Lilith and Her Tentacle Beard Friends

         For me, this Lilith's Brood was very alien. The opening confused the hell out of me at first. I wasn't sure of anything and for a minute I felt like I was stuck in a dryer on spin cycle. I mean yes, it took place in a future where aliens exist and want us to have their children, but it just seemed very sort of detached from what I'd view aliens as normally, or what I'm used to. It was very clean, too. There wasn't really a lot of details spared about the surroundings except an occasional tree, but the place seemed really sort of creepy hospital white to me. I'm not gonna lie, beard tentacles would probably cause me to go screaming into the night.  Unless they were like Davy Jones' beard from Pirates of the Caribbean. Those are allowed.

          It was hard for me to like the Oankali as far as their customs go. You've got a wife with sexual and a regular wife. And it seemed to me that everyone hated the sexual wife. I wasn't able to understand the Oankali they were as far removed from humans as sea monkeys or something. It was just hard to picture. I guess it was just a matter of putting myself in Lilith's shoes. It's hard to imagine suddenly waking up in a future where everything is gone that you know.

        Usually, in science fiction the aliens are either bad or good guys. If they're bad guys well we better do something because they're organized and we need to figure out how to fight back. But in this case, the aliens were sort of higher beings per-say. I mean, they can heal each other and they seem to be peaceful. And the chemical powers weren't too shabby. Nikanj's weird transformation really made me laugh, though. I kept thinking of the Star Trek episode where Spock has basically his Vulcan period and suddenly almost marries this lady. That was just really ridiculous. I see no point in that at all. It was supposed to make Lilith important and then it didn't.

        I only got half way or so in this book because I really wasn't into it. It seemed to me Lilith gave in a bit too easy to succumbing to doing the Oankali's bidding. I know she was considering an uprising possibility in the future but it just seemed too easy. Let's do exactly what the aliens what to do that want to kidnap our children and do experiments on them. That's a great idea.

        Another thing which kind of got to me was the pacing. I mean, it starts off slow she's stuck in a box and I really wanted her to get the hell out and when she did I was kind of disappointed.  It was more about here fitting in and getting used to it than freaking out because of the new alien ship.  I think I was expecting crazy Blade Runner cities and flying cars and the Star Wars bar scene and I got a bunch of trees and a moving platform. Kind of a bummer. If aliens like this come to earth I'm not going to be impressed. Especially if they stick me in one of those creepy aloe plants.