Customer Reviews

Web Shifters #1 Beholders Eye

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I loved this book, as well as the whole series. It's very interesting, and the plot and characters are great.

"Beholder's Eye" is one fantastic novel.

Esen is an alien shapeshifter with a twist; her race shares memories quite literally, by eating of themselves. It's rather disgusting to contemplate, but that's what they do -- and they're used to it.

Thing is, Esen wasn't expected. The rest of her race happened by fission; she happened through sexual experimentation with a different race, which might be why she's different than the others. Although all are female, she's younger, more nervous, more innocent, and much more childlike overall.

During her first "assignment" elsewhere to pick up new information for her people (all six of them), Esen finds a human man in trouble. She liberates him, and gets him away; this causes immediate problems for him, but also opens up a world of possibilities.

While they're getting to know each other in a sort of father-daughter way (she's much too young for him), a big, bad version of something similar to her own race happens by. They're doing bad things, for bad reasons; her own people aren't pleased.

The rest of the novel basically shows what Esen and Paul try to do to keep the situation from escalating any further, while continuing to deepen their relationship.

Very strong start to a new series. Highly recommended.

I got only through the first 50 pages of this before giving up. Though the idea of shapechangers is interesting, I found the sentence-level writing plodding and the character not alien enough for what she's supposed to be--the disgusting bits at the beginning notwithstanding. Her psychology seems human, and that doesn't work for me in this context.

The plot didn't draw me in either. However, it's only fair to point out that other readers enjoyed the book.

Beholder's Eye is the first novel in the Web Shifters series. Esen-alit-Quar is the most recent member of the Web of Ersh and the only member who isn't a product of fissioning by Ersh; Esen is an offspring of Ansky and her Lanivarian lover and the only one of their cubs who can shift. For over five centuries, Ersh and the others have trained her to function as an observer of sentient life, but Esen has also persisted in pranks and escapades that always get her into trouble. But now Esen is finally ready for her first independent assignment.

In this novel, Esen is taken to Kraos to observe the life and ecology on that planet. However, she spends weeks trying to work up the nerve to move among the population, first taking on the form of the sentient species and then cycling back to her Web form. After using most of the nearby living mass to energize the cycles, hunger forces her to shift into Lanivarian form and retain it. Pretending to be a native canine, she moves among the natives, eavesdropping, snooping and otherwise gathering the required information.

After 600 days into the assignment, she discovers that a Commonwealth First Contact team has arrived on the planet and contacted the natives. Two commercial missions have already disappeared on Kraos and she has learned that the natives also intend to capture this new ship and kill its crew. Two members of the First Contact team are killed and the third, Paul Ragem, is captured along with Esen in her canine form, but Paul and Esen managed to escape from a dungeon and warn the ship of the hostility of the natives.

Unfortunately, the First Contact team has a vid of Esen changing from her canine form to a Ycl to save Paul from a deadly fungus powder which was sprinkled on his body by the natives. Moreover, the stress of the interview with Senior Specialist and Acting Captain Lionel Kearn and Sas, the Modoren Security Officer, has caused her to explosively shift back to her Lanvarian form, causing minor damage to the personnel and fittings in Kearn's office.

Esen is in big trouble with the Web for violating security. After reviewing the events of this chain of fiascoes, and literally chewing her out, Ersh sends her back to learn the extent of the damage caused by these exposures. This time she takes on the form of a Ket, a very humanoid species with great massage skills.

This novel is mostly about the evolving relationship between Esen and Paul. In some respects, this novel is much like Heinlein's Star Beast from the point of view of the alien. Although centuries old and very knowledgeable, Esen is very young relative to her potential lifetime. All her forms are also young relative to the species (her human form is about ten years old). Thus, Esen sometimes seems very wise and other times incredibly foolish.

This novel, however, has plenty of action and plots within plots. One of the minor themes in this novel, and the whole series, is the very irritating behavior of bureaucrats. Another may be the vagaries of architects, both in expanding existing structures and in deconstructing existing structures to build new ones.

Recommended for Czerneda fans and anyone who enjoys tales of young aliens becoming friends with humans.

It's rare now to find an author who so readily provides something new in the way of aliens. Czerneda's web-shifters are a pleasure to follow, with their own (well thought out) morals and rules that take their species needs into account without automatically turning them in bad guys. Human alien interaction is an exciting gray area rather than the black and white of so many today. The subject is handled with pinache, and her writing is a delight to read.

This is a very different book showing relationships between different species. I liked it very much and have gone on and gotten several of the author's other books. I felt more of an empathy with these characters than in the Trade Pact trilogy.

"Beholder's Eye" is a coming of age story of an immortal being, only a few hundred years old, who becomes an orphan in the course of a crisis which leaves her the sole defender of life in the universe. A friendship that spans the species barrier helps her cope with shocking discoveries about her own kind as they unfold. Along the way the reader is treated to a fascinating array of new species, characters and adventures. Enjoyed the book and will look for the sequel.

Something new,already! You see, the shape-shifters reputation, according to science fiction writers,was very low. At best, they were considered shifty, unreliable partners. Only Robert Sheckley in his story Keep Your Shape gave them glory,along whit Robert Silverberg in his Majipoor Chronicles. But only Julie Czerneda dared write a novel from their point of view and still be convincing! The plot is intriguing,and the writing is first class. I loved it!

This book had likeable characters and a good writing style, but the plot was too strung out for my tastes. It was almost written like a serialization, where you go from place to place to place but there is no building momentum to a crescendo. I did feel it was consistent in the science and the characterizations were in-depth and believable, but it could have been shorter and more economical in the story-telling and it would have been more powerful.

Summary: Esen is the youngest in a group of six web beings. These web beings can transform into any life form they come in contact with. Ersh is the leader of the web. Esen gets into trouble on he first mission to study and find out all she can about an alien culture. The purpose of Ersh's web is to save as web memory everything there is to know about every alien culture so that it can be saved even if the species disappears. The Web beings are very long lived. Ersh is tens of thousands of years old. Esen on the other hand is only a mere 500 years old.

Comments: This was a fun science fiction romp. The main plot device was that there was an alien species that could shape change into any form of life it came in contact with. These Web beings were very long lived. It was well written and worth reading. Esen is a very likable character. This is basically just an entertaining story. There are no hidden messages of preaching of any kind.