The Human Blend
Written by Alan Dean Foster
Narrated by David Colacci
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster has written many genres, including fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He wrote the New York Times bestseller Star Wars: The Approaching Storm, as well as novelizations of several films including Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and Alien Nation. His novel Cyber Way was the first sci-fi book to ever win the Southwest Book Award for Fiction. He lives in Prescott, Arizona with his wife, JoAnn Oxley.
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Reviews for The Human Blend
11 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was really excited about the premise of this book. The oceans have risen and the coastal cities we know are on stilts. Man has also mastered his genes and any shape or form is available. All can be beautiful, tradesmen can adapt to their work, and what is a human is anyone's guess.The story is fairly basic. Guy is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Get's in trouble with super secret organization. Runs, and runs, and runs. Boring.The first third of the book was interesting with the introduction of the world and some of its characters. The other two thirds were a snooze. The book absolutely did not move. The protagonist went from character to character looking answers to his predicament. Never any help, over and over. This gets tiring. At the end of the book, still no resolution. Just left hanging for the next book in this series. No cliffhanger, nothing.If you are an Alan Dean Foster fan you might be used to his style, but for me, I am a just about done with him. Cannot recommend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Well, I'd definitely recommend waiting til the whole series is available before beginning this, unless you're the type that likes to read half-plots while waiting anxiously for the next installment. The novel sets forth a wonderfully complex and detailed description of this new Earth, at the expense of plot advancement. It is obviously the first of a series; the cliffhanger ending only resolved the most superficial and immediate dangers to the characters. The major complaint I would have, however, is the character of Whispr. When the story comes from his perspective, he is a sympathetic protagonist that I enjoy getting to know better. But when the POV switches and you see the face he presents to the world, it almost seems like an entirely new character; one that is obviously an untrustworthy criminal, and rather uncomfortable company. It was jarring, to say the least. The parts of the story I most enjoyed were the world-building descriptions, which, yes did run on and on. But instead of being bombarded with pages of detail every two steps, it is spread out: the reader learns new things about this Earth even in the last chapter. I found myself skipping over the plot and character development sections, and focusing on those, my mind running away with what-ifs and fantastic scenarios. It really gets the imagination running, but plot-wise, well, leaving the reader hanging is an understatement.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was disappointed that AD Foster wrote this first of a trilogy with blatant intention of leaving you hanging. It could not possibly considered a stand alone book. It seems now that so many books are written in the same way just to keep you hanging on waiting for the next book. Well, it is not worth waiting for the next book. As a matter of fact, I will try to go out of my way to avoid anything in a series unless each book is a stand alone.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't have much to add that hasn't already been spoken to in the earlier reviews. I did want to give some general impressions though. I've been reading Foster for years - I think it was the Pip and Flinx books that lured me in - I still think that's his best body of work along with the world-building he's done with Human-Thranx cultures. In this case he's brought some of the prevailing notions of near-SF home by creating worlds post-sea level rise (due to climate change), interjecting the effects of nano-technology and global corporatization - in some of those aspects he reminds me of some of Neil Stephenson's works, without the quirks and "punch." Overall I liked his latest novel and I'm glad to have received it via the LTER - I thought the novel lively and a good read, if not exceptional. I'm looking forward to his continuing the series, to see where it all goes.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I am sick unto death of books without endings. I was very happy while reading the first 50-100 pages of this book, but then I realized that the intriguing mystery that was set up in that span was not only not going to be solved, but that the reader was going to get only the tiniest dribs and drabs of information about it before being cut off by the non-ending. Worse, there was an endlessly repeating cycle of: unlucky thief who swiped the hot property goes to a shady associate for help; the police or the bad guys or the police who are also bad guys show up; and unlikely escape ensues. In addition, while the society of extreme medical body modification in a post-global-warming world was initially fascinating, each shady accomplice seemed more extreme than the last, which seemed like the author beating us over the head with the worldbuilding.I would like to find out how the mystery ends, but not enough to justify reading further in this series, because I suspect the second book would also be a series of escalating escapes and information dispensed far too slowly. This is too bad, because it really was an intriguing set-up.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Foster does an amazing job of world building, describing a future where water levels have risen so far that many coastal cities are built on stilts and the population frequently alters their appearance and abilities with "Melds". Melds are the most fascinating aspect of this world, people can not only improve vision; remove (or add) body weight; and change hair, eye and skin color, but also have gills for breathing underwater, implant feathers or a tail, or even transform themselves almost completely into an alligator! It seems the only limit to what Meld you can get is your own imagination. There are also folks who have chosen to remain Natural. I suspect that a conflict between Naturals and Melds will be the central theme of this series, eventually, but this first book focuses on Whispr and Ingrid who have each encountered an impossible item and team up to figure out what it is and where it came from. Several very deadly folks would also like to keep them from that information. The characters of Whispr and Ingrid are extremely fascinating and well-developed; the action is intense and compelling, but really, the best part is this universe Foster has created. I found myself musing at length about what kind of Meld I would get and imagining modifications for my family and friends as well. My only (mild) complaint is that the ending is neither resolved or quite a cliffhanger. It just kind of trails off... I can't wait to find out what happens next, and if you're the kind of person (like me) who isn't good at waiting for things, you might want to wait until the whole trilogy is published before reading this first book. I read it as part of Early Reviewers, otherwise I probably would have. Otherwise, go now and buy this book!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a bit of a departure for Alan Dean Foster. Its not far future science fiction or fantasy, but near-future science fiction. In the Foster's near future vision, global warming has changed the landscape, climate and flora and fauna of the Eastern United States. Society has been changed even more by 'melding', the process of upgrading/changing human bodies either by adding pseudo-organic or cyborg parts. The story concerns two part time criminals who steal something they shouldn't, then end up get chased as various parties want it back. At that point it becomes less science-fiction and more techno-thriller. It relies on a few future trends not happening - like camera survelliance, robotics, and the 'smarter planet' trend of data analysis. It was still a decent story, even if semi-predictable. Its hard to make a techno-thriller that isn't, though I'm sure there are surprises to be revealed in the next books, it will be the quality and variety of those 'surprises' that determines the success of the trilogy.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foster's future is scarily dystopian. In a post-apocalyptic Florida flooded with seawater and inhabited by humanity both Natural (physically unaltered by bio-tech) and Melded (bio tech-manipulated in myriad ways to better suit job-needs or personal whim), two murdering thieves strip an ordinarily tourist of his valuables and in doing so seal their fates. For one, death - for the other, a life-altering race to uncover the secret of what the dead man carried.Wounded and on the run, an ultra-practical, ever-pragmatic Whispr, so-named for his hyper-slim form and quiet nature, ends up at the clinic of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Out of his mental league and desperate for assistance he enlists her aid. Passionate in her pursuit of science, the doctor's drive to know will take them both farther than they ever dreamed. Clever language, roller coaster plotting, and a not-quite-cliffhanger ending. Not at all what I expected, but I couldn't put it down. While none of the characters are particularly appealing, by then end they've evolved enough from the somewhat cold constructs of the initial pages to make me want to know what happens to them next.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5_The Human Blend_ is the first in a trilogy, and it shows. Rather than having a stand-along plot-line, the book leads directly into the plot of the next. The style very much evokes high-adventure, given a setting that is more developed than the characters and more integral to the story. Foster's language and descriptions only become lavish when detailing the body modifications, and the process of modification, that are so central to the world he's built. The world - the rising ocean waters, the possibility of extensive body modification, the advances in technology, are the thematic center of the work, and the story is but a fragile thing hung upon it, the excuse to turn the reader's eye to a particular oddity or aspect of the world the characters inhabit.