Mother of Plenty

Tabitha Jute #3

by Colin Greenland

Captain Tabitha Jute is past the point of no return. Stripped of her command and her dignity, she has lost control of the huge alien starship called Plenty, and forfeited the devotion of the myriad lifeforms traveling with her in its dingy caverns and labyrinthine corridors. Now they all lie captive beneath the glowering red twin stars of Capella, awaiting the pleasure of the parasitic Guardians. For the Guardians, who once gave Plenty to humanity, are now scheming with high-tech tyrants called the Seraphim. And Captain Jute and her followers are caught in the middle of a terrifying experiment in which the human race is the raw material. Her only option is to risk it all on one last headlong flight into the heart of a dying star system in a desperate attempt to uncover the final secrets of the Capellans. And as the Guardians will soon learn, Tabitha Jute doesnt want much . . .she only wants Plenty.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Colin Greenland's fiction and criticism have been translated into a dozen languages and broadcast on BBC national radio. His multiple award-winning science fiction novel Take Back Plenty, long out of print in the UK, is available again in the Orion SF Masterworks series, and for e-readers at SF Gateway.

Colin lives in Cambridge and Foolow with his wife Susanna Clarke, the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Piranesi . He is sometimes to be found writing something, goodness knows what.

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an improvement over Seasons of Plenty . Though there's still a fair bit of utterly gratuitous sex, violence, and sexual violence,† it's been dialled down considerably, and while Mother still entirely fails to make me care about Tabitha Jute again, at least there's an actual plot. The main problem with it is that the Seraphim/Capellan storyline completely overshadows anything that happens to the supposed protagonists (hence the lack of interest in Tabitha Jute) while also failing to reach much of an interesting conclusion.
The book didn't leave me with nearly as much of a ``Well, that was pointless. I guess he's just setting things up for the next one'' feeling as Seasons did (not least because there isn't a next one), but it was still mostly disappointing. It's still hard to live up to the expectations set by Take Back Plenty .

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† By far my least favourite aspect of Greenland's writing. It never seems to serve any purpose; it doesn't make me hate the perpetrators so much as it makes me hate the fact that I'm forced to read it, and it never even leads to character development or plot advancement. In the case of Mother, what even was the point of bringing back Grant Nothing?