New 5-Star Review of The Termite Queen, v.1

Thanks to Chris Graham (the Story Reading Ape himself) for the following 5-star review, which appears on Amazon, Amazon UK, and on Goodreads.

       About 1000 years from now, Earth and its inhabitants have survived several apocalyptic events, climate change, religious and political wars and even a 'Dark Ages' type period, resulting in a future where politics, religion and people's mindsets/priorities are quite different from ours in many respects.
       Space exploration was revived, resulting in a first contact, which eventually introduced Humans to three other diverse types of intelligent beings who allowed Humanity to join their Confederation and accompany them on their exploration of other worlds.
       A new world is discovered. Unfortunately, the intelligence of one of its creature races was not discovered until after the death of one of them and the abduction and death of another. The reason was simple, unlike the Confederations four races, these creatures did not speak vocally, nor were they telepathic, they communicated in a completely different way.
       As well as creating a believable future Earth and four non-human extra-terrestrial
races, the author cleverly explains how to surmise a language from a previously unknown form of non-verbal communication.
       Although the story involves all five races, the emphasis is on the discovery of intelligence, the building/understanding of a new language and the return journey to the newly discovered world (including a romance between two scientists who are polar opposites in every respect).
       This book enticingly paves the way for the next book in what promises to be a fascinating series.

 

For good measure, here are extracts from another review of the same book and from a 5-star review of v.2, which concludes the 2v. novel.

 

On v.1: "If you like science fiction that's full of science, this is for you. If you like a side of emotion and romance, this is doubly for you. I'll be moving forward to see what happens and to ultimately settle my opinion on the central characters...mostly I'll be carrying on to observe more of the alien culture, which is the most polished and shining aspect of this book(in my opinion)." -- T.A. Miles

 

On v.2: "The whole of the story is also high and sacred myth retold. We find nods to the Mabinogi, classical Greek myth and the New Testament as well. Of the former, some aspects of Gwidian's life mirror the old Welsh tales. Kaitrin's retelling of the Polyphemus episode from Odyssey for her Termite audience is a real hoot and requires a good bit of cross-cultural gymnastics. Always a bit of an enigma for Taylor's 30th century, post-religious, humanistic and generally agnostic humans, the Nameless One -- the Creator as she is known by the Shshi -- and her communion with her Termite children comes across very well from the Termite perspective. Here we find several nods to the New Testament, including the sacramental nature of the Termites' nectar and how the goddess describes humans as 'not knowing what they believe'; and thus she must resort to vaguish signs to communicate with them rather than the more direct visions she uses with the in many respects more innocent Shshi. It struck me as an interesting parallel to the teaching of Jesus that one must go to the Heavenly Father "as a child" (i.e., with innocence and openness) and this pretty well describes the Shshi vis-a-vis the Mother. They have a kind of innate openness and innocence and acceptance that I think humans lack. Very nicely done!" -- Chris Brown

 

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