Helpful Score: 1
I wanted to read this since it came out, just because of its lovely cover painting by Michael Whelan. (This shows how quickly I get around to reading new books - it came out in 2000.) However, I have to report, sadly, that evocative as the artwork is, it doesn't have anything to do with anything that happens in the book. I guess I will just have to appreciate it as artwork....
The book is not bad at all... Humanity has been colonizing other planets - but failing to prepare for the slight differences of other ecosystems, and the drastic consequences that may result... The only colony that seems to have been spared this "Diversity Crisis" is Pandora - but Pandora's government, ruled by AIs connected to "conscience" chips in the leading families' brains, has its own issues - namely that they are engaging in wholesale human experimentation on the 'villagers' of Pandora. Still, the sick and desperate masses are converging on the planet....
The story focuses on two young women, whose mother brought them to Pandora as immigrants, hoping to give them a better life than that on the Authority space station. Unfortunately for their family, their genetics seem to be the key to the experiment that Pandora is doing - and multiple factions each have their own ideas of how best to use the sisters...
The book is not bad at all... Humanity has been colonizing other planets - but failing to prepare for the slight differences of other ecosystems, and the drastic consequences that may result... The only colony that seems to have been spared this "Diversity Crisis" is Pandora - but Pandora's government, ruled by AIs connected to "conscience" chips in the leading families' brains, has its own issues - namely that they are engaging in wholesale human experimentation on the 'villagers' of Pandora. Still, the sick and desperate masses are converging on the planet....
The story focuses on two young women, whose mother brought them to Pandora as immigrants, hoping to give them a better life than that on the Authority space station. Unfortunately for their family, their genetics seem to be the key to the experiment that Pandora is doing - and multiple factions each have their own ideas of how best to use the sisters...
