Excellent science fiction novel featuring aliens, clones, murder and mayhem. Reminded me quite a bit of [Summer Queen] by [[Joan Vinge]]. ( )

I'm finding myself having to revise my opinion of Elizabeth Bear. I read her "Blood and Iron" for my book club in 2006, and really didn't like it very much. But I was told, "Her sf is much better than this venture into fantasy" - (I should mention here that I have this vague feeling that I then read 'Carnival', I think around June 2007, but I appear to have neglected to review it and I can't remember it, which is really not good. Although I have another vague feeling that I liked it.) Anyway, so this month I read 'Undertow' and actually really really liked it. It reminded me of Phyllis Gotlieb's 'Flesh and Gold' - which was one of my favorite books of last year's reading. Like that book, this book deals with the exploitation of a peaceful aquatic race by planetary colonists, but it's definitely its own story.
Greene's World is a planetary backwater, considered to be a peaceful place by many, a place to escape the vicious politics of 'Central,' a way to avoid the past. The main industry is a mining operation, where most of the workers are an aquatic, frog-like native species, generally considered to be sub-human and pre-industrial by the human colonists of the city of Nova Haven.
But the politics of Novo Haven are not so non-existent that there isn't enough work for Andre Deschenes, a pure-business assassin-for-hire, who justifies his work to himself by believing that the people whom he is hired to knock off would be killed by someone else if he didn't do it, likely in a less humane manner.
But when Andre is hired to knock off a woman who is suspected to be involved in trying to foment a revolution amongst the natives - and who also happens to be a close friend of Andre's girlfriend - he is unwittingly drawn into a web of interplanetary politics, hidden exploitation, an unknown alien culture, new technology, and a suspicion that Greene's World is more important than Central has let on - indeed, the very existence of humanity's interplanetary empire may depend on it.
Highly recommended. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2015/08/review-of-undertow-by-elizabeth-bear.ht... ( )

I've started this book and let it drop to the side twice now. Time to face the music -- it's not grabbing me at this point in my life. Perhaps I'll return to it even later. ( )

This is one of those.... nothing is quite as it seems.... sort of novels, literally, as the quantum element is a major factor, along with Sliding (but no Slippage as in the Connie Willis I'm listening to) and an Exigency Corps to manage things when probability S***storms hit... The setting is a planet 'Greene's World' in the back of beyond, communication is instant and inanimate objects can be sent about, but not living ones. However... there are ways.... but, I digress. The problem is that this planet has something that the 'Charter Trade Company' badly wants, omelite -- basically 'unobtainium' - in fact the plot is essentially the same as in that movie, whatever it was called - bad bad people want to exploit planet and could care less about the native people.... the twist is that this omelite stuff is ..... yeah, not what it seems...... The human characters, Cricket and Andre (who for some reason gets the most write-up in the blurbs), Jean Croc, and so on, are.... adequate and I almost cared about them, which was close enough. The ranid characters - in particular Gourami, were fully realized and lovable indeed. What I appreciated is that Bear does everything well - the worldbuilding is terrific, the plot is solid, and Bear kept me with her on the 'sciency' end of things too. **** ( )