Book: Beholder’s Eye
June 10th 2004
Beholder’s Eye by Julie E. Czerneda.
I am quickly becoming a huge fan of Czerneda. She has a very interesting quirky writing style and she is aces at developing very interesting characters, cultures, and other worlds.
In this series, called Web Shifters, Esen-Alit-Quar is the youngest of her Web, which is a “family” of extremely long-lived shapeshifters. These Web-beings assume the shapes of the individuals in diverse cultures in order to learn and preserve their accomplishments. Pretty much the ideal of participant observation!
On her first assignment Es rescues a human, Paul Ragem, from the culture she’s studying. But he and some on his first contact ship learn about her shapechanging. This event has more consequences than she had ever dreamed, as another Web-being has come out of the void, intent on killing everything in its path. Es is mistaken for The Enemy and must try to defeat this danger, perhaps with the help of Paul, if she can only trust him.
Very fast paced action, great dialogue and characters and I highly recommend it. I can’t wait to read the other two books in the trilogy.