Collaborators Review
Jan. 5th, 2014 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborahjrossStarship Reckless offers a thoughtful pairing of novels from 2011/2012 and now. Collaborators was one of the current novels discussed.
Collaborators shows how a non-terrestrial culture interacts with a stranded human starship whose crew, bolstered by its formidable technology, forgets that they are not gods and interfere heavily in the politics of two adversarial nations. The major conflict is nuanced by ambiguities and dilemmas on all sides and at many levels.
Wheeler’s Quaker beliefs are visible (including the refusal to indulge in charismatic saviors) and the parallels to the havoc wrought by imperial-nation interventions on earth are clear. The alien biology and first-contact dynamics are handled unusually deftly; the narrative polyphony weaves complex melodies and harmonies. Wheeler’s world is effortlessly immersive and teems with fully realized characters.
Collaborators shows how a non-terrestrial culture interacts with a stranded human starship whose crew, bolstered by its formidable technology, forgets that they are not gods and interfere heavily in the politics of two adversarial nations. The major conflict is nuanced by ambiguities and dilemmas on all sides and at many levels.
Wheeler’s Quaker beliefs are visible (including the refusal to indulge in charismatic saviors) and the parallels to the havoc wrought by imperial-nation interventions on earth are clear. The alien biology and first-contact dynamics are handled unusually deftly; the narrative polyphony weaves complex melodies and harmonies. Wheeler’s world is effortlessly immersive and teems with fully realized characters.
