The Death of Sleep

I enjoyed Lunzie's unusual timeline circumstances and how she pushes through and handles those major hurdles. Like Sassinak, she's a strong person who takes the hits but relies on her skills and brains to survive. Her interactions with the minor characters are entertaining and ground the constantly changing location in the well-built world of this space adventure. The pacing is very different from most other books, with sudden time skips and occasional glossing over of the emotional impact events have; but this is more an observation than a criticism, since it was noticeable but didn't really limit my enjoyment of the book. I continue to love how easy romantic relationships are in the series, with people actually communicating instead show more of devolving into petty jealousy and assumptions. I really appreciate the efforts the series goes through to tackle the issue of bias/racism, although it's not perfect. show less

Book two of the Planet Pirates is marred by the clumsy treatment of a science-fictional racism-analogue: the relationship between heavyworlders and lightweights. The former are genetically-modified humans adapted to live on high-gravity worlds and the latter are normal humans. The fear and hatred expressed by the main character Lunzie towards the heavyworlders is presumably intended to show that she is human and perhaps more prone to faults than the peerless Sassinak of the previous volume; the way that it is expressed by the authors seems to show their own prejudices a bit too clearly. The heavyworlders here actually are almost all violent, wrong-headed, paranoid, and ludicrous in the way that in the first book they're not. Sassinak show more treats them as people and we see them as people in their variety; Lunzie does not, but she seems to be justified by the narrative in doing so.

A very borderline book to like, where you keep on questioning why you're reading it in the first place. I think this is not one to keep. show less

This was a long, boring slog. The characters were not well written, actually bad in a couple of examples. The action is not written in a way that provides any tension. Overuse of the Jedi-like 'Discipline' does not help. Even as a bridge to the next novel, this was not worth the time.

I read this in one setting, and my thoughts, not bad, not that good either. I've read Dinosoar Planet eons ago, and reading this book gave me a sense of deja vu.

I like Lunzie as a character, but didn't feel for her. The story is told in a third person viewpoint and it makes the character seem cold and lifeless. There is so much happening in such a short amount of pages, that the story is pretty much Lunzie did this, Lunzie did that (with dialogue). It feels like military briefing, not a story.

Now the story is definitely dated, for example, at one point, Lunzie ups her memory storage to something like 240 kb. The other thing is how difficult it is to find someone. With a few inquires, Lunzie should have had some information about her show more daughter, but instead, it takes 2 years, even in 1990 when this book was published, it was easy to find an established person (not counting those that don't want to be found).

I liked the story, felt like it could have had a lot of potential, but poor characterizations pretty much killed the story. show less

Read this one out of order...according to site numbering but it is Lunzie's story which comes before Sassinak's story. Both books end with Lunzie 150 and Sassinak Commander of the ship that rescues her from Ireta. I really enjoyed this one...Lunzie's life is well put together and written. I get queasy when the blurb at the back off a book starts off with a 12 year old girl slave being 'used' or 'abused', which is on back of Sassinak. So I started the series with one that would go down easier. Of course I started with Dinosaur Planet and then Survivors but according to my personal numbers on inside covers from back in the 80s, The Death of Sleep is book 1, Dinosaur Planet 1 1/2, Survivors 2, Sassinak 3 and Generation Warriors 4. This is show more another really good Anne McCaffrey series. show less

Read this one out of order...according to site numbering but it is Lunzie's story which comes before Sassinak's story. Both books end with Lunzie 150 and Sassinak Commander of the ship that rescues her from Ireta. I really enjoyed this one...Lunzie's life is well put together and written. I get queasy when the blurb at the back off a book starts off with a 12 year old girl slave being 'used' or 'abused', which is on back of Sassinak. So I started the series with one that would go down easier. Of course I started with Dinosaur Planet and then Survivors but according to my personal numbers on inside covers from back in the 80s, The Death of Sleep is book 1, Dinosaur Planet 1 1/2, Survivors 2, Sassinak 3 and Generation Warriors 4. This is show more another really good Anne McCaffrey series. show less

Pirates attack the space liner Lunzie Mespli is travelling on. She escapes in a lifeboat and, since it might be a month or two until she is rescued, undergoes cryogenic stasis. Unfortunately, it's a lot longer than a few months until her lifeboat was found. Her life has been changed forever. Good story.