The White Seed by Kenneth Marshall

I snagged a digital copy of Kenneth Marshall's The White Seed from LibraryThing a few weeks ago. I don't read much science fiction, even though it's one of my favorite genres to write and watch, so I didn't know what to expect going into it. I was in for a pleasant surprise!

The White Seed is the first book in a series of novels set thousands of years in the future. Mankind left Earth long ago and colonized many different star systems by using white seeds--databases containing everything necessary to establish a successful human colony from a wide selection of genetic material. In the story, a team of four people from the homeworld Athena explore the wilderness of super-earth Keto to examine a dead human colony and learn why it supposedly self-destructed.

I thought the plot would be the most memorable thing about this book--sabotage, surviving the wilderness, mystery and a possible traitor. But what really came through for me was the brilliantly portrayed cast of characters with all different personalities, backgrounds and beliefs. It reminded me of Battlestar Galactica (the new one, not the atrocious Star Trek wannabe from the '70s). Kali, the leader, is burdened with responsibility and has a dark military background that haunts her through most of the tale. Toran is an anthropologist dealing with grief from the loss of his wife--possibly at the hands of Kali herself during the war. Ai is a vulnerable young microbiologist who struggles with self-acceptance and is encouraged by Alon, a secretive scientist who gets her to open up to him.

At first it was hard to keep the characters straight while figuring out how the universe worked, but in the end I was stunned by the multi-faceted heartache, suspicion and friendships that came out of this book, and the plot made it only more enjoyable. Four stars!

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