Mother of Demons

Interesting take on a first-contact situation (not that I've read a lot) when a small group of humans crash landed on a planet when their spaceship had a disastrous malfunction.

The natives are molluscs - snails. I liked the commentary on biological evolutions from the perspective of one of the few surviving human adults. The titular character was a bit too far fetched - supposedly a historian, but I'm pretty sure historians aren't walking encyclopedias on cultures, architecture, languages, sociology, diplomacy, and warfare. But I did like the way it draws parallels to human societal behaviours, seemingly carrying deeper meaning behind them.

While I appreciated the attempt at a brand new species using an unlikely base creature, the primary species thinks and acts too humanlike, despite the attempts to highlight the different forms of expression. Just too many parallels. While Bronze Age is the specified timeline, there's really little else to build up this whole new planet and species. When we do get perspectives of alien life, I can't help feel that they're very human in nature. It's just oddly weak in terms of creativity; it's just drawing parallels.

But other than, it's a rather nice story about surviving in a new world several centuries behind in technology. The pacing is excellent and the plot is easy to follow, if perhaps a tad predictable.