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When Matt Raimey had his accident, he thought his life was over. He never dreamed, in his wildest fantasies, that he’d end up in a spot like this. In the toxic atmosphere of Jupiter, born into the body of an enormous creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and a dolphin, he is living a new life, unlike any humankind had previously experienced.
An unbelievable turn of events, it gave him a reason to live, to survive, no matter what happened . . . but every second chance comes with conditions and responsibilities. And as those who brought him to this strange destiny have their authority stripped from them and he discovers the truth that only he can know about the giant alien creatures he now calls family, this man reborn as the one they now call Manta suddenly isn’t sure he wasn’t better off before. . . .
What if James Dean were a twin-tailed manta ray swimming in Jupiter's atmosphere? Bestselling Star Wars novelist Zahn (Angelmass) gives us a tale of teen coming-of-age angst set in the herd society of the Qanska, intelligent herbivores who inhabit the equatorial band of the gas giant. Suspecting them to be non-native life, Earth's corporate masters, the Five Hundred, send in a spy to find their hidden star drive. Facing their own disaster, the Qanska agree, hoping to gain a human perspective on the impending exhaustion of their ecology. What neither side can count on is how the person injected into the Qanskan world will react. Matt Raimey, a 22-year-old paralyzed by a skiing accident, agrees to have his brain transplanted into a Qanska fetus. Given a second chance to be mobile, he also unexpectedly gets another chance to mature. Zahn concentrates more on the psychological processes at work than on the technological. Solutions to problems arise from better emotional and intellectual integrity, not simply larger databases. While the author doesn't get as deep into his characters as they do into Jupiter's depths, his portrayal of Matt/Manta is direct and involving. Qanskan life, looking much like marine reef life on Earth, is intriguingly portrayed, even if the biology of the Qanskan problem is suspect. YA readers looking for more than the usual SF action-adventure should be well pleased. (Oct.) FYI: The author's "Cascade Point" won the Hugo Award for best novella in 1984. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
David Giles
reviewed Manta's Gift on August 13, 2020
Manta's Gift
Read as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict: The ending was so satisfying that it nearly changed my mind but... I don't see myself re-reading this book, so it will be going to a new home.
So... we're all pretty sure James Cameron read this, right? And then changed the worldbuilding because you can't put titties on a space manta ray? That's the secret origin story for the Avatar movies?
Cool. Glad we're in accord on that.
In all seriousness, I do wonder if this book would have felt more groundbreaking to me had I read it pre-Avatar film. As it was, the story was largely unsurprising in its plot beats. That's not to say I wasn't intrigued - fundamentally it presents several worldbuilding mysteries, which I'm very susceptible to - but just that the actions and reactions of characters felt pretty obvious.
I was also disappointed by Zahn's linguistic worldbuilding - or rather, lack thereof. There's a lot of interesting, alien concepts here, and then... the Qanska speak and their vocabulary and syntax are pretty much exactly like a human's. It threw me off at first, and while I adjusted eventually, there would still be moments where I was startled by how little thought seemed to have been put into this pervasive element of culture and thought. That would have been a great way to really underscore their alien nature, instead of making most of them feel like they could well be more human transplants.
The strongest aspect of this book is the way Zahn handles his unlikable protagonist. Raimey's not supposed to be likable - indeed, other characters comment on it on the regular - and as annoying as he can be at the beginning, Zahn plays out his growth and development wonderfully. The triumph he achieves at the book's finale is almost more over himself and his internal struggles than over the various external threats, and I think that doubled sense of success is what makes the ending so strong.
I think this book strikes a good balance between being purely fun and being thought-provoking; it'll give you lots to reflect on, especially in the question of what makes someone human or other, but it can also definitely be read as just a fun, shiny 'what if there were flying manta rays on gas giants' adventure. Definitely something I'm glad to have gotten around to reading at long last.
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