Robert J. Sawyer is a fantastic writer, and this series is just another jewel in his crown. I don't want to give away the surprise awaiting the reader within the first few pages, so I will just say, the main character is relatable, strong, and faces many challenges because investigating the truth and doing what is right matters. Excellent read. ( )

wasn't bad, but I found that I couldn't be bothered finishing it. ( )

Far-Seer follows the life of young Sal-Afsan on the journey of a lifetime. He is a Quintaglio, a race of sentient t-rexes living on a distant planet and enjoying a unique culture and religion centered on the ritual of the hunt and a seafaring pilgrimage. During his coming-of-age adventures, Afsan makes several discoveries whose repercussions threaten to destroy his society in this re-telling of the lives of Galileo and Copernicus in one.

This novel is best described as charming. The prose is simple yet effective, and tightly written. Clocking in at just over 300 pages it’s a short read despite a few lulls in the pace. Being a planet of carnivorous dinosaurs, there is plenty of violence. The action is well-written and striking. Brevity is a strong point for this author; this is no Martin or Tolkien getting distracted describing food or clothing for 3 pages at a time.

Characters are a little simple but have enough unique traits to avoid being caricatures. There are some inconsistencies in personality. Afsan is described as naïve but comes off more as strangely ignorant for a genius; he can do calculations in his head and is one of the few Quintaglios that can read, yet doesn’t know anything about basic reproduction. Dybo is typically placid but has moments of viciousness that ebb and flow. Protagonists are strong, taking direct action for their interests.

The worldbuilding is solid but could stand for more alien-ness. Quintaglio culture has some fascinating facets: dagamant, or the violent territorial madness that can be triggered by too-close proximity to others, cutting off body parts for punishment (they regenerate), the inability to lie openly (their muzzles turn blue when they fib), hunting rituals. Other aspects are entirely too human without providing the rationale for the unlikely behavior/concepts. The Quintalios are similar enough that one can empathize but different enough to be interesting. Clunky exposition is minimal, for both Afsan’s past as well as the general society; it would just be nice if Afsan had a reason to be as ignorant as he was.

As with his other novels, Sawyer’s boner for science is painfully obvious. While not as strictly anti-religion as his other trilogy, the Neanderthal Parallax, Sawyer comes down extremely hard on the faith. For example, priests are the only ones who can lie openly. In scripture, only demons can do this. Priests do it effortlessly and guiltlessly. This doesn’t offend me, per se, but it is rather graceless. One thing that I did like was that this is a sci-fi/fantasy novel where religion is not homogeneous: there are different religions followed at different levels of fanaticism, which made it feel much more real.

The book contains a lot of explanations of astrological movement. It takes several repetitions before Sawyer realizes he can summarize Afsan’s observations and arguments without having to re-iterate them again and again. This did not occur enough to annoy me. However, with Sawyer’s unmitigated lust for the scientific method, you’d think that he’d get the facts correct. Which he does not. To be specific, a tidally-locked moon would not be ripped apart by gravitational forces. To cause earthquakes, the planet would have to have tidal forces a tidally-locked planet does not have. To break up, a planet would have to have an extremely fast rotation and be a reasonable young planet, which is not the case with Land. Lastly, having a single landmass would not impact the planet’s orientation nor whether or not it is tidally-locked. If nothing else, the planet should have been either in the oncoming path of an asteroid or in a deteriorating orbit, causing it to impact its planet. I could write this off as Afsan being incorrect in some of his theory (mistakes drive science just as much as successes do), but the later books play it completely straight and correct without any revisions. It irked me to no end and I find myself mentally editing the book to something more accurate.

TL;DR: The story of Galieo vs. the Church, told on a distant moon with a cast composed of sentient tyrannosaurs. Poor science can be overlooked with action-filled prose and intriguing society.

Final Verdict: Worth a read. The worst part of the novel is being a grown adult carrying around a book with a dinosaur holding a telescope on the cover. ( )

This book was completely different than anything else by Robert Sawyer that I have read. And I thought it was good. Now I will have to find book #2 in the Quintaglio series as I already have book #3.

The inhabitants of Quintaglio are sentient dinosaurs. They live on a large island in The River and are exclusively carnivores. They have learned to mostly overcome their violent impulses by adopting a religion that encourages peace. There is a rigid hierarchy and at the very top is the Empress. Afsan, an apprentice astrologer, is quite low in the hierarchy but he is friends with Dybo, the Empress's son and heir to the throne. So when Afsan asks Dybo to accompany him on the pilgrimage to the Face of God it helps them get the necessary permissions. Before they go they must take part in a hunt that is a right of passage for all Quintaglions. Afsan distinguishes himself in the hunt and he becomes well-known for his prowess. The pilgrimage takes place on a ship as The Face of God is far to the east of the Island on which all the Quintaglions live. The ship's captain has an instrument called a far-seer which Afsan borrows and makes observations of the surrounding celestial objects. As the ship nears The Face of God Afsan determines that The Face is actually a planet and Quintaglio is a moon of that planet. This is heresy but Afsan figures he can prove it by getting the captain to circumnavigate their world. He knows it will be a challenge to convince people of this but there is an urgent need to do so. Afsan believes that their world is too near the planet and that it will be pulled apart in the not too distant future. Increasing numbers of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes signal that the end is near.

I read one online comment that likened Afsan to Galileo. Humans now accept Galileo's thoughts but at the time he was imprisoned by the Inquisition and forced to recant. I think Sawyer is showing us a different model for that kind of world-shaking thought. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book and was so excited when I got to interview the author for my podcast. You can listen to it here: http://www.thegenretraveler.com/sci-fi/podcast-episode-30-exploring-options-in-s... and a snippet of it here: http://www.thegenretraveler.com/video/the-genre-traveler-podcast-snippet-episode... ( )