Blueheart

Alison Sinclair

Blueheart - a searing examination of a culture on the brink of extermination... Blueheart is at a crucial point in its history. The adaptive humans who have colonised the planet, covered in the main by ocean, are at the limit of their usefulness and the debate on the desirability of further terraforming is becoming heated.

The discovery of a corpse deep beneath the sea is nothing unusual - there are natural predators in these seas as there are in any ocean - but for Rache and Daven who discover it, this is the catalyst for a tragedy of global proportions. There are moves to declare the adaptives redundant, to phase them out. This is nothing out of the ordinary either, except that on Blueheart the adaptive culture is strong enough to fight back.

Rache is caught in the middle - an adaptive who has moved out of his pastoral community into the wilder scientific world. Daven, his nephew, a native pastoral, sees Blueheart as his home, his life shaped by the unpredictable energy of the sea. Rache knows why he wanted Daven by his side, but he's never asked Daven why he agreed to come. The tragedy is that nobody thought to ask....

Review by Chrissi (250400) Rating (7/10)

Review by Chrissi
I enjoyed this one, I don't know why I picked it up, other than the cover caught my eye when we went through all the books. The cover is a lovely turquoisey colour and I had never read anything by this lady before.

The characters are well drawn, with enough detail to make them interesting, even those that you may not like. The plot is interesting, with a few twists and turns that make what could be an eco-SF lecture into something a bit more interesting. The human dilemma is well thought out, and for me, (who is not a particularly keen techno geek), I enjoyed a vision which provoked thought about the relationship between man and the environment.

I have to say, though, that her version of a world of water had little effect on me, as the coast with which I am most familiar is that of the North Sea, between Skegness and Bridlington, not so much blue as diluted sludge and effluent, but I am sure that it would be beautiful to read sitting on a beach if the view were nicer...

I think that I will read more by this lady in the future, Nigel says that he has read another of hers before and it was quite good, so you never know...
Chrissi (25th April 2000)