I wanted to like this book. It is not nearly as sophisticated as most of Budrys' books but it had good moments. This book had great potential but it just became silly. I'm beginning to think I don't like the ending to any of his books. They all have an interesting premise but they don't seem to go any where. There is always a climax in the middle but the endings seem to fizzle to nothingness. I suspect you could skip the last two chapters of any Budrys book and not miss anything important to the story. ( )

This is a re-read of a fondly remembered book. Not as good as I remembered. The Human/Amsir "experiment" warranted more exposition, and the disaffection of Jackson on finding Ariwol was a little trite. Probably not worth another re-read. ( )

The story opens with Jackson hunting an Amsir. They are evenly matched opponents but with skill Jackson comes out the victor but only after learning that despite all he has been told, the Amsir are not only intelligent but can talk.

The first half of the book reads like a generation starship story, though in this case the story is planet based. As Jackson hunts for the truth he eventually arrives on a ship back to earth. Here he encounters a pair of amusing bickering artificial intelligences. Unfortunately from that point onward the story goes downhill to such an extent that I skipped almost the whole of the last chapter, just picking up the last couple of paragraphs. I don't think I missed much. ( )

I haven’t read this book in a very long time, so I’m not sure if I would rate it this highly today. But it was the first science fiction book I read, and I was hooked on the genre afterwards. ( )