This journey of survival in an alien environment across generations is both exhilirating and touching. You will flinch at the brutality of the world but be unable to put the book down until you find out how the humans will pull through. The exploration of the symbiotic relationship between the settlers and the planet's sentient plant life will fascinate anyone with an interest in climate and ecology.
We had said we expected hardship, not paradise but we really wanted both. We thought we could come in peace and find a happy niche in another ecology. Instead we found a battlefield. The east vine turned us into servile mercenaries, nothing more than big, clever fippokats helping it win another battle. We had wanted to begin the world afresh, far from Earth and all its mistakes. That had not happened, but only I realized it, and I kept my disappointment to myself. Someday I might explain to our children how we had to compromise to survive.
Uri chopped merrily away. We faced more fighting ahead, and I hoped would I ready.
