Mother of Demons

...and they hadn't given it back yet. I love how Flint develops the religious conflict in this book and the nature of "the Question." A surprisingly insightful read on a basic difference in philosophy between the scientific and the dogmatic, and a nicely alien culture and biology to build it in. Mother of Demons remains to this day my favorite "serious" Flint book.

_____________________________________________ A human starship has crash-landed on Ishtar, a planet inhabited by the gukuy, bronze-age land squid. First contact is violent, and the humans (who are the titular demons) soon find themselves forced to take sides in a tribal war.... This sort of thing has been done, umm, once or twice before, but seldom as well as here. Flint's aliens are well thought-out and biologically plausible. The tiny human colony's predicament is nicely portrayed: one of the human leaders is a historian, and she is painfully aware of how good intentions can lead to monstrous evil. There are some first-novel rough spots -- Flint's exposition is lumpy and sometimes preachy -- but he's an outstanding storyteller, which more than makes up for the (minor) problems. Recommended. Mother of Demons was Flint's first novel, and attracted little notice on publication -- I'm sure sales weren't helped by Baen mislabelling the book as a fantasy. His new solo novel 1632, which plops a contemporary American town into Europe's Thirty Years' War, has been getting good notices,which might help bring Mother of Demons the larger audience it deserves. Happy reading-- Pete Tillman

This book was an all nighter - each alien and human have their "own" chapters, but in the end they are all tied together. Perhaps a little heavy on some facets of religion, but otherwise exciting story. Not your usual "castaway human colonists meet native aliens" storyline. Please, where is the sequel?

This book is an excellent read. Good plot, well thought-out, interesting characters and a good writing style make this story better than the average humans-stranded-on-strange-planet fare. The conclusion left enough threads to allow a sequel without being frustrating or unsatisfying. Eric Flint is a writer to watch.

This book is very smart. The "hard sciences" are not the usual techno-type, but rather Mr. Flint applies such sciences as ethology, linguistics, sociology; even a little applied psycho-history! I kept thinking it would be nice if he writes 5 or 6 sequels. Great read!