Review: Regeneration, by Julie E. Czerneda

Russ Allbery eagle at eyrie.org
Thu Aug 31 22:31:42 PDT 2017


Regeneration
by Julie E. Czerneda

Series:    Species Imperative #3
Publisher: DAW
Copyright: 2006
ISBN:      0-7564-0345-6
Format:    Hardcover
Pages:     543

This is the third book of the Species Imperative trilogy, and this is
the type of trilogy that's telling a single story in three books. You
don't want to read this out of order, and I'll have to be cautious
about aspects of the plot to not spoil the earlier books.

Mac is still recovering from the effects of the first two books of the
series, but she's primarily worried about a deeply injured friend.
Worse, that friend is struggling to explain or process what's happened,
and the gaps in her memory and her very ability to explain may point at
frightening, lingering risks to humanity. As much as she wants to, Mac
can't give her friend all of her focus, since she's also integral to
the team trying to understand the broader implications of the events of
Migration. Worse, some of the non-human species have their own contrary
interpretations that, if acted on, Mac believes would be desperately
risky for humanity and all the other species reachable through the
transects.

That set of competing priorities and motivations eventually sort
themselves out into a tense and rewarding multi-species story, but they
get off to an awkward start. The first 150 pages of Regeneration are
long on worry, uncertainty, dread, and cryptic conversations, and short
on enjoyable reading. Czerneda's recaps of the previous books are
appreciated, but they weren't very smoothly integrated into the story.
(I renew my occasional request for series authors to include a simple
plot summary of the previous books as a prefix, without trying to weave
it into the fiction.) I was looking forward to this book after the
excellent previous volumes, but struggled to get into the story.

That does change. It takes a bit too long, with a bit too much nameless
dread, a bit too much of an irritating subplot between Fourteen and
Oversight that I didn't think added anything to the book, and not
enough of Mac barreling forward doing sensible things. But once Mac
gets back into space, with a destination and a job and a collection of
suspicious (or arrogant) humans and almost-incomprehensible aliens to
juggle, Czerneda hits her stride.

Czerneda doesn't entirely avoid Planet of the Hats problems with her
aliens, but I think she does better than most of science fiction. Alien
species in this series do tend to be a bit all of a type, and Mac does
figure them out by drawing conclusions from biology, but those
conclusions are unobvious and based on Mac's mix of biological and
human social intuition. They refreshingly aren't as simple as biology
completely shaping culture. (Czerneda's touch is more subtle than James
White's Sector General, for example.) And Mac has a practical,
determined, and selfless approach that's deeply likable and admirable.
It's fun as a reader to watch her win people over by just being
competent, thoughtful, observant, and unrelentingly ethical.

But the best part of this book, by far, are the Sinzi.

They first appeared in the second book, Migration, and seemed to follow
the common SF trope of a wise elder alien race that can bring some
order to the universe and that humanity can learn from. They, or more
precisely the one Sinzi who appeared in Migration, was very good at
that role. But Czerneda had something far more interesting planned, and
in Regeneration they become truly alien in their own right, with their
own nearly incomprehensible way of viewing the universe.

There are so many ways that this twist can go wrong, and Czerneda
avoids all of them. She doesn't undermine their gravitas, nor does she
elevate them to the level of Arisians or other semi-angelic wise
mentors of other series. Czerneda makes them different in profound ways
that are both advantage and disadvantage, pulls that difference into
the plot as a complicating element, and has Mac stumble yet again into
a role that is accidentally far more influential than she intends. Mac
is the perfect character to do that to: she has just the right mix of
embarrassment, ethics, seat-of-the-pants blunt negotiation skills, and
a strong moral compass. Given a lever and a place to stand, one can
believe that Mac can move the world, and the Sinzi are an absolutely
fascinating lever.

There are also three separate, highly differentiated Sinzi in this
story, with different goals, life experience, personalities, and levels
of gravitas. Czerneda's aliens are good in general, but her focus is
usually more on biology than individual differentiation. The Sinzi here
combine the best of both types of character building.

I think the ending of Regeneration didn't entirely work. After all the
intense effort the characters put into understanding the complexity of
the universe over the course of the series, the denouement has a
mopping-up feel and a moral clarity that felt a bit too easy. But the
climax has everything I was hoping for, there's a lot more of Mac being
Mac, and I loved every moment of the Sinzi twist. Now I want a whole
new series exploring the implications of the Sinzi's view of the
universe on the whole history of galactic politics that sat underneath
this story. But I'll settle for moments of revelation that sent shivers
down my spine.

This is a bit of an uneven book that falls short of its potential, but
I'll remember it for a long time. Add it on to a deeply rewarding
series, and I will recommend the whole package unreservedly. The
Species Imperative is excellent science fiction that should be
better-known than it is. I still think the romance subplot was
unfortunate, and occasionally the aliens get too cartoony (Fourteen, in
particular, goes a bit too far in that direction), but Czerneda never
lingers too long on those elements. And the whole work is some of the
best writing about working scientific research and small-group politics
that I've read.

Highly recommended, but read the whole series in order.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Reviewed: 2017-08-31

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle at eyrie.org)              <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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