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Fuzzy Nation (2011)

by John Scalzi(Favorite Author)

4.06 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0765328542 (ISBN13: 9780765328540)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Tor Books

review 1: Because Scalzi described this as a re-boot of Piper's original story, in the spirit of the reboots of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, I had great fear and trepidation about reading the book. A reboot is not always a good idea, and I wasn't sure that Scalzi's style would be a good fit with the story.In those ways, this book greatly exceeded my expectations. The changes he made were, surprisingly enough, improvements, and it removed several story points which now come across as dated.For those of you who never read the original, mankind has been expanding out to other solar systems, but up to this point has only encountered a couple of other sentient species. On a planet where most animal life is reptilian, a non-reptilian species turns up, and the question quickly becom... morees one of whether they are smart animals, or fully sentient. There are huge financial ramifications for the company and people currently exploiting the planet, as well as the emotional and ethical questions involved, if mankind is just a little bit less alone in the universe.The central character, as the reader slowly learns, is a LOT more complex than he first appears to be, and even by the end of the book, there are a lot of questions about his actions and motivations. Just as with such a complex story, there are no pat answers about him.Of course, the book made me wonder what other classic works of SF that could be rebooted by Scalzi...
review 2: I loved this book, though it was not without its flaws. A more developed Fuzzy society would have given the book more life, but instead the author chose to mainly service Jack Holloway's character, which I found to be tiresome after awhile. Holloway's a great character, but after the second half he became a caricature of smarminess. I felt like Isabel, his past love, should have served as more of an intellectual rival/ counterbalance to Jack, but instead she bowed in awe of Jack's cleverness along with the other characters. I viewed her as emotionally and intellectually subservient, which upset me mildly. That aside, the story is very well constructed, and Scalzi really nails down a convincing fictional legal-landscape, complete with nuances and subtleties that make the courtroom drama worthwhile. I recommend! less

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