Specify Books To This Alien Shore (Alien Shores #1)

Original Title:	This Alien Shore
ISBN:	0886777992 (ISBN13: 9780886777999)
Edition Language:	English
Series:	Alien Shores #1

This Alien Shore (Alien Shores #1) Mass Market Paperback | Pages: 564 pages

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Title	:	This Alien Shore (Alien Shores #1)
Author	:	C.S. Friedman
Book Format	:	Mass Market Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 564 pages
Published	:	July 1st 1999 by DAW (first published 1998)
Categories	:	Science Fiction. Fiction. Space. Space Opera

Description Toward Books This Alien Shore (Alien Shores #1)

TL;DR version: The bastard love-child of Dune and Neuromancer, but the awesome kind of bastard-child, the one that ends up forging his own destiny and writing his name in the stars. Longer version: I read this book as a teenager, and was deeply affected by it. Later, I read it as an adult, as was not-quite-so impressed anymore, but C.S. Friedman's world had sunk its claws into my mind, deep: the idea of Code as poetry, as art, became a bit of an obsession with me. If this review is vague and lacking in some specific details, it's mostly because I think other reviewers have discussed the plot and the characters -- book's been out for a while, after all -- and I think my contribution needs to be centered around my personal experience. For everything else, there's google. I read this again today. And the critiques of it--from my early twenties--withered and died till only one of them was left. This Alien Shore is one of the most beautiful implementations of starfairing humanity I've seen. The Guild is a hybrid of the Bene Gesserit and the Navigator's Guild of Dune, with politics and powerplays and complexity, but ultimately an entirely *ethical* worldview and objective. It's Dune without the soul-twisting. And the treatment of FTL...the anniq, the dragons...it will leave readers breathless. Without ever truly *talking* about it, the entire novel expresses and uplifts the hunger for starflight, the hunger to extend the threshold of our reach as individuals and as a species. The plot has two threads--one follows a young girl, a repository of great and unknown secrets, on the run from Earth and its corporations. The other is Lucifer: a virus that is wrecking havoc on the Guild's navigators, threatening the foundations of mankind's salvation--FTL travel through the rifts of space that bind all the worlds together. The computer/bioware aspects of this have many neuromancer-like components, but without the dystopian grit. The characters are true--true to themselves, if not to our expectations of them--they are individuals, deeply meaningful, their lives and hopes and dreams and fears sketched out in vibrant 3D. Relationships-professional, romantic, adversarial-all are true to their function and form, and heartbreaking in some cases, liberating in others. The complaints of my early-twenties were plot-related - that the pacing was off, certain scenes went on too long, others were not in the right places. This remains a mild criticism, tempered by the realization that back then I was young and impatient, and wanted to get to the "good bits". As a writer, I slowed down, appreciated the prose, the development, the subtle-but-necessary touches that made everything more. The one criticism that remains is that while the two plot-threads deepened and strengthened each others' themes, ultimately their intersection was not one of mutual resolution but of mutual understanding. That is...not a bad thing. But it doesn't bring the story full-circle in terms of action. The fear-and-threat felt so viscerally by the MC is not vindicated in a quite-satisfying way. Minus one star. But since this is getting graded on a 6-star scale, specially-made by me for the works that have influenced me so deeply, a full set of five stars remain. This is a beautiful novel, full of hope for the future. Humanity's discarded children rise above the pettiness-of-soul that characterizes so much of mankind's history. Deeply flawed individuals display nobility of spirit, and the diverse, the mad, the broken, make their way to where they truly belong--the stars. Read it. You'll be happy you did. And when you're done, perhaps you'll come to the same conclusion I did: We are all Variants, and Guera is our home.

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Ratings: 4.04 From 3402 Users | 226 Reviews

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4.5 stars rounded up. It wasn't perfect but sure close. I am still not entirely sure how to survive the ainniq but I think that is the way the Guild wants it. So much to enjoy from the cyberpunk aspects to the exploring of other worlds to the reveals of Guild society. Friedman packed so much world building into this and still managed to create a compelling story. I felt for Jamisia as she tried to figure out what exactly she was, I liked the unwritten subtext that maybe we all have parts of

I found this book an amazing speculative and futuristic thriller. The ideas are an interesting mix of cyber espionage and more classic space opera. Part of the plot hearkens back to an era of books such as Dune where the Guild controls space travel through the ainniq. Another part projects forward to a complex web of the outernet, brainware, and complex viruses that blur the boundaries between silicon and brain. The characters also are complex, rounded, and fascinating. Theres a touch of magic

Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded to 3We wear human bodies, but it takes drugs and software to make us truly human.Finally finished, after a month and a half! This is by no means a bad story -- its world-building and attention to detail is absorbing, and the Gueran culture with its kaja system is intriguing. Those features alone make this space-opera good enough for the rating given. Unfortunately, though I found myself interested whenever I picked up This Alien Shore, I found myself not caring enough

TL;DR version: The bastard love-child of Dune and Neuromancer, but the awesome kind of bastard-child, the one that ends up forging his own destiny and writing his name in the stars.Longer version:I read this book as a teenager, and was deeply affected by it. Later, I read it as an adult, as was not-quite-so impressed anymore, but C.S. Friedman's world had sunk its claws into my mind, deep: the idea of Code as poetry, as art, became a bit of an obsession with me.If this review is vague and

This book was incredible. It reads like a thriller and has some incredible world-building. This is in the far future. Mankind's first experience had tragic effects. It scarred the early pioneers and destroyed spaceflight on the homeworld. In this future, there are many innovations. This is yet another book I've read - along with the Budayeen trilogy by George Alec Effinger and Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds - where man has developed a society and a dependence on technology implants.

The first age of spaceflight ended abruptly when it was discovered that the faster-than-light drive had side effects, altering the genetics of those who used it, which already included millions of colonists bound for different worlds. Earth shut down all travel and left the colonies isolated to survive or fall on their own, and their variants on the human form to develop into their own standards of normal. Centuries later, one of those colonies discovered a new way to travel faster-than-light,

5.0 stars (would give it more if i could). This is the sixth book of C. S. Friedman's that I have read and they have all been outstanding and several of them (including this one) are on my list of all-time favorites. This book has a massive scope and is some of the best world-building I have ever seen (especially for a stand alone novel). It also has very well thought out and extremely interesting concepts and aliens. Finally, to complete the trifecta, this book has well drawn, complex