js_thrill: shizuku from whisper of the heart, at a library table, reading intensely (books)
Lewis Powell ([personal profile] js_thrill) wrote2026-02-07 12:53 pm
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Semiosis (Sue Burke)

I can't really tell if I liked this book or not. Parts of the world-building felt underdeveloped or under-explored, and I never really felt like Stevland was as alien of an intellect as the premise suggested he was supposed to be.  I think I might have preferred a narrower slice of time, with more depth, where a lot of the other details are conveyed because they are part of the collective history of the people in the story, but that would be a very very different structure for the book.

I think this book is about and raises a lot of interesting questions, but I'm not super satisfied with the way those questions were explored (it is not an enraging miss on its premise, the way Mysterium was, though).