Review: A Good Read, But...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 16, 2014
This was a tough book to review.  On the one hand it's a very interesting story and well told. But, it has a glaring problem.  The race of aliens that the author created as the protagonists in the story are so improbable that they are minutely close to impossible. Why?  Basically the species violate all kinds of attributes that would evolve into a highly technological civilization.Start with the basic driver that causes a species to change and acquire new attributes. It's need. The need to survive in a hostile world or to take advantage of that world's conditions. The environment may be changing, or they may be threatened by other, more powerful species. Or they may take advantage of such favorable conditions that they grow ever bigger, but there is no driver that would cause this group to change basic characteristics. Nature is a selective breeder, with each species having to, by necessity, adapt characteristics that allows them to survive whatever environmental conditions that they live in.  This could be by becoming bigger/stronger/faster, producing many offspring so that some will survive, or in humans case, becoming smarter because we are none of those things. From the authors description none of the conditions seemed to exist that would drive the aliens out of the water onto the land and result in their ability to breath air.  They seem to be the top of food chain and have no reason to adopt new characteristics.But, the the main problem with this species is problems they seem to have being out of the water for any period of time, or at least in a hot very damp environment.The most fundamental ability that a species must have to develop into a technologically advanced civilization is the ability to control and usefire. And, to do so for long periods of time. Without that ability, metals could never be smelted, alloyed and formed into useful tools or weapons. The authors species could never man the great furnaces and mills that would be required to support the building of the space ships, guns, missiles, etc. needed for warfare. Abilities that would be needed even in the beginning of their equivalent bronze age on earth. How would the aliens of the book ever be able to mine for  the ores, and the fossil fuels necessary for this to happen. How could they build the machines that would necessary to do so without that ability.  They would have to have crawled out of the water millions of years ago and adapted the land, or they are going to remain what their environment made them, perhaps smart dolphins. Or smart fish, as they seem to have gills.There seems to be no driver that would cause them to move onto dry land in the first place, and they have not adapted well enough to dry land conditions. to be able to produce a technologically advanced civilization.