3.5 starsVery good up until 80% or so when the urge to fit everything neatly into a perfect little puzzle must have become too overwhelming for the author. When there is such a vast array of creatures-with-special-rules-that-the-author-made-up, it feels really contrived if they all just happen to fit together so perfectly. Bow-on-top epilogue didn't help. Still, enjoyable overall.

From the "so crazy it just might work" shelf.I loved this book. I've been busy so it took me far too long to finish, but every time I came back I fell right back in. I liked the style, the story, the characters and the narration was excellent. Most sci-fi is plagued with flat characters, it's something sci-fi fans have learned to live with. This is not the case with Friedman's characters, they are lively, well rounded and you learn to appreciate even the ones you don't like.You can't tell people...

I never read the blurb for this book. So imagine my surprise when the abilities of the main character, Daetrin, were revealed. I found this book to be a real pleasure. It seems to have a quest-like storyline that is more common in fantasy novels, so that probably helped my enjoyment. I found the actual science in the book much better left unexamined, like how the Tyr communicate. But it's a really good story, and it does what science fiction should do - it makes you forget about what you think i...

Boring....😴😴😴I tried really hard to find a heart beat in this story. Its this months book club selection and I pushed myself to halfway through it and then skimmed the rest. It had such great potential to be something but it lacked substance. The main character is emotional unavailable and monologues 90% of the book. Good grief! He is an individual that can’t express himself if he got a paper cut.

This is every shapechanger/vampire story come to life in a future Earth that has been overrun by the alien Tyr. A man--Daetrin--trying to lay low and hide the fact that he was alive a hundred years ago when the Conquest took place and that he can remember a time when things were different.When he is discovered, he is taken to the sector controller and shipped off Earth, never to be allowed back. Because of this he meets a creature somewhat similar to himself, humans making a life on other planet...

What can I say about a vampire book where the one and only time the word "Vampire" is used is on page 157. This is one of my all-time favorite books in the SF-Vampire category.

Not my favorite book ever, but I give it many, many points for originality. Somehow, the author combines hive-mind aliens; more aliens; non-embodied entities; shapeshifters (more than one type, at that); vampires; Earth's takeover, and the aftermath; a fight for the salvation of the human race; a multiple-planet, interstellar setting; and probably several things I've forgotten. And, somehow, it works. It works well. All these things are mixed together and an intriguing, actually coherent story c...

A grand world and time-spanning tale, and yet a very intimate story of what it means to be human.Friedman writes truly alien aliens and worlds, a tight and complex plot, with thought-provoking, sometimes chilling, themes.Highly recommended.

Disappointing. I have generally enjoyed Celia Friedman's works, especially her Coldfire and Magister trilogies, but not this one. I am guessing it was one of her earliest works and just isn't up to the same standard I have come to expect from reading her more recent work. While I liked the base premise, the idea of a human vampire/shapeshifter chimaera and his relationship with the alien "mirra" energy entity/shapeshifter presented as a female was an intriguing concept - But I found the way it w...

I'm not a vampire/werewolf nut by any means but I was intrigued by the cross-over idea of mixing in a true sci-fi element. This was a surprisingly engaging read. The plot in short--several centuries after Earth has been conquered by an alien race they find a long-lived human they can't explain. Turns out he's a vampire, but one who understands his genetic condition and has tamed it with science, until he is banished off world and has to deal with his body and needs returning to their normal stat...

I drank it in until the last glimmer of twilight had faded, and the light of a thousand alien stars blazed furiously against the stark black backdrop of the [] night. A thousand brilliant points of light that burned my eyes as I stared at them, and filled me with the wonder of their power and beauty—as well as my own vulnerability.This is one of those Space Opera novels that is predominantly character driven, with some philosophical and anthropological aspects. A curious marriage of golden age s...

2.5 stars. This was our book club read for September, and this book is not something I would have picked up on my own, although the idea behind it sounded a bit intriguing. The main character, Daetrin has a secret that he is keeping from the alien race that conquered earth 300 years ago. He's a vampire type creature who has been alive for centuries. One day the aliens come and take him and he realizes he's been found out. This sets into motion a whole lot of events. I won't go into what they all...

This is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi books. It's been read many times and it always stands up. I don't think this author has written a better one since this came out. That good!

4.5 starsOriginally posted at Fantasy Literature.I am quickly becoming a fan of C.S. Friedman. Audible Frontiers has recently produced all her novels in audio format, so I snatched them up and I'm happy I did. Her science fiction is original, imaginative, and super smart.In The Madness Season, a man named Daetrin is old enough to have fought in the last battle when the Earth was conquered by the aliens of Tyr. That was three hundred years ago and the Tyrians want to know how Daetrin is still ali...

4.5 stars. Excellent blending on science fiction and monster mythology (don't want to say more and give away the surprise). Another superb novel by a terrific writer.

O L D SCHOOL!-Conquest and enslavement of Earth by aliens with hive-ish minds.-Aliens with different castes for different roles.-Aliens who specialize in diplomacy and communications. -Aliens who change shape.-Aliens sneaking onto other aliens' spaceships to figure what is going on.Alien aliens = GOOD TIMES!! Granted sometimes the writing (C.S. Friedman has improved her wordcraft since 1990) is klunky, but the ideas, interactions, how characters seek information and learn about the world – first...

This book is just amazing; every time I re-read it I am just as invested in the characters, their growth, and their individual pieces of the whole story as I was the very first time, if not more so. I would love for there to be more of this book, but at the same time I could never give up the perfect ending.I'm also caught between the urge to do a thorough thematic review and talk about this story's use of gender, religion, memory, civilization, etc., and the urge to spoil you for nothing, so I

This book was the official toilet book in my house for the longest time. You could pretty much pick it up at any point and read and, yeah, not have to concentrate on it too much. It was entertaining, but I found it a bit wonky. The writing is straightforward, nothing fancy, and lacks the sort of artistry and nuance I crave. It's an interesting concept -- vampire in space -- but I found the plot devolved into something less than believable.

4.5I am quickly becoming a fan of C.S. Friedman. Audible Frontiers has recently produced all her novels in audio format, so I snatched them up and I’m happy I did. Her science fiction is original, imaginative, and super smart.In The Madness Season, a man named Daetrin is old enough to have fought in the last battle when the Earth was conquered by the aliens of Tyr. That was three hundred years ago and the Tyrians want to know how Daetrin is still alive. So they’ve captured him, just like they’ve...

I must say, I really enjoy C.S. Friedman character creation. This is certainly not a sci-fi book, despite the "space" exploration and the picture of the spaceship on the front. It doesn't focus on science nearly enough to be a sci-fi....and actually that is part of what I like about it. So if you are a sci-fi fan, you may be a little peaved by some of the logical contradictions.I enjoyed losing myself in the context and the characters and tried not to pay too much attention to the fine details.