I loved this book. The Fuzzies are adorable (kind of like intelligent, affectionate teddybears). Although the book has plenty of action, it lacks the angst of many current writers. Which is really good when you've got enough angst in real life and you just want an escape.
This is a sweet, YA friendly SF novel, innocent on the surface but will catapult you right back to the 1950s in nothing flat. Women want to get married and keep house while men do the deciding, smoking is good for you. Environmental issues in strip mining a planet? Opening a planet for settlement by humans when there are intelligent aborigines already inhabiting it, sending the natives to reservations, breaking up their families, and pretty much extinguishing their language? But, but, they want that! We're doing them GOOD!
But looked at in depth, maybe it's not so bad. The women we meet do all have jobs, one of them is in the military. Prospector Jack Holloway wants the Fuzzies established as people, with their own rights. In Piper's universe, they really are like 10-year-olds, and humans can help them. Human science is going to solve their fertility problem. Those are not bad things. Good world-building, sympathetic characters, and a mostly believable storyline.
So, very much a product of its time, but still charming after all these years.
But looked at in depth, maybe it's not so bad. The women we meet do all have jobs, one of them is in the military. Prospector Jack Holloway wants the Fuzzies established as people, with their own rights. In Piper's universe, they really are like 10-year-olds, and humans can help them. Human science is going to solve their fertility problem. Those are not bad things. Good world-building, sympathetic characters, and a mostly believable storyline.
So, very much a product of its time, but still charming after all these years.
I loved this book, the idea of a race of people that are totaly sane, is so neat.
