Oliver

Maybe it was the translation but the prose felt very klunky. I had my eyes rolling for the first few pages stumbling upon gems like “The rotting leaves made the water appear crimson, like blood”. Thank you, I have TV if I don't want to make mental leaps from one red liquid to another.

The novel really dragged on until the big reveal. (Spoiler ahead) The idea that an alien civilisation sees humanity as a threat and wants to launch a preemptive strike against us, just because of first contact is great. That they are interest group, or cults for and against making and keeping contact is great. But this we find out at almost at the end, which is then quickly finished by a stupid Ghost Ship style massacre. Ugh. Good ideas wasted.

It took me a while to read through this book. But not because it is bad, oh no, it is because it is so densely packed with thought provoking ideas and topics which still feel fresh even after 40 years. And in doing so it doesn't feel preachy about anything. The topics of freedom, of choice, of your position in your personal life and society really felt at home in my heart while I was reading this. Capitalism and communism, the question of ownership, what things do to us, how language forms young minds, gender roles in our society, the role of the family and partnerships inside our society... it's all there. Every chapter, nah, every few pages, I just had to take a step back from the book and reflect on it.

The prose is so well done and the characters feel so real that I was totally absorbed. The subtle dealings with the Sapir Whorf hypothesis, the thesis that language can mold your thought patterns, felt so natural. Quite refreshing after reading Babel 17 or Embassytown, where it felt very forced (which I actually forgive seeing that it was actually a core plot element in both).

For whatever reason, for a long time in a science fiction book, I had a lot of empathy for all the characters and was actually able to understand their relationships and feel with them. Oh Shevek!

After Frankenstein and Hyperion, this is now one of my favorite (sci-fi) books.

(As a sidenote: I think this is the first time I think somebody was able to describe of what it means to be an actual scientist)