Greenland, Colin. Take Back Plenty. 1990. Tabitha Jute No. 1. SF Gateway, 2013.
In most space operas, human beings find some way to travel to the stars and either create or join a galactic civilization. In Take Back Plenty, Colin Greenland turns these memes upside down. The aliens have come to us, filling the solar system with extraterrestrial visitors of several species. They have also told us to stay home in the Sol system. Thus, there is interstellar trade and culture, but human colonies are outclassed by large-scale alien habitats. Our heroine, Tabitha Jute, is the owner of a small freighter who makes a marginal living as a trader. The freighter has a damaged AI, called Alice Liddell, after the little girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland. To keep it sane, Tabitha tells it stories, some fictional and some from her own past. The main plot begins when Tabitha contracts with a fast-talking, seductive impresario to take him to an alien space habitat called Plenty to pick up his cabaret troupe. Adventure ensues. Tabitha has a well-developed personality with more depth to her character than we usually adventure heroines. The conversations between Tabitha and Alice are charming. The alien menagerie is complex and well-detailed. I don’t know what the competition was, but I am not surprised that Take Back Plenty won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. I plan to read the other two volumes of the trilogy. 4 stars. ( )

This wasn't earth-shattering by any stretch, but it was extremely enjoyable. I was going to go straight onto the second one in the trilogy, unfortunaltely it gets really abyssmal reviews(on Amazon at least) so I'm now not at all sure I'll be reading it at all. I can't even bring myself to just skip the second and go onto the third, since that one only gets average reviews and says the first book is a lot better anyway.

Still, this one was good. Tabitha Jute is a well written character and her companions are interesting(especially the cherub). I'm not sure how it managed to pick up two awards in the same year, or even in any year. It's not that it's a bad read, it isn't, but I'm sure there are more deserving reads out there. I was in just the right frame of mind for a bit of pulpy science fiction though so that helped my enjoyment.

Very good read. Worth your time.
( )

A solar system space opera. Humans and some aliens are confined to the Solar System by an advanced alien race called the Capellans. Space barge pilot Tabitha Jute and her ship the Alice Liddell are down on their luck on Mars. Tabitha falls in with some disreputable characters and a simple mission spirals into something which changes the entire system. ( )

Oh boy. Look at all three covers of this trilogy - note the wildly different styles. Note too the name of Tabitha Jute's ship: The Alice Liddell." If you're ready for a bizarre ride, go for it. It took me much too long to read this, the first of the three, and I'm not going to read the others." ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/598430.html

Pretty good (as you would hope for a book that won both the Arthur C Clarke and BSFA awards). Well above-average space opera, feisty female protagonist, solar system where humanity is vying for space and influence with various alien species (like Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence but less depressing). Mild rewriting of history to allow us Mars as desert planet with breathable atmosphere and Venus as tropical hell. Generally good fun. Will probably read the other two. ( )