Not as Good as Uplift
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I won't go into details of the plot as some of this has been covered in other reviews & I don't want to add more spoilers. It took me a little while to get into this book but after 100 pages or so I found myself curiously gripped by the protagonist's fate and wanted to read more.
As has been flagged elsewhere, the plot is a little repetitive, especially in the matter of Maia being kidnapped and then escaping, to the point when I began to think, Oh no, not again... I couldn't quite believe the ending - I thought that there must be another chapter somewhere. Perhaps I should re-read the last one but there seemed to be serious discrepancies between what was said to Maia and what actually happened. Though actually I can't be bothered as I have other things to read.
Brin is a seriously good author, especially in the matter of being able to imagine alien societies and make them reasonably convincing, but this book needs editing.
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Excellent - In Parts...
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I found Maia's voyage of discovery around her strange, female clone-dominated world very enjoyable, but I don't think it is one of David Brin's best books. She, a summer "var" conceived the old-fashioned way, certainly grows as a character as her adventures continue, but she does seem to spend a lot of time in various captivities, and while major and exciting events do unfold around her towards the end, too often the best bits happen "off camera" - having her read a hurried letter from a friend is not the same as being there! The apparent death of a major character is rather inconclusive, and the book does not really have that great an ending. Still, the strange new world we progress through is always interesting, and Maia is an engaging character. I certainly don't regret the time I took to read the book, and will be checking out more of Brin's work soon.
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Good but not Brin's best
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This book is the closest to Fantasy that David Brin has come.
It is a big "what if..." (see the book description) with good characters and a nice adventure but it is a bit slow paced and somehow, I hardly ever come back to this book to re-read it completly or even just a chapter or two.As wirtten by the previous reviewer, this book is quite different from the Uplift saga. If you liked Earth and Postman, give this one try but don't put your hopes to high. If you like this book very much, go look around for Guy Gavriel Kay books.
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Interesting, but not gripping
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Brin's prose is illlustrated with vivid imagery - probably developed when writing the Uplift series. Glory Season though, is a departure from Brin's usually heavy tech books, and is closer to the Postman than it is the Uplift wars. The development of characters gets special attention, but by the end, they aren't that memorable. The world where these events takes place is not horribly convincing either. The plot has some interesting developments; but moves too slowly, and never really gets exciting. Certainly not on the scale of Infinity's Shore or Heavens Reach.
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Brin totally loses it!
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I think I've read every book David Brin has written, and ALL of them are better than this one. He seems to have totally forgotten how to tell a story. The book starts with about 250 pages of tedious character development. When we finally get to a plot, it rambles all over the place pointlessly. And it has absolutely the worst, lamest ending to any book of any sort I've ever read. I can't believe I read the whole wretched thing. Brin is trying to explore how a society of clones would really function. That sociological exploration is actually quite well done, even if it is done over and over and over and over. And over. And then, just in case we missed the point, he ends the book with a patronizing afterword telling us what we should have understood from the book. In summary: a strong candidate for worst major science fiction novel of the 1990s. Yecch!
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