SOJALS rating:

Very good (3/5)

I first read this on the 14th March 2004.

Ofelia Demareux born on the planet Esclanz a world of old-fashioned politeness and sexual discrimination. She grew up poor and ill-educated and at the age of thirty she and her husband took contracts with Bancorp to emigrate to the Colony #3245.12 on a new frontier planet.

She's lived on this alien colony world for forty long, hard years of farming, and bringing up children. She's watched her husband and all but one of her children die in the unforgiving environment.

Now Bancorp has decided the colony is insufficiently successful and is closing it down. The colonists will be transferred to another new colony, to start again from scratch.

But Ofelia is old and tired, and fed up of being told what to think and what to do. She has no intention of starting again at her age. She's going to stay and live out the rest of her life in solitude and freedom.

Once the colony has gone, she has her solitude, and finds tranquillity.

At least that is, until the a subsequent colony is slaughtered and the aliens come after her.

This is very enjoyable. It's first contact with a twist. Instead of a bold explorer full of derring-do, we have a irritated, eccentric seventy-year old handling a bunch of intelligent and very deadly monsters.

Ofelia is a great character, full of personality, charm and wisdom. The aliens are interesting. They become, as we get to know them, more human with their love of learning and discovery. The human scientists who arrive later of course remind us of our worse aspects.