Hat tip to Tom (one of our most active site denizens) for recommending this story.\u00a0 I knew of Greg Bear but when he was most popular my reading habit was curtailed due to SYFMS (struggling young family man syndrome).\u00a0 After reading Hardfought I\u2019m looking forward to reading some more of Mr. Bear\u2019s stuff.<\/p>\n
Hardfought has a pretty complex structure and several important plot elements are intentionally obscured.\u00a0 This makes the beginning of the story confusing.\u00a0 But hang in there.\u00a0 It builds to a good effect.\u00a0 Because of the structure of the story I can\u2019t go into much detail of the plot without spoiling it.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that this is a very interesting take on human-alien war.\u00a0 I liked the way Bear uses the details of stellar evolution (lack of heavier elements in first generation star populations) to define the contrast between the human and alien characteristics.\u00a0 The human characters appear strange to the reader.\u00a0 Their environment and social structures are very unusual and so it takes a little bit of plot revelation to start to put their behaviors into context.\u00a0 The alien protagonist\u2019s behavior and motivation are intentionally inhuman but his interactions with his own species and with humans highlights several traits that make him useful to the resolution of the story.<\/p>\n
The story is a meditation on the consequences of total war or war to extermination.\u00a0 I think it is asking whether survival at any cost actually is surviving.\u00a0 If what is left of you at the end is unrecognizable did you actually survive?\u00a0 And I don\u2019t think Bear is answering the question.\u00a0 He is just illustrating the end of the trajectory.\u00a0 It is obvious to the reader what has been lost but everyone gets to decide if the price is too high.<\/p>\n
A very interesting read.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to look through Bear\u2019s other stuff and see what else I should try.\u00a0 Thanks again Tom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hat tip to Tom (one of our most active site denizens) for recommending this story.\u00a0 I knew of Greg Bear but when he was most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,4,242],"tags":[68,579,578,12,11,265],"class_list":["post-1862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-greg-bear","tag-ocf-reader-recommendation","tag-rabid-puppies","tag-sad-puppies","tag-science-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n