Mother of Demons

by Eric Flint

Book Overview

SPECIAL LEATHERBOUND EDITION. FIRST NOVEL OF MULTIPLE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR ERIC FLINT, creator of the hugely-popular Ring of Fire alternate history series. A crumbling alien civilization... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067187800X
• ISBN13: 9780671878009
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Baen
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

I made the mistake of lending this book to someone...

...and they hadn't given it back yet. I love how Flint develops the religious conflict in this book and the nature of "the Question." A surprisingly insightful read on a basic difference in philosophy between the scientific and the dogmatic, and a nicely alien culture and biology to build it in. Mother of Demons remains to this day my favorite "serious" Flint book.

Well-done military-political SF -- 4.5 stars

_____________________________________________ A human starship has crash-landed on Ishtar, a planet inhabited by the gukuy, bronze-age land squid. First contact is violent, and the humans (who are the titular demons) soon find themselves forced to take sides in a tribal war.... This sort of thing has been done, umm, once or twice before, but seldom as well as here. Flint's aliens are well thought-out and biologically plausible. The tiny human colony's predicament is nicely portrayed: one of the human leaders is a historian, and she is painfully aware of how good intentions can lead to monstrous evil. There are some first-novel rough spots -- Flint's exposition is lumpy and sometimes preachy -- but he's an outstanding storyteller, which more than makes up for the (minor) problems. Recommended. Mother of Demons was Flint's first novel, and attracted little notice on publication -- I'm sure sales weren't helped by Baen mislabelling the book as a fantasy. His new solo novel 1632, which plops a contemporary American town into Europe's Thirty Years' War, has been getting good notices,which might help bring Mother of Demons the larger audience it deserves. Happy reading-- Pete Tillman

A wonderful read!

This book was an all nighter - each alien and human have their "own" chapters, but in the end they are all tied together. Perhaps a little heavy on some facets of religion, but otherwise exciting story. Not your usual "castaway human colonists meet native aliens" storyline. Please, where is the sequel?

A Mother of a good book

This book is an excellent read. Good plot, well thought-out, interesting characters and a good writing style make this story better than the average humans-stranded-on-strange-planet fare. The conclusion left enough threads to allow a sequel without being frustrating or unsatisfying. Eric Flint is a writer to watch.

Grabbing, familiar but very new. Smart....

This book is very smart. The "hard sciences" are not the usual techno-type, but rather Mr. Flint applies such sciences as ethology, linguistics, sociology; even a little applied psycho-history! I kept thinking it would be nice if he writes 5 or 6 sequels. Great read!