Merro Tree

I absolutely fell in love with the characters in this book. It had me hooked! I really don't feel the book summary really does this justice at all, honestly. It really is a romance throughout the pages, and a gay one at that. Some parts almost had me crying, and I am overall happy with how this book ended. I wish there was more! It was moving and lovely, and I know this will be a book I will be reading again.

i read all the reviews about this book and i decided to add mine because nobody seems to catch what in my opinion is the point of this novel. this work has undoubtedly a sf background: alien worlds and races, spaceships, etc. it deals with important issues such as the value of art, censorship, the tendency of people to create sort of dictatorial institutions they must afterwards fight against, same sex and interracial relationships. still one has to admit this is not really pure sf, because ms waitman seems to have decided to use such a (interesting and detailed) background to express her views on some topics. she manages to do it with little inconsistencies and very few slow pages, which is remarkable for a first novel. this is a bildungsroman (sorry, i do not know the english word) such as goethe's but it is not half as boring or selfindulgent: ms waitman writing might not be spotless but the plot structure is complex, intriguing and achieves a lot of tension. what one would not expect is that this novel is basically an enthralling if a little exotic love story: the two main characters share a growing, developing, intimate affection depicted in a simple but moving way. one of them is humanoid, the other a sort of giant snake, both are males (and the author is not, one should remember) but disbelief is easily suspended and ms waitman manages to give us a very effective idea of their PHYSICAL desire for each other too. the only point i feel i have to complain about is the idea of both being basically heterosexuals who share love out of a kind of predestination. i found this rather unbelievable; but this is sf, so i imagine her idea is legitimate.

I just finished reading this book for the fourth time. The Merro Treeis amazing! It's completely cohesive; the plot and the flashbacksfit together in a seamless succession. Every mention connects with the big picture. The labels and titles that Waitman fabricates for alien names and things create a terrific visual image. There's nothing to nitpick about. The story is totally fulfilling and her structure and presentation are flawless. You might be disoriented reading through the novel for the first time because you're placed right in the thick of things and then transported to Mikk's very beginning on Vyzania -- which is confusing in itself because they have a different culture, social structure, and way of thinking as us. But everything falls together as you read further. You'll pick up on more and more subtleties and cross-references in the text if you read through again. And again. . .

This work is simply marvelous. I intended to read it for one hour last night, but instead stayed up almost the whole night, making me a bit of wreck today, but it was quite worth it. Thank you Ms. Waitman! Addressing a couple of comments others reviewers made. The only person I saw that disliked the book complains that its sci fi is not complete, that it is more fantasy than sci fi. Well, shucks, mate, if the story is incredible and the characters are deeper than deep, I don't really care if we aren't subjected to long treatises of speculative science. I like hard sci fi, but to castigate the book for *not* being hard sci fi is like castigating classical music because it isn't jazz. And anyway, I don't agree with the criticism, the sci fi is more anthropological, a la LeGuin, with completely believable worlds and races.Someone else asks to *please* tell us what other books touched us like this one, other than Dune. Here is my little list, in no particular order: Songmaster (Card), Ender's Game (Card), Kindred (Butler), Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein), The Dispossessed (LeGuin), Beggars in Spain (Kress), The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien), Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke), The Mote in God's Eye (Larry Niven)

I guess I come at whatever I read from a different angle, because I'm an English major. At one level, I loved _The_Merro_Tree_ because it's a good story. It's complex, but easy to follow. The attention to detail is amazing, but it doesn't slow down the plot. At another level, Waitman's done something very special, beyond just a good story, here. One of my lit teachers refers to it as the balance of profit and prophet: storytelling and preaching. She's managed to create a balance where preaching doesn't interfere with storytelling--but if you're looking for a message, you'll find one, and if even if you analyze literature as well as read it, you won't find anything to complain about. This is one of the best books I've ever read, hands down. And the others are _Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land_, _The_Summer_Queen_, and _Nineteen_Eight-Four_, if that means anything to you.