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Manseed
In the beginning...Egan Drake was a wealthy but unhappy visionary who died early and left behind only a powerful dream. He proposed to spread mankind among the stars.
Then there was Megan Drake. She took her brother's vision and made it real. At the Raven Foundation's New Mexico headquarters, she gathered around her experts in astronautics, biology, computer science, defense, and fusion propulsion.
The project was simple in design yet grandiose in its aim: a thousand tiny ships would crawl to the stars; each that landed on an Earth-type planet would produce several dozen colonists; each colonist would be a product of the genes derived from Megan and her experts. Every ship would manufacture cyborgs for repairs and self-protection.
But much of the technology was new and untried; no one could predict what might really occur at a millennia-long journey's end if, say, a cyborg fell in love or aliens were met or...
Then there was Megan Drake. She took her brother's vision and made it real. At the Raven Foundation's New Mexico headquarters, she gathered around her experts in astronautics, biology, computer science, defense, and fusion propulsion.
The project was simple in design yet grandiose in its aim: a thousand tiny ships would crawl to the stars; each that landed on an Earth-type planet would produce several dozen colonists; each colonist would be a product of the genes derived from Megan and her experts. Every ship would manufacture cyborgs for repairs and self-protection.
But much of the technology was new and untried; no one could predict what might really occur at a millennia-long journey's end if, say, a cyborg fell in love or aliens were met or...
217 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1982
6 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Jack Williamson
541 books164 followersJohn Stewart Williamson who wrote as Jack Williamson (and occasionally under the pseudonym Will Stewart) was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science Fiction".
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 14, 2014
Author: I am going to punish you with unexplained pronouns. Reader: But, but... don't! Author: I can't hear you!!!
February 28, 2024
I don't give 1-stars lightly, but this book is ... yeesh.
I love classic/vintage sci-fi, but this book is one of the least interesting I’ve ever read. It’s quite dull, aside from the stuff that is dated nonsense.
At first, I thought the book’s structure was quite interesting. It jumps back and forth in time, between the modern era and then the cyborg man on a new planet who has spent thousands of years travelling there. Unfortunately, the flashbacks have almost nothing to do with the project itself and more with Don being obsessed with Megan, the founder of the project. Like creepy obsessed. Every man in the story is obsessed with her. It’s gross. Leave her alone.
I expect a certain degree of sexism in books from the past, but in this book, you will find:
- a woman described on the first page as “nude and bitchily seductive.”
- a woman described as attractive “despite herself” because she isn’t wearing makeup.
- a woman described as “squandering herself” by not dating
- Megan, one of the only women in the book, is considered by the male main character to be a prize, in that he’s always wondering whether one of the other men on the project “won” her, as if, because she was single, she as destined to be with one of them. It was extremely reductive of her personage and as a character.
- There’s an entire page devoted to describing her clone naked
- The novel also makes some very problematic associations between asexuality and incest. I couldn't believe it was real and it floored me.
- A woman's asexuality is "fixed" by having her clone instantly f*ck a dude, so yeah, yuck.
The stuff that should have been interesting in the book - the robots Don encounters, the new world, the restart of civilization, is overtaken by Don's obsession with having his dick removed and being unable to have sex with a robot version of the woman he's infatuated with. While I understand that having his genitals removed would be jarring, his focus on it above all else - especially when he volunteered for the process and knew what it meant - got to be a bit eye-rolling.
Truthfully, I zoned out a lot while reading this. Normally, I love these books and find them super fun, but this one was a slog. The repopulation plan doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and is barely explained, Don is annoying, and the love story that seems to be driving this is contrived and one-sided.
Overall, a sad attempt at something cool.
I love classic/vintage sci-fi, but this book is one of the least interesting I’ve ever read. It’s quite dull, aside from the stuff that is dated nonsense.
At first, I thought the book’s structure was quite interesting. It jumps back and forth in time, between the modern era and then the cyborg man on a new planet who has spent thousands of years travelling there. Unfortunately, the flashbacks have almost nothing to do with the project itself and more with Don being obsessed with Megan, the founder of the project. Like creepy obsessed. Every man in the story is obsessed with her. It’s gross. Leave her alone.
I expect a certain degree of sexism in books from the past, but in this book, you will find:
- a woman described on the first page as “nude and bitchily seductive.”
- a woman described as attractive “despite herself” because she isn’t wearing makeup.
- a woman described as “squandering herself” by not dating
- Megan, one of the only women in the book, is considered by the male main character to be a prize, in that he’s always wondering whether one of the other men on the project “won” her, as if, because she was single, she as destined to be with one of them. It was extremely reductive of her personage and as a character.
- There’s an entire page devoted to describing her clone naked
- The novel also makes some very problematic associations between asexuality and incest. I couldn't believe it was real and it floored me.
- A woman's asexuality is "fixed" by having her clone instantly f*ck a dude, so yeah, yuck.
The stuff that should have been interesting in the book - the robots Don encounters, the new world, the restart of civilization, is overtaken by Don's obsession with having his dick removed and being unable to have sex with a robot version of the woman he's infatuated with. While I understand that having his genitals removed would be jarring, his focus on it above all else - especially when he volunteered for the process and knew what it meant - got to be a bit eye-rolling.
Truthfully, I zoned out a lot while reading this. Normally, I love these books and find them super fun, but this one was a slog. The repopulation plan doesn’t make any sense whatsoever and is barely explained, Don is annoying, and the love story that seems to be driving this is contrived and one-sided.
Overall, a sad attempt at something cool.
December 1, 2022
The Defenders were machines with blended human minds, composed of five highly diverse humans for seed ships. Thousands of these were to be launched to the stars to seed humanity on other planets as Earth moved relentlessly towards extinction. When a seed ship is holed by a meteor it takes almost a million years to reach a habitable planet where it finds evidence of extinguished intelligent life. Forbidden to attack intelligent denizens, Defender must work around the prohibition when an invading species attacks them. Finally eluding them, the seed ship lands on Mansphere and Operation Manseed begins. Building forty humans from base engrams and local ingredients the first two exhibit signs of instability - the base engrams took too much of their foibles as well as their strengths and Defender One (as the seed ship designated him) must battle on alone. Jack Williamson has given us an entertaining tale of colonization with a difference, as we get a picture of the five successful yet tortured individuals who comprise the mind. The battle for Mansphere against unknown attackers reveals a not too surprising conclusion but a very satisfactory one. Could do worse than this.
February 22, 2018
I got confused with the different Defenders, and there being five or so people in one droid; it’s vintage sci-fi, the guys obsess over sex with the hot white lady, this was his thing I guess, grandmaster of sci-fi, granddaddy slightly perverted, “Terraforming Earth” has a guy crazy in love, “The Humanoids “ has a man dragging around a little girl, and this book has five men obsessing over Megan Drake.
This latter point irked me, that such an epic, world-saving mission to reseed humanity on other worlds hinges on fickle, horny, jealous, and imperfect people. Their personalities are programmed/coded into the Defender droid. Because it’s SF I go along with this but really, how the hell do people just preserve their ego & transfer it to some other body? “Old Man’s War” by Scalzi I just read and it had similar thing, people being “transferred” into another body—this needs some semi-pseudo explaining. What then is Death? The Hereafter? Pohl did this is “Heechee...” saga, like no spiritual discourse or musing on something so incredibly (immortality) profound. It just feels cheap to me as a reading experience, I have to accept this unexplained miracle and go along with a plot contrived upon the unexplainable.
I love Williamson’s vintage-ness: grand ideas, due attention to physics, and metaphysics, the moving plot, and the great peril, and the vast scale of time. “Manseed” reminded me of Silver Surfer, floating out in space, inner turmoil, duty-bound. Some parts were like dream-recollections, the once-human memory inside of the newly minted bot.
I couldn’t understand how people were popping out of the small ships? And how there was a human Megan + a Defender Megan? And the book implies that humans can be created, just follow the recipe, under suitable conditions (planet with Oxygen, Carbon, etc) and boom! out pops people! just like that! But it’s my understanding that humans have not the power or capacity to actually create life...
I kept rolling my eyes: all the characters can think about is sex. Megan, as a Defender, first thing she does is get close and kiss (Brink will say something like, her mouth met mine, or they, while flying, mated, as robots (?)); and was the deal between Egan & Megan supposed to be an early Biblical parallel (?) to incest? What was that about—Megan didn’t wanna be a lover to Egan when he popped out on Mansphere planet. They get out, after millions of years and what obstructs their mission is this, bickering between brother & sister over sex vs. no sex? That’s what it comes down to?
And there’s just a paragraph that should’ve been threaded through entire book: of you’re reseeding humanity, what kind of people are you doing it with, all the characters were Caucasian, c’mon mannn!! One character had some Afro-ancestry, but what the hell, it’s like, man, millions of year since, in another world, group of white, affluent, accomplished/educated types (except Brink, the solider/merc) saving humanity by hopping out the seed ship and re-peopling a world.
Ugh. Sigh.
But hey, JW is like 1940s, so I get it. He took on a big concept, I enjoyed this much, a bit heady, a wondering thing, but no, I’d say to go for this only if you’re up for more of Jack Williamson’s great SF tales...from 1940s.
This latter point irked me, that such an epic, world-saving mission to reseed humanity on other worlds hinges on fickle, horny, jealous, and imperfect people. Their personalities are programmed/coded into the Defender droid. Because it’s SF I go along with this but really, how the hell do people just preserve their ego & transfer it to some other body? “Old Man’s War” by Scalzi I just read and it had similar thing, people being “transferred” into another body—this needs some semi-pseudo explaining. What then is Death? The Hereafter? Pohl did this is “Heechee...” saga, like no spiritual discourse or musing on something so incredibly (immortality) profound. It just feels cheap to me as a reading experience, I have to accept this unexplained miracle and go along with a plot contrived upon the unexplainable.
I love Williamson’s vintage-ness: grand ideas, due attention to physics, and metaphysics, the moving plot, and the great peril, and the vast scale of time. “Manseed” reminded me of Silver Surfer, floating out in space, inner turmoil, duty-bound. Some parts were like dream-recollections, the once-human memory inside of the newly minted bot.
I couldn’t understand how people were popping out of the small ships? And how there was a human Megan + a Defender Megan? And the book implies that humans can be created, just follow the recipe, under suitable conditions (planet with Oxygen, Carbon, etc) and boom! out pops people! just like that! But it’s my understanding that humans have not the power or capacity to actually create life...
I kept rolling my eyes: all the characters can think about is sex. Megan, as a Defender, first thing she does is get close and kiss (Brink will say something like, her mouth met mine, or they, while flying, mated, as robots (?)); and was the deal between Egan & Megan supposed to be an early Biblical parallel (?) to incest? What was that about—Megan didn’t wanna be a lover to Egan when he popped out on Mansphere planet. They get out, after millions of years and what obstructs their mission is this, bickering between brother & sister over sex vs. no sex? That’s what it comes down to?
And there’s just a paragraph that should’ve been threaded through entire book: of you’re reseeding humanity, what kind of people are you doing it with, all the characters were Caucasian, c’mon mannn!! One character had some Afro-ancestry, but what the hell, it’s like, man, millions of year since, in another world, group of white, affluent, accomplished/educated types (except Brink, the solider/merc) saving humanity by hopping out the seed ship and re-peopling a world.
Ugh. Sigh.
But hey, JW is like 1940s, so I get it. He took on a big concept, I enjoyed this much, a bit heady, a wondering thing, but no, I’d say to go for this only if you’re up for more of Jack Williamson’s great SF tales...from 1940s.
May 29, 2025
Megan Drake, Verwalterin der Raven Foundation, sucht eine Handvoll Spezialisten zusammen. Sie sollen einen Haufen kleiner Raumschiffe bauen, mit denen die Saat der Menschheit in die Galaxis getragen wird.
So von der Grundidee ist es ganz interessant. Sehr unglaubwürdig ist, dass in unserer Gegenwart solch superfortschrittliche Technik gebaut werden könnte, die für die Saatschiffe benötigt würde. Was ich aber wirklich seltsam fand, waren die sexuellen Unterströmungen. Sie sind creepy. Die Protagonisten sind völlig triebgesteuert. Alle Männer sind scharf auf Megan, ja besessen von ihr. Doch sie ist eine jungfräuliche Heilige.
Der Cyborg "Verteidiger" ist besessen von der Tatsache, dass er keine Geschlechtsteile hat. Das ganze wird x-mal wiederholt.
Zum Schluss wird es übermässig kompliziert und es hat sich nicht gelohnt bis da durchzuhalten.
So von der Grundidee ist es ganz interessant. Sehr unglaubwürdig ist, dass in unserer Gegenwart solch superfortschrittliche Technik gebaut werden könnte, die für die Saatschiffe benötigt würde. Was ich aber wirklich seltsam fand, waren die sexuellen Unterströmungen. Sie sind creepy. Die Protagonisten sind völlig triebgesteuert. Alle Männer sind scharf auf Megan, ja besessen von ihr. Doch sie ist eine jungfräuliche Heilige.
Der Cyborg "Verteidiger" ist besessen von der Tatsache, dass er keine Geschlechtsteile hat. Das ganze wird x-mal wiederholt.
Zum Schluss wird es übermässig kompliziert und es hat sich nicht gelohnt bis da durchzuhalten.
September 19, 2019
Oh boy, this had a lot of sexism and just plain obsession with man parts going on. Not a bad read, just from an entirely different time in sci fi. Manseed, mansphere, spreading seedships through the universe dare I say erupting, yea a lot overt phallic stuff going on.
January 8, 2018
Yes, this title of this book sounds like gay porn. It’s partly why I bought it, it made me laugh. The other part though was because I had only read one other book by this Grand Master of SF, Darker Than You Think, which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t nearly as entertaining, and dragged in parts. It had a great concept but never grabbed me. And the ending was quite uninspired.
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
March 12, 2021
I realize this is hailed as a classic in sci-fi and I can appreciate why: it has some bold ideas and weaves together different points of view from multiple characters, but I thought the constant reliance on some kind of unrequited love plot line detracted from the narrative.
September 6, 2017
Classic 1980s Sci Fi
June 7, 2020
Worth the read!
A little dated to be sure but definitely worth the time e to take a look!
I remember reading this when it came out and enjoyed it as much today!
A little dated to be sure but definitely worth the time e to take a look!
I remember reading this when it came out and enjoyed it as much today!
Read
February 17, 2021Kind of went off the rails towards the end.
But it was a good read and somewhat thought provoking.
But it was a good read and somewhat thought provoking.
August 27, 2019
Bello fino a che la storia, a mio parere, si incasina un po' troppo. Al secondo Difensore avrebbe potuto avere uno svolgimento diverso...
Nice until the story, by my judge, become a little bit confused. I think that from the coming of the Second Defender the plot could have been different...
Nice until the story, by my judge, become a little bit confused. I think that from the coming of the Second Defender the plot could have been different...
July 12, 2013
Manseed
By Jack Williamson
Publisher: Del Rey / Ballantine
Published In: New York City, New York, USA
Date: 1982
Pgs: 217
Summary:
Meagan Drake has a vision. A vision of her deceased brother and uncle’s dream. A dream to seed Mankind among the stars as a way to protect them from themselves. A thousand seedships each with machinery on board to bring a breeding population of bioengineered clones to fruition and started on the track of building a better life for themselves and a future for the greater Mankind. Story follows the landing of a damaged seedship on the planet Mansphere where a robotic enemy may already be plotting their destruction.
Genre:
fiction, science fiction, space opera, apocalypse
Why this book:
It was the right price at Half Price Books. And the title awakened the adolescent in me making me wonder what it was really about. ...and I loved Williamson’s Brother to Demons: Brother to Gods.
This Story is About:
survival against all odds, life, love, jealousy, duty
Favorite Character:
Defender One is the main character and my favorite. Wish he didn’t have Ship playing the monkey on his back as much as he did through the story, but he and his seedstock made this story for me.
Least Favorite Character:
Defender Two. Her flightiness when she knew all the things she did in the face of One’s love was exceptionally cruel.
Character I Most Identified With:
Don Brink and Tomislav. Both dedicated to their duties at different points in their lives while seeing the world differently though they had so much in common.
The Feel:
There is a sadness in this story. It really is Defender One’s tragedy and triumph. Tragedy in his unattainable love, but triumph in the duty that is his.
Favorite Scene:
When Defender One faces his uncyborg self in the shadows of the Dome.
Settings:
The seedship, space, Mansphere, the colony, the dome, and the myriad environs between the dome and the colony.
Pacing:
This story is very well paced.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
At one point in the story, the characters refer to Mansphere having been cleared of all life excepting plant life in a bygone era. Yet later, when it suited the narrative, we discover that there is undersea life of some kind. Seemed a bit deus ex machina to me.
Last Page Sound:
I want more. I want to know what happened to Defender One. Did he take his duty as his triumph as is suggested or did he slide back into his despair at Two and Three’s being the undutiful yet more fully formed of the Defenders.
Author Assessment:
I love Williamson’s work. Believe that his other work will need to be read on a case by case basis. While I liked this one, a lot, I can see the style being a little grating in certain sci-fi subgenres.
Editorial Assessment:
It’s fine.
Disposition of Book:
I really haven’t decided. I don’t believe I will want to re-read it, so that probably means I should Half Price Book it. We’ll see.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
I could see this made into a movie. It would probably need some updating as the source material shows that it was written decade ago. The feel is very 50’s/60’s science fiction.
Casting call:
Will Smith could be Defender One. Jason Statham. Vin Diesel
Molly Quinn could be Meagan Drake.
Would recommend to:
Classic genre fans, pulp fans, not sure about the wider audience.
By Jack Williamson
Publisher: Del Rey / Ballantine
Published In: New York City, New York, USA
Date: 1982
Pgs: 217
Summary:
Meagan Drake has a vision. A vision of her deceased brother and uncle’s dream. A dream to seed Mankind among the stars as a way to protect them from themselves. A thousand seedships each with machinery on board to bring a breeding population of bioengineered clones to fruition and started on the track of building a better life for themselves and a future for the greater Mankind. Story follows the landing of a damaged seedship on the planet Mansphere where a robotic enemy may already be plotting their destruction.
Genre:
fiction, science fiction, space opera, apocalypse
Why this book:
It was the right price at Half Price Books. And the title awakened the adolescent in me making me wonder what it was really about. ...and I loved Williamson’s Brother to Demons: Brother to Gods.
This Story is About:
survival against all odds, life, love, jealousy, duty
Favorite Character:
Defender One is the main character and my favorite. Wish he didn’t have Ship playing the monkey on his back as much as he did through the story, but he and his seedstock made this story for me.
Least Favorite Character:
Defender Two. Her flightiness when she knew all the things she did in the face of One’s love was exceptionally cruel.
Character I Most Identified With:
Don Brink and Tomislav. Both dedicated to their duties at different points in their lives while seeing the world differently though they had so much in common.
The Feel:
There is a sadness in this story. It really is Defender One’s tragedy and triumph. Tragedy in his unattainable love, but triumph in the duty that is his.
Favorite Scene:
When Defender One faces his uncyborg self in the shadows of the Dome.
Settings:
The seedship, space, Mansphere, the colony, the dome, and the myriad environs between the dome and the colony.
Pacing:
This story is very well paced.
Plot Holes/Out of Character:
At one point in the story, the characters refer to Mansphere having been cleared of all life excepting plant life in a bygone era. Yet later, when it suited the narrative, we discover that there is undersea life of some kind. Seemed a bit deus ex machina to me.
Last Page Sound:
I want more. I want to know what happened to Defender One. Did he take his duty as his triumph as is suggested or did he slide back into his despair at Two and Three’s being the undutiful yet more fully formed of the Defenders.
Author Assessment:
I love Williamson’s work. Believe that his other work will need to be read on a case by case basis. While I liked this one, a lot, I can see the style being a little grating in certain sci-fi subgenres.
Editorial Assessment:
It’s fine.
Disposition of Book:
I really haven’t decided. I don’t believe I will want to re-read it, so that probably means I should Half Price Book it. We’ll see.
Why isn’t there a screenplay?
I could see this made into a movie. It would probably need some updating as the source material shows that it was written decade ago. The feel is very 50’s/60’s science fiction.
Casting call:
Will Smith could be Defender One. Jason Statham. Vin Diesel
Molly Quinn could be Meagan Drake.
Would recommend to:
Classic genre fans, pulp fans, not sure about the wider audience.
August 29, 2013
‘In the beginning there was Egan Drake, the genius who dreamed of spreading mankind among the galaxies.
Then came Megan, who took on her brother’s mantle and made his imaginings real. She gathered around her the finest in their fields – biology and astronautics, computer science and fusion propulsion – and fired them with her vision.
And finally was born The Project: a thousand tiny spacecraft crawling like electromechanical wombs towards the stars, each bearing the genetic seeds for a future colony of man.
And some fell on stony ground and some fell on fertile ground, and some...’
Blurb from the 1986 Sphere paperback edition.
Egan Drake is, or was, what you would call bipolar in today’s psychological lexicon. Possessing a high degree of manic creativity and occasional freak genius he puts together a scheme to send out automated ‘seedships’ into space, some of which may land on another inhabitable world.
And so the tale of one of the ships is told by its ‘defender’; a humanoid AI which possesses an amalgum of the major scientists working on the project and the dominant personality, Don Brink, an ex-soldier and mercenary whose specialised knowledge is needed to deal with any unexpected incidents.
The current action is interspersed with flashbacks of the project, set up by Megan Drake after her brother’s death. She tracks down and hires several vital men for her mission.
The ship finds a habitable world, but one which contains the still active remnants of a robotic defence force, awaiting the return of their biological masters who are some thirty thousand years late.
Suffice to say that the defender helps the ship to establish a new human colony on the new world and, in the process, comes to terms with himself as a sexless, but sentient, humanoid.
To be honest, the flashbacks are somewhat dull and give the impression of a tragically depressing set of people who would surely not have had the enthusiasm to carry through such a project.
In contrast, the futuristic elements are full of colour and life.
Then came Megan, who took on her brother’s mantle and made his imaginings real. She gathered around her the finest in their fields – biology and astronautics, computer science and fusion propulsion – and fired them with her vision.
And finally was born The Project: a thousand tiny spacecraft crawling like electromechanical wombs towards the stars, each bearing the genetic seeds for a future colony of man.
And some fell on stony ground and some fell on fertile ground, and some...’
Blurb from the 1986 Sphere paperback edition.
Egan Drake is, or was, what you would call bipolar in today’s psychological lexicon. Possessing a high degree of manic creativity and occasional freak genius he puts together a scheme to send out automated ‘seedships’ into space, some of which may land on another inhabitable world.
And so the tale of one of the ships is told by its ‘defender’; a humanoid AI which possesses an amalgum of the major scientists working on the project and the dominant personality, Don Brink, an ex-soldier and mercenary whose specialised knowledge is needed to deal with any unexpected incidents.
The current action is interspersed with flashbacks of the project, set up by Megan Drake after her brother’s death. She tracks down and hires several vital men for her mission.
The ship finds a habitable world, but one which contains the still active remnants of a robotic defence force, awaiting the return of their biological masters who are some thirty thousand years late.
Suffice to say that the defender helps the ship to establish a new human colony on the new world and, in the process, comes to terms with himself as a sexless, but sentient, humanoid.
To be honest, the flashbacks are somewhat dull and give the impression of a tragically depressing set of people who would surely not have had the enthusiasm to carry through such a project.
In contrast, the futuristic elements are full of colour and life.
November 1, 2012
I really liked this book. I enjoyed its pace and the seamless way it moved between time-lines at the speed of the main protagonist's(a hybrid Bio-roid) waking thoughts. Considering the epic time scale of the setting this book could be the foundation of an unlimited number of spin-offs and alternate versions using roughly the same characters over and over again..I like that and makes me think it would be an excellent resource for other media particularly i had in mind an MMORPG web browser game. With at least two Classes of characters to choose from. That of the Gaurdians and that of the seeded human genotype spawns with unlimited customization of characters ad worlds for the platform. Books have inspired video game potential ideas to me before, but this is the first one I thought specifically would translate into an epic MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.)
Almost forgot to mention their is an element of forlorn romance in the novel that i find to be a critique of the fickle and resounding nature of the catastrophic human emotion complex, yet somewhat being the very thing that drives them to triumph.
Almost forgot to mention their is an element of forlorn romance in the novel that i find to be a critique of the fickle and resounding nature of the catastrophic human emotion complex, yet somewhat being the very thing that drives them to triumph.
March 6, 2016
This is one of the first sci-fi novels I have ever read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that the characters were interesting (defender one, ben bannerjee, egan (both on mansphere and on earth) and some really annoying (defender 2 and 3, jayna).
The pacing was well done and interesting and left me wanting to know more about the story on earth and man sphere. Both the process of building the seed pods and inhabiting mansphere worked well in conjunction.
As for imagery I think man sphere is a really interesting planet to visualize and it gives a lot left to the imagination. It has just enough characteristics to make it enjoyable. Over all not the best written book but worth the read. 3.5/5
The pacing was well done and interesting and left me wanting to know more about the story on earth and man sphere. Both the process of building the seed pods and inhabiting mansphere worked well in conjunction.
As for imagery I think man sphere is a really interesting planet to visualize and it gives a lot left to the imagination. It has just enough characteristics to make it enjoyable. Over all not the best written book but worth the read. 3.5/5
January 20, 2015
Some nice ideas on seeding the galaxy - especially the re-creation of humans and cyborgs that are given the memories (and looks, and DNA) of several people. There is a lot of interplay between being brand-new and being a continuation of another person... but if so, of which one? Humans may indeed face such issues of memory and personality within the foreseeable future.
But the book is not well written, with wooden characters, and there are areas towards the end (such as when the protagonist is suddenly given small wings, poorly explained, and raising additional unanswered questions) which should have been edited.
But the book is not well written, with wooden characters, and there are areas towards the end (such as when the protagonist is suddenly given small wings, poorly explained, and raising additional unanswered questions) which should have been edited.
December 5, 2012
A fantastic read. A story of how human emotions and aggression both endanger and enlighten existence. The narrative spins from the bits and pieces of emotional "feedback" that human subjects unwittingly submitted as they all worked together, each somewhat in love with the project leader.
There is a rather weak alien invasion subplot that undermines earlier statements regarding the unlikelihood of the missions's success, and the title of the book is one that I felt compelled to hide or constantly explain. Vivid, imaginative, beautiful and original, I recommend this book.
November 15, 2013
Some interesting ideas marred by flaws here and there, "Manseed"*is a good mid-level science fiction novel. Nothing truly out of the ordinary or too deep. It's a light-weight novel that's nonetheless quite entertaining.
*A very unfortunate title for the book. Almost embarrassing. Did author Jack Williamson even realize what the connotations of the title were?
*A very unfortunate title for the book. Almost embarrassing. Did author Jack Williamson even realize what the connotations of the title were?
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July 21, 2016Williamson writes intriguing stories. I only wish I could come up with one idea as cool and original as he does constantly. This is a book published in 1982. It's too bad I had to work so hard back then and didn't have time to read this book when it was written. But, on the bright side, I still have 34 years of books in my library that I still get to read. Stay tuned . . .
March 19, 2013
So many things that can happen in just 224 pages. The mysteries of Mansphere are thrilling through the whole ride. Just forget about the crazy love that blights humans and non-humans on earth and on Mansphere.
March 14, 2015
donated to The Smith Family charity
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