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Reap the Wild Wind by Julie E. Czerneda


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
One of those books I classify as primitive SF. You know, where some agrarian, technologically backward society comes in contact with far more advanced humans. Here, it's tribes of telepathically gifted people, the descendants of colonists, I presume, who live in precarious harmony with two alien races before they are rediscovered by a galactic exploratory force.

I am always uninspired by primitive SF, and this is no exception. Partly it's just not one of my buttons, and partly I spend the entire time making faces over the way the author invariably fails to grasp the implications of all the most obvious historical parallels. Yarg. I tuned out on this one because I didn't want the mental noise, in that way where I paid just enough attention to keep moving forward, and not enough to have anything in particular to say. Lots of internal tribe politics, adventures of exploration, some romantical machinations with honest-to-God soul-bonds. Pretty much a yawn. A decently-written yawn with mildly interesting gender politics, but still a yawn.

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