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Seademons: A Novel
New Harper & Row, 1977. 1st Printing, Hardbound, 8vo (about 8.5 inches tall), 185 pages. Panoramic dust jacket art by Frank Frazetta; jacket design by C Linda Dingler.
185 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1977
41 people want to read
About the author
Laurence Yep
120 books296 followersBorn June 14, 1948 in San Francisco, California, Yep was the son of Thomas Gim Yep and Franche Lee Yep. Franche Lee, her family's youngest child, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family owned a Chinese laundry. Yep's father, Thomas, was born in China and came to America at the age of ten where he lived, not in Chinatown, but with an Irish friend in a white neighborhood. After troubling times during the Depression, he was able to open a grocery store in an African-American neighborhood. Growing up in San Francisco, Yep felt alienated. He was in his own words his neighborhood's "all-purpose Asian" and did not feel he had a culture of his own. Joanne Ryder, a children's book author, and Yep met and became friends during college while she was his editor. They later married and now live in San Francisco.
Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
Although not living in Chinatown, Yep commuted to a parochial bilingual school there. Other students at the school, according to Yep, labeled him a "dumbbell Chinese" because he spoke only English. During high school he faced the white American culture for the first time. However, it was while attending high school that he started writing for a science fiction magazine, being paid one cent a word for his efforts. After two years at Marquette University, Yep transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz where he graduated in 1970 with a B.A. He continued on to earn a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1975. Today as well as writing, he has taught writing and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 14, 2025
Eine "verlorene" Kolonie auf einem fernen Planeten, in langsamem Niedergang begriffen. Ein Findelkind mit Verbindung zu den kalamar-artigen Eingeborenen des Planeten bringt Unruhe in die Gemeinschaft.
Der Roman wird als Fantasy verkauft, man könnte ihn aber genauso gut als SF sehen. Vieles bleibt unbefriedigend unklar, vor allem die Vorgeschichte, die eigentlich recht wichtig ist. Es ist, als ob es Teil 2 eines Mehrteilers wäre. Andererseits ist es doch recht eigen und originell. Es geht um Menschen und ihre Tragödien, nicht um Technik.
Der Roman wird als Fantasy verkauft, man könnte ihn aber genauso gut als SF sehen. Vieles bleibt unbefriedigend unklar, vor allem die Vorgeschichte, die eigentlich recht wichtig ist. Es ist, als ob es Teil 2 eines Mehrteilers wäre. Andererseits ist es doch recht eigen und originell. Es geht um Menschen und ihre Tragödien, nicht um Technik.
July 17, 2025
Why I bought it: collecting books with Frank Frazetta covers.
Review: Seademons is Gaelic-inspired "medieval science fiction". It's set entirely on Fancyfree, a low-population colony in a standard space opera universe where planets with human-friendly atmosphere and temperature are abundant. The colonists are former members of a warrior caste farming this planet and hoping to maintain something more advanced than low-tech subsistence farming under the guidance of Foundation-esque religious leaders. This is complicated by the titular Seademons, indigenous tentacle monsters that turn out to be sapient and have adopted a black-haired orphan girl the colonists call Maeve, depicted accurately on the cover.
Review: Seademons is Gaelic-inspired "medieval science fiction". It's set entirely on Fancyfree, a low-population colony in a standard space opera universe where planets with human-friendly atmosphere and temperature are abundant. The colonists are former members of a warrior caste farming this planet and hoping to maintain something more advanced than low-tech subsistence farming under the guidance of Foundation-esque religious leaders. This is complicated by the titular Seademons, indigenous tentacle monsters that turn out to be sapient and have adopted a black-haired orphan girl the colonists call Maeve, depicted accurately on the cover.
May 7, 2017
This book is beautifully written, and there's a good solid story underlining it. A group of humans must settle a new world, and they start with very little. Then the meet a child raised by aliens, and their society must change or die. Not a brand new idea but it was well handled here. The characters were all well drawn.
There was only one scene in the book that really turned me off. It was atypical of the book and I hesitate to say much about it because I don't want to color anyone's perception of the worth of the book. It did have an unpleasant impact on me, though. It's the main reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5.
There was only one scene in the book that really turned me off. It was atypical of the book and I hesitate to say much about it because I don't want to color anyone's perception of the worth of the book. It did have an unpleasant impact on me, though. It's the main reason I give it 4 stars instead of 5.
June 6, 2020
Kid’s science fiction book that I’ve kept for decades for the fond childhood memories of reading it.
July 29, 2025
Almost indescribably unique. In a genre than leans so heavily on multi-tome world building sagas, this little book does so much with 150 pages it should be an inspiration.
March 13, 2013
I had a hard time rating this book between four and five stars. It is a well told story in a setting with a lot of character, an engaging concept, and an overall enjoyable read. One could almost hear the story unfolding in a Scottish or Irish accent. However, there are were a few issues as well as places where the events didn't quite meet my expectations.
Seademons is ultimately a story about Maeve, a young human girl who was dropped off on the planet of Fancyfree by an alien race that we never really learn a lot about. Her origins are unclear and she is unable to communicate in the same way as others due to her childhood among the aliens. She is adopted by "the Angelic", a warrior in the settlement, but is isolated from her peers and the other members of the colony largely due to superstition. Unfortunately, the main characters -- who are children of the colony's leader -- and the Angelic never push her or the colonists to accept each other and she is allowed to grow more and more wild and isolated with age.
However, she has a great wisdom and understanding of the world around her that the colonists lack. As typical human colonists, they are concerned with conquering the planet and its inhabitants. She is fortunate in being able to speak with the Seademons -- essentially giant cephalopods -- because they have traded with her alien foster parents in the past. Her communication with them is largely secret, and she sneaks out when the Angelic is sleeping to go with the Seademons in her diving suit. When she is discovered, the point of view character, warrior-princess Ciaran, fights with her father to try and open up lines of communication with the Seademons through Maeve instead of kill her outright. She succeeds.
Maeve seems to genuinely try to create peace at first, but a lot of political and emotional conflict leads her to essentially give up that goal and ultimately run away with the Seademons after a struggle and several deaths. Eventually there is a cycle of war and truce, as well as a deal struck by Maeve that turns her into the hero of the story while being a villain in the eyes of the colonists.
Honestly, if it weren't for the sheer depth of Maeve's character and the way the colonists believably sowed the seeds of their own destruction, the story would have been a solid three-star "medieval sci-fi" book. While well crafted and well told, it wasn't a remarkable book. There were quite a few confusing bits with the world as it related to the Fair Folk and the greater universe. There is one chapter where the point of view is changed from Ciaran to her husband Caven with no warning, no transition, and then switches back the same jarring way. It tears the flow out of the story and since it is only used once, the point of view change isn't really used effectively. There's also no reason the story he told couldn't have been told in such a way as to not change the point of view.
Finally, while the cover doesn't really factor into my rating, I do factor the cover in when I'm choosing a book to read and found it a bit annoying that they included animals that had nothing to do with the story or the world. All vertebrates on Fancyfree had 6 legs, and the lizard on the cover has four. Reptiles aren't really mentioned in the book, but 6-legged giant ground sloths were, and would have made a far more interesting cover.
Seademons is ultimately a story about Maeve, a young human girl who was dropped off on the planet of Fancyfree by an alien race that we never really learn a lot about. Her origins are unclear and she is unable to communicate in the same way as others due to her childhood among the aliens. She is adopted by "the Angelic", a warrior in the settlement, but is isolated from her peers and the other members of the colony largely due to superstition. Unfortunately, the main characters -- who are children of the colony's leader -- and the Angelic never push her or the colonists to accept each other and she is allowed to grow more and more wild and isolated with age.
However, she has a great wisdom and understanding of the world around her that the colonists lack. As typical human colonists, they are concerned with conquering the planet and its inhabitants. She is fortunate in being able to speak with the Seademons -- essentially giant cephalopods -- because they have traded with her alien foster parents in the past. Her communication with them is largely secret, and she sneaks out when the Angelic is sleeping to go with the Seademons in her diving suit. When she is discovered, the point of view character, warrior-princess Ciaran, fights with her father to try and open up lines of communication with the Seademons through Maeve instead of kill her outright. She succeeds.
Maeve seems to genuinely try to create peace at first, but a lot of political and emotional conflict leads her to essentially give up that goal and ultimately run away with the Seademons after a struggle and several deaths. Eventually there is a cycle of war and truce, as well as a deal struck by Maeve that turns her into the hero of the story while being a villain in the eyes of the colonists.
Honestly, if it weren't for the sheer depth of Maeve's character and the way the colonists believably sowed the seeds of their own destruction, the story would have been a solid three-star "medieval sci-fi" book. While well crafted and well told, it wasn't a remarkable book. There were quite a few confusing bits with the world as it related to the Fair Folk and the greater universe. There is one chapter where the point of view is changed from Ciaran to her husband Caven with no warning, no transition, and then switches back the same jarring way. It tears the flow out of the story and since it is only used once, the point of view change isn't really used effectively. There's also no reason the story he told couldn't have been told in such a way as to not change the point of view.
Finally, while the cover doesn't really factor into my rating, I do factor the cover in when I'm choosing a book to read and found it a bit annoying that they included animals that had nothing to do with the story or the world. All vertebrates on Fancyfree had 6 legs, and the lizard on the cover has four. Reptiles aren't really mentioned in the book, but 6-legged giant ground sloths were, and would have made a far more interesting cover.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews