Earlier this month I reviewed “Beyond Lies the Wub” by PKD, and the author of this story commented that he was inspired by the Wub while immersed in left brain creativity for Trixie and Me. Everything we do is inspired by things we interact with daily and historically whether we can admit it or not, in this case when pointed out you can see the minor similarities of the alien species in both stories.
Trixie, the story, not the woman is not as intelligent a read as Serengeti. But what it lacks in the immense technicality of Serengeti it makes up for in story content. Twice the pages as it’s predecessor, but read in half the time because the story flows and you just read and read, rather than having to read and re-read because you are trying to understand the complexity of astrophysics… unless you are Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene, then Serengeti is like Dr. Seuss.
Slight spoiler below, if you have not read the book I suggest stopping here and just reading the story, long story short, no pun intended because it is a short story, the book is good… read it.
<Begin spoiler>
The plot is fairly straight forward, man explores signal for intelligence, intelligence is hostile, man is captured, man tries to escape. But Cawdron adds some interesting visuals that are uncommon to the common theme of one of science fictions greatest plotlines. A spiraling gravitational pull that make for every surface to be traveled, imagine the freedom if you could make use of six surfaces in your home. What would you do with that open area in the middle of a room? Storage of course!
Other than a fun read it has a bit more, someone… cough-cough Peter Cawdron cough, mentioned something of a plot twist, unfortunately for someone as curious as a cat I was looking for any hint of what it may be and I was able to spot the authors clues. Normally I would say spotting the reveal ruins the twist, but I also found it interesting to admire the dynamics of how the simple change in relationship would be perceived by someone put in that situation.
Being only on book 2, i am only speculating here, but I did find it interesting that the Commander and his science officer shared the family names of the crew of the Serengeti. In book 1 they talk about cloning to maintain staffing for the multi-generational travels, understandably so, or you attempt to repopulate, but with so few options the family tree begins to run in a straight line soon. Curiously Anderson and Diana of the Serengeti viewed it as a person of valor to begin a voyage knowing they would never again see their families and never complete to their satisfaction, but could begin for the quest of knowledge. Now I question, were they so brave that they actually left Earth, or sent their clones in the ships and continued life in their homes, because it is clear they are not the same Anderson and Phillips, in no lifetime could they be in both galactic positions, it would take a thousand years.
If you have yet to read this book and ignored the spoiler warning I will not go any further than that, but I will say it does make the common anal probe a bit more humane and benign.
Wonderful work on the story makes it a true classic among indie authors, if I were compiling a list of collected short stories for a sci-fi book, this would make the cut. A-
July 30th, 2012 at 6:19 am
“If you have yet to read this book and ignored the spoiler warning I will not go any further than that, but I will say it does make the common anal probe a bit more humane and benign.” LMAO…. very well put 🙂
Thanks for such a great review
July 30th, 2012 at 6:23 am
PS. Love the picture 🙂
July 30th, 2012 at 9:55 am
So do I! I really enjoyed where this story went, thank you for a great tale.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:53 am
Thanks for the recommendation… but I read this already! Give me something new bro!
Kidding.
No, I liked this book a lot, and I don’t want to ruin anything so I will just say cute pic.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:56 am
Hey Bean,
Any time. I am reviewing Green Eggs and Ham tomorrow, is that something you have read before?
August 3rd, 2012 at 9:17 am
I am not a huge fan of indie fiction writers, but I will give this one a shot. Big fan of P.K. Dick
August 5th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
You will like it, please let me know how you like or disliked it.
August 3rd, 2012 at 12:34 pm
You will like it, I read it a few months ago, great flow. Killer ending.
August 4th, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Really didn’t care for it to be honest, not the biggest sci-fi fan
August 4th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
How do you find the good indie authors? The ones I always seem to find are terrible.
August 4th, 2012 at 10:18 pm
Many of the authors of the Kindle Singles do make the best sellers. That is a nice place to gauge quality if you are not able to find it word of mouth.
August 5th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
A few places I find them are http://www.freebooksy.com and on the woot community deals. Both you need to be cautious because there is a real lot of crap, but most good best seller indie authors will offer there books free for a few days and you can test drive one of their stories. If one free book is good then buy a few others at their better than affordable price of .99 or 1.99
August 4th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
does anyone use real books anymore?
August 6th, 2012 at 8:32 am
Thank you, I will look into those sites
August 6th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Thank you both! Read T&Me last night and I loved it!!!! Does the author have any other books you would recommend?
August 6th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Try Anomaly, I think it is Peter Cawdron’s best work… IMO, but everyone has different tastes on story styles.
August 6th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
definately try anomoly
August 6th, 2012 at 8:17 pm
I preferred his science exploration stories like Serengeti and War
August 7th, 2012 at 9:19 am
no one will dislike this fantastic blog
August 7th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
I read this story just before I found your review. Liked it a lot.
August 8th, 2012 at 11:01 am
I checked out Anomaly last night, great read far better than the average indie book selection on Amazon. Thank you for the recommendation.
August 9th, 2012 at 9:09 am
Glad you liked it Cleo, Anomally was one of my favorite short story reads, very reminicent of Contact one of my favorite hard sciene fiction novels.
August 8th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
nice, thanks
August 10th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Warning ! This message is for the webmaster !!!! you have a great blog .
August 11th, 2012 at 12:27 pm
I hate youre blog