Remnant Population (1996)

Tiptree longlist 1996 ( )

ereader ebook

A middling good SF book, but if the introductory novella was split off on its own, I'd give it 5 stars. ( )

The premise: ganked from BN.com: For forty years, Colony 3245.12 has been Ofelia’s home. On this planet far away in space and time from the world of her youth, she has lived and loved, weathered the death of her husband, raised her one surviving child, lovingly tended her garden, and grown placidly old. And it is here that she fully expects to finish out her days -- until the shifting corporate fortunes of the Sims Bancorp Company dictates that Colony 3245.12 is to be disbanded, its residents shipped off, deep in cryo-sleep, to somewhere new and strange and not of their choosing. But while her fellow colonists grudgingly anticipate a difficult readjustment on some distant world, Ofelia savors the promise of a golden opportunity. Not starting over in the hurly-burly of a new community . . . but closing out her life in blissful solitude, in the place she has no intention of leaving. A population of one.

With everything she needs to sustain her, and her independent spirit to buoy her, Ofelia actually does start life over -- for the first time on her own terms: free of the demands, the judgments, and the petty tyrannies of others. But when a reconnaissance ship returns to her idyllic domain, and its crew is mysteriously slaughtered, Ofelia realizes she is not the sole inhabitant of her paradise after all. And, when the inevitable time of first contact finally arrives, she will find her life changed yet again -- in ways she could never have imagined. . . .

My Rating: Good Read

It's a good read, but it's a slow read, and if you pick it up, make sure you're in the mood for a lazy-day read, if that makes sense. It's not a beach read in the sense you tear through the pages, but the pace is literally kind of lazy, so be ready to take your time. Ofelia's an interesting heroine whom I certainly appreciate; after all, it's not often we get an old woman at the center of her very own story, and she's certainly heroic in many different ways. I admired her at times and was frustrated with her at other times, but by the end, I was very satisfied by how everything turned out. No doubt, it's not a perfect book, and it's not even my favorite by Elizabeth Moon either. So far, nothing of hers I've read comes close to The Speed of Dark, but she's a solid writer and I know I'll get something out of her fiction, though some books I enjoy more than others. Remnant Population is not a book for readers who need a lot of action or even a lot of intellectual discourse. Instead, it's a quiet book about first contact and what it means to still be human, even when others consider you anything but.

Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay. Since it's a book club selection, spoilers will abound in the review and the comments. But seriously, it's an SF book about an old woman. Do you really think spoilers are going to be THAT big a deal? If so, then no need to click the link below, which leads to the full review at my blog. Everyone else, onward! As always, comments and discussion are most welcome.

REVIEW: Elizabeth Moon's REMNANT POPULATION

Happy Reading! ( )

For over forty years, Ofelia has been a colonist on a remote planet. Now the company that sponsored the effort has given up on the project. Ofelia and the others are to be put in cryogenics and shipped to another settlement--and at her age, Ofelia may not survive the freezing. The old woman embarks on an unusual rebellion: she hides, and the rest of the settlement leaves without her. She's the last human. However, she has everything she needs to get by: her beloved gardens are thriving, she can operate the power plant, and the houses are in decent repair. Ofelia is not alone, though, and it turns out that humanity is not done with her world either...

Wow, I loved this book. Ofelia has a wonderful, sympathetic character. She's the old woman who is treated like an old woman: useless, female, past her prime, uneducated. No one takes her seriously; in fact, she didn't take herself seriously for many years, and her "awakening" is one of the great joys in the book. This isn't an intense, action-filled piece of science fiction. It's a character study, but also a study in how people can perceive the same thing in very different ways. It falls in the same class as books like The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (one of my very favorite books) or Embassytown by China Mieville. Linguistics and language are very important, especially in how they convey respect.

I've read most of Elizabeth Moon's books and am especially fond of her Vatta's War and Paksenarrion books, but I think Remnant Population is my new favorite. ( )