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Otters in Space II
Dec. 15th, 2014 11:50 pmI’m taking a short break from the Vorkosigan books to read the sequel to Otters in Space, the first novel by a local woman, Mary Lowd, who was one of D’s novelist mentors. Great literature it is not, and there’s not exactly much depth to the characters, but the writing is carefully crafted, and the story is fun.
The premise: Several hundreds of years ago, humanity migrated off the Earth, leaving several of the other species to become “uplifted,” that is, evolved to the point of doing the same sorts of things humans do, while still having the physical appearances and broad characteristics of their species. The dogs are pretty much running the show, oppressing each other and the cats; meanwhile, the otters don’t care about politics but they’ve created a space station and are busy trading with other otters around the solar system. Here and there one also sees an octopus, but they’ve been advanced all along, we’re told.
Our feline heroine, Kipper, heads off to the space station on a flimsy pretext and joins up with a bunch of happy-go-lucky otter space pirates. Meanwhile, in the second book, the dopey but loyal mutt Trudith becomes a heroine in her own right. Intrigue! Politics! Adventure! Romance? I’m hooked. Trudith’s thought processes alone are worth the price of the book.
The premise: Several hundreds of years ago, humanity migrated off the Earth, leaving several of the other species to become “uplifted,” that is, evolved to the point of doing the same sorts of things humans do, while still having the physical appearances and broad characteristics of their species. The dogs are pretty much running the show, oppressing each other and the cats; meanwhile, the otters don’t care about politics but they’ve created a space station and are busy trading with other otters around the solar system. Here and there one also sees an octopus, but they’ve been advanced all along, we’re told.
Our feline heroine, Kipper, heads off to the space station on a flimsy pretext and joins up with a bunch of happy-go-lucky otter space pirates. Meanwhile, in the second book, the dopey but loyal mutt Trudith becomes a heroine in her own right. Intrigue! Politics! Adventure! Romance? I’m hooked. Trudith’s thought processes alone are worth the price of the book.