Community Happens

Important things:

* Just as you should not read The Fortunate Fall if you want a romantic Happily Ever After, you should not read What We Are Seeking if you want a book which neatly ties up all its plot threads.

It's not quite in the same league of non-resolution as Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand (my beloved), but.

Assorted important things happen; the initial situation is radically changed; key decisions are made and alliances are formed. How it will play out is something that will clearly evolve over subsequent years and decades, but the book chooses to leave it at that moment of resolve rather than resolution, with the crucial shifts being internal and interpersonal.

* As an author, Cameron Reed may be the most "not aromantic but she believes in their beliefs" I've ever encountered.

Romantic love is a very real thing in her work, but it doesn't sway the moral or narrative universe of her novels in the way we're trained to expect (and the presence of an explicitly aro character in What We Are Seeking is not accidental).

I love this SO FUCKING MUCH.

* John Maraintha and Iren and Laura and Suddharma and Vo and Pirro and Blue Green.

People need to read Cameron Reed's What We Are Seeking because I need to have a discussion group, okay? Also it's extremely good.

I've just started listening to the Wizards vs. Lesbians ep on it, and am very pleased that they independently ping on Le Guin and Delany as reference points, and also accurately summarize its timeslip quality by saying it's "from the '70s if the '70s were 2026."

Also they clearly love John Maraintha, which is very important because he's delightful.

I tried to describe the book to vass by saying that it's like picking up a beautiful object -- I'm visualizing some sort of carved stone sculpture or ceramic item -- and finding out that its centre of gravity is wildly different (both in weight and location) from what your hands instinctively anticipated from its appearance.

And it's not a bait-and-switch! The book's initial premise is that it's about a human colony on an alien planet discovering a potentially-sapient species and urgently needing to find out if they are sapient, establish communication (if possible), and manage this First Contact correctly because there are dire consequences if they fuck it up (yes, a retro classic*).

And the book is in fact very much about that, and it drives many of the events that ensue. It is not at any point not about that, and its themes of communication, colonialism, and adaptation to an alien world are, well ... everything the book is about.

It has some casually-spectacular world-building, and a sequence involving a dangerous journey and struggle for survival in an alien landscape which stands up next to any in the canon (including an action sequence which genuinely made me make a noise of startlement and alarm OUT LOUD while reading).

And nonetheless, the scene which I would consider the emotional climax of the book, its great pivot point, is -- well, I refuse to describe it because of spoilers, but it's fair to say that it's not anything you'd ever expect from the above descriptions. It's so bold, in the quietest way.

{*I enjoy the book immediately explaining that alien life on this planet has a weird reproductive cycle, because OBVIOUSLY IT HAS A WEIRD REPRODUCTIVE CYCLE, we've read sf before; that is not being saved to be the Big Reveal.}

ETA: Free sample! Read the first two chapters here!

https://civilianreader.com/2026/03/17/excerpt-what-we-are-seeking-by-cameron-reed-tor-books/