Book Review #4

Title: Death of Sleep, Anne McCaffrey.
Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 302 pp.
Rating: B+

Summary: YA-- Like Dan Davis in Heinlein's Door into Summer (Ballantine, 1986), Lunzie Mespil is a victim of cryogenic sleep and future shock. On three separate occasions following a deep-space disaster, she is placed in suspended animation totaling almost 90 years while awaiting rescue. Like Ripley in the film Aliens , she has lost not just her friends and loved ones, but everything familiar to her. Her story is a study of struggle against adversity as she tries to put her life back together. Because her medical knowledge is obsolete, Lunzie returns to school and becomes the medical officer on an exploratory vessel for the Federation of Sentient Planets. While routinely surveying the prehistoric life of the planet Ireta, she is caught in the middle of a violent racial mutiny. While not as strong a book as The Ship Who Sang (Ballantine, 1976) or most of the "Pern'' novels, McCaffrey has created a feisty, likable character in Lunzie Mespil. -- Barnes and Noble

My Thoughts: This is the first book in the Planet Pirates trilogy and, so far, it looks to be fairly promising. Since I probably won't read the Pern series, since mercuryblue144 pointed out that it entails something that I don't agree with, I wanted to read something by Anne McCaffrey, and this caught my eye--probably because we're studying planets and such in my Science class.

This was fairly well-written, and I liked the character of Lunzie Mespil a lot. McCaffrey really made me feel for the character--I can't even imagine what it would be like if I was in her place. I certainly wouldn't be as strong as she was. She seemed like a real character despite her strongness, and she seems to have a presence in the book unlike any other character I've read, really. That's probably because it doesn't fall into the typical "you end up with the first person you're attracted to and grow dependent on them" nor does it have the stereotypical family-support system. She's essentially on her own, although she meets a lot of life forms on her journey (I can't say people, because most of them aren't human... at least in the traditional sense) and forms friendships with them.

The only flaw in this book is that it seemed to get into all the different technology that is around in the 2800s too much, but that's necessary or else we won't get the story. I'm reading this trilogy in one long three-in-one book, so I'll probably have another book review tomorrow (or even today). Like I said, this series looks promising, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

So, off to read Sassinak...