main character is adult male
suggest late secondaries, but also suitable for adult

The concept of the world ear is that it is a little like the internet, you can find information and stay in touch with people. The story line is what happens to someone who is disconnected from the ear in order to go to a remotel colleny where the W.E. is not able to function. Its a bit like a detectiove novel without a crime - or a solution. The answer when you get there is perfictly l;ogical you just will not be able to see it from the start

The premise: ganked from publisher's website: WE ARE THE ONLY HUMANS LEFT . . .

In the furthest, coldest, darkest reaches of our solar system, Paul Munro is on a mission from which he can never return. A desolate ice-covered moon will be his home for the rest of his life. And only from here can he see what humanity has become.

A thriller to freeze your blood. To absolute zero.

My Rating: It's a Gamble

Truth be told, a lot of whether or not you enjoy this book will probably depend on whatever SF baggage you've got coming into it. And then there's more practical issues about the book itself, like how the book just rather stops instead of rounding out a conclusion. It's possible the author intends this to be the first in a series, and if that's the case, the ending makes a little more sense, but it's still not very satisfying. When you consider that a lot of the big ideas introduced are nothing new to the genre, and that they come at the end of the book, the build up seems like much ado about nothing, you know? Still, the book does manage to create a nice SF/thriller/suspense atmosphere, and Dickinson's hard SF details really fit well into the story, which is a thrill to see in a book that's being marketed as YA SF. It is a rather smooth read, something that can be devoured in the span of a day or two, depending on your schedule, and while I'm ambivalent about this book, there are things to enjoy about it. However, if a sequel was made available, I can't say I'd be in any hurry to read it.

One important note: in the afterword of the book, the author admits to not being aware of Yevgeny Zamyatin's dystopian classic We until after he'd drafted and titled his own book, so fans of that dystopia who are perhaps looking for parallels won't find anything intentional, as the author certainly didn't have that book under his belt when writing this one.

Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay. There's a lot of things I want to talk about in terms of where this book fits in terms of the bigger SF genre, as well as why it really isn't YA but how categorizing it as such isn't wholly a bad thing. Safe to read even for spoiler-phobes, so if you're interested in the full review, just click the link below to go to my blog. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome!

REVIEW: John Dickinson's WE

Happy Reading! ( )

When starting an SF novel, I think it a good sign if the first chapter is so well imagined and well written that it could stand alone as a short story. Obviously it can't continue at that level of density, but the experience of a man suddenly removed from the ever-present and almost omniscient World Ear network is arrestingly told. He then has to come to terms with the claustrophobic world of a remote base with only four inhabitants, and a mysterious influence which corrupts their radio signals to Earth. Is his predecessor as telemetry expert really dead?

And why would Earth bother to have a manned station on the moon of a gas giant so remote that it takes eight years to travel there, and adaptation so dramatic that the researchers can never hope to return? I asked this question early in my reading: Paul Munro, dutiful servant of the World Ear, doesn't think to consider it until further through the book, and the answer is bound up with the developing ideas in this subtle novel, which questions the nature of human choice and the future social effect of world-encompassing information networks. If the Internet became sentient, what would it do next? How would you feel if you had been left out, or worse, cut out after being a part of it?

There are moments when the pace falters, and the ending is a little low-key, but not unreasonably so, given the scenario, and on the whole I think this is an excellent book.

MB 3-ii-2011 ( )

Paul Munro has been sent to live at the darkest reaches of the solar system. Sent to live with three others, sent to live in a man-made space station. On his arrival he finds that he has been travelling for 8 years, and that he as been disconnected to the World Ear (WE).

His mission is to find out why the communications to and from the space station are being corrupted. But in doing this could he be sending himself and the other to their ultimate death.

Not being a Sci-fi fan I found this book to be hard going. It lacked the promised ‘a thriller to freeze your blood’ and the ending was a disappointment.
But it had a well written flow, with language and descriptions that a non sic-fi chick could understand. Best suited to older teens and adults. ( )