fall in love with its ideas.