Gayle Greeno

Three stars, almost four. (Terrible title, though: ignore the title, read the synopsis & reviews.)

This was a pretty absorbing/engaging read, and the setting was very rich. There's the overall culture on earth, the splintering of the nations the amalgamation of the corporations the major & minor religions*; the technology, orbital mechanics, and social culture of the space stations; the culture of the acting troupes (mainly Stanislaus Troupe but others as well); the culture of the show more faith-healing compound.

((*Pro tip: if you're describing the state of global Christian religions, don't forget the Orthodox East!))

Then there's the personal relationship dynamics: within and around Stanislaus Troupe; within the faith-healing family; among the corp-religion handlers. And all the political and personal intrigue.

Then there are the deeply explored themes of embodiment, life, death, living, dying, and killing; with interlocking themes of love, loyalty, and betrayal. This is really what the book is about. Is living as a brain in a box really living? If you want to die, should you be forced to go on living? How do parents, children, spouses, siblings love each other? When does love turn to something else? How many forms of betrayal are there?

Really, this was a very good book. Only two things kept me from giving it four stars:
1) one of the main characters, Glynn, spends too much time being too whiny for me -- not that this was unrealistic for a 15yo boy in his situation, just that it got on my nerves.
2) one of the characters has an extremely idiosyncratic speech pattern that is as much or more about playing with sounds and repetition as it is about conveying meaning. (Greeno does something very similar with the speech of the ghatti in her other books (starting with [b:Finders-Seekers|591805|Finders-Seekers (Ghatti's Tale, #1)|Gayle Greeno|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348358486s/591805.jpg|578550]). It's a very recognizable quirk, and if the character had remained marginal with relatively infrequent dialogue, I would have appreciated it. But she became a sufficiently significant character that talks a lot, and again, it just got on my nerves.

I was especially intrigued by the Little Sisters of Mortality, a Nuevo Catholic religious order of assassins.

Some of the exposition in the beginning was a bit clunky, but it wasn't too bad, and sometimes was slightly clever.

I liked Greeno's ghatti books, but they have a fairly standard fantasy feel. This book was stronger. I think she writes better SF than fantasy, and I'd like to see her write more of it. show less

Another great story, though the over-description does begin to wear on me and I find myself skimming through sentence after sentence of cumbersome adjectives. The characters remain fascinating, especially the adept characterization of the large cats, ghatti. The main character, Doyce, becomes grating in her almost adolescent angst and melancholy - and I wonder if it's supposed to make the reader think of her as being a 'strong woman' who of course is therefore also unable to love, trust or show more believe in herself without almost constant self-flagellation. Still, the story is gripping and I do love the ghatti! show less

Much the same as the first two - a major difference, and perhaps due to reading them back to back, is how in this, and in each of the previous books, the plot seems to plod for the first 3/4 of the book and then suddenly, almost too quick to follow easily, rush into the climax. Would be more satisfying to not just wait and wait for everything to finally build together like watching a reticent kettle boil, but to have it more evenly dispersed. Also, it strikes me as a bit easy to always hang show more the climax on one person: Vesey's immolation in the first one, Maurice's death in the second, and in this one Baz and Hyln. It just seems so easy to always have one charismatic person at the crux of the group, and that without that person everything returns to being more or less ok. While impressive in the scope of the problem this one takes on (learned and unreasoned bigotry) these large-scale issues rarely hinge so completely on one person and it seems as though her descriptive powers could have been diverted to better use untangling these complicated issues rather than relying on a flash-point climax scene. show less

I'm quite happy to have started this book. Stricly speaking, it is fantasy, but it reminded me quite a bit of the Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey (which are fantasy). Finders seekers is about human beings on a different planet, where there is a telepathic cat-like race, the ghatts, that bonds with certain humans. These humans become Seekers, since their relationship with the ghatts makes them suitable for a career as judge: the ghatts can tell whether people speak the truth or not. Finders show more Seekers follows Doyce and her ghatta Khar. Doyce has had a hard life, and it is about to become more difficult when her lover is murdered in a highly suspicious way. The seekers believe something sinister is going on, and an investigation ensues...

What I like about Finder Seekers is that not all information is disclosed to the reader all at once. Slowly, you find out more about the secrets and intricacies of the world. I rather liked this writing style, although in the middle of the book, I wouldn't have minded if the pace would have picked up a bit. The world is very nice, in particular the ghatts and their relationship with their Seekers. Because of her past, Doyce has some trouble completely opening up to her ghatta, and the more you learn of her past, the more you feel for her, and hope she will find happiness.

I'm not completely satisfied about the ending. One of the revelations was sort of obvious(Doyce's stepson Vesey being alive and responsible for all the misery), and the way some of the issues were resolved (Vesey and Evelien dying) seemed a bit too easy for me. Still, the book was quite nice, and I'm definitely interested in the sequels. Part of the story had an open ending, so I would like to know what happens next. Plus, I always like fantasy books where women and men are treated equally, which is definitely the case here. Seekers are men and women both, eumedico's (doctors) are men and women both, and nobody makes an issue about it. Very well done. show less