Though Keramos's laws also demand her beloved pet Cleo be destroyed, and though she finds herself targeted for abuse by a jealous female friend of Sonny's and targeted as a conquest by the smarmy, unrelenting local Don Juan, she has to go back to everything her mother desperately wanted her to escape. Willis, plain and simple Promised Land reads like a stripped-down version of Connie Willis's usual prose. The well-drawn, wryly funny characters with their open mouths and closed minds are particularly familiar, as is the barbed humor. Though Keramos does sport knotty laws and one odd species, it lacks the political or social complexity that filled the other two books with surprises. Land is never as lurid as either genre, but it borrows from the same cliches, with the same uneven results.
Land reads easily and smoothly, prompting quick chuckles and momentary sympathies.
But it's a very light read indeed. And these two authors have so much more to offer. Reminds me a lot of Willis's Uncharted Territory , easily my least favorite of her generally stunning books. Back to the top. All rights reserved.