They can both nourish and support the alien colonists or turn on them, depending on the situation. It takes the colonists a long time to understand that the local plants, all sentient to a certain degree, can adapt to human actions. “We thought we could come in peace and find a happy niche in another ecology. It’s about the entirety of a human colony and its descendants and their struggle with the planet’s native lifeforms. Ultimately, Semiosis isn’t about just one protagonist or one antagonist. This structure makes it incredibly hard to root for the success of the various protagonists.Īdded to that, Semiosis never really knows whether it’s a first contact story or a story about dealing with the hardships and struggles of colonisation.

These sections read like separate, at first only loosely connected, short stories and every time empathy is established between the current protagonist and the reader, the section ends, and the book moves onto a new set of characters. A different protagonist narrates each section, each from a subsequent generation. “We don’t want to do anything unnecessary until we understand the effect on the ecology. Still, humans aim to keep peace and find a way to fit into the local ecology. Never having encountered sentient plants before, the colonists did not anticipate the local flora to protect itself against the colonists by turning edible previously edible fruit into a poisonous one the very next day. “We had hoped to create a new society in full harmony with nature, but nineteen people had died of accidents and illnesses since we arrived.” Looking for peace and a new beginning-a chance to do better this time around-the group is made up of scientists and passionate activists, vowing to establish a peaceful society.ĭespite finding no signs of intelligent life, many die within the first few weeks of arrival as the group is wholly unprepared for the truly alien environment and Pax’s incredibly bizarre flora and fauna. Semiosis follows a group of colonists landing on a new planet after fleeing a dying Earth ravaged by wars and environmental catastrophe. Unfortunately, I gelled with neither the prose nor the characters and failed to establish an emotional investment in the novel’s events. It just didn’t manage to hold my interest despite its short length and frankly interesting subject and themes.

I read Semiosis over the course of many months and even had to restart at one point because I’d put it down for too long. Sue Burke’s debut novel Semiosis takes a truly intriguing and fascinating concept but turns it into an uneven experience that filled me with ambivalence.

Semiosis book review