This book is in the Patternist series, chronologically fourth, but has very little in common with the others. A group of humans has left Earth in an attempt to escape the Clayark disease, but have arrived on a new planet only to find themselves smack dab in the middle of alien clan wars. This is a story of how intolerance and prejudice will bring a people down while acceptance of differences can lead to strength and happiness. As always, Butler is the master of complex relationships and alien lifeforms. I thought this was a great story--not Butler's best, but definitely worth tracking down a copy, if you can. ( )

So I finally finished the patternmaster series. Not really a series, as there's no big finale but all the books are linked. I have heard that Butler didn't like this book and didn't want it to be printed again. I'm not sure why.

The only problem I had with it was the changing narrator. She went from 1st person with a human, to 1st person with an alien, and then to 3rd person. It was a bit jarring at times. Sometimes she would label the chapter with the narrators name but then she would change to 3rd person with just a couple lines of space.

As with her other books, this is sturdy work, well written and harsh. No hi-tech gadgets but some pretty cool aliens with a fully developed culture that reminded me of -Speaker for the Dead- in their alien-ness. The difference is that she writes shorter stories so her characters aren't as well developed as Card. So I like her stuff but it hasn't blown me away yet. Maybe the Xenogenisis trilogy will, I'm going to try to read that later this year. ( )