The Settlers: Book 1 of The Movement Trilogy

Now that I have finished reading The Settlers, I am glad I didn't stop. I say that because I did initially stop. In fact, I made it known on Twitter that I stopped. There were no quotation marks around the dialogue. I've never read any book without them, so I got nervous. I decided I had to continue, and I am sure glad I did because the dialogue in this book was fantastic. I mean, it made the book. The Settlers is a story about a group of people that are facing the greatest challenge that humans have faced. Sure, the premise is one that we've hear before, but it is nonetheless still based in reality. We are damaging Earth. In this book, it seems that that damage hit a tipping point and our world is rapidly spiraling out of control. Entire landmasses are underwater, and the Earth is falling apart. At least, the parts that we have inhabited for so long. Something has to be done to preserve humanity. So humans start to build large space stations that orbit around the Earth. At first, the stations are thrown together rapidly, owing to the nature of the emergency on the planet. Gradually though, humans begin to perfect these stations. They become complex and extravagant. At some point, the crisis on Earth is solved and it seems that the planet is still habitable, but people keep coming to the new stations. Might as well, they are like small countries floating around up there. Where The Settlers really gets interesting, and where Gurley shows his obvious love of sci-fi classics, is how these stations operate, particularly with the Argus station. This large space colony is set up to operate based on a governing system that rings familiar with elements from 1984, Brave New World, and many others. Heck, I couldn't help but drift back to my ancient Greek philosophy class from college. It was as if Plato himself had written a modern version of The Republic. There is a sanctioned class system that includes who works what type of job as well as reproductive rights. The station goes as far as admitting that they are creating a different type of human; a smarter type of human. Gurley does a fantastic job with the characters, though we only get to follow a few through the entire book. I found myself getting to know each one, which is no small feat considering how little time he actually gives you with each character. What made me feel particularly involved was his use of dialogue. Once you figure out how easy it is to read without quotation marks, the words flow through your mind as if you are actually talking to the characters. The dialogue was beautiful, and I actually made that exact note at one point in my Kindle. Here is one line that I highlighted that stuck out to me - "Rivers are like thread...They stitch place together. They are seams that connect very different lands. I think it is lovely that you are an anthropologist. What better name for a woman who might herself be a river through time?" I'm not sure why that stuck out to me early on, but I knew that the rest would be amazing. Gurley relies on character dialogue to carry the book, which is very hard to do. Aside from character development, I think dialogue is the next hardest thing to perfect in a book. The job is accomplished here.This is the first book in a trilogy, and I can't wait to start the next book. The Settlers ends with two of the main characters encountering a pretty bad situation, and I can't help but think back to an earlier part of the book when one character said "Equality, he would sometimes say, is a myth even in cultures that acknowledge and promote it." The entire book is set on the backdrop of equality, or lack thereof. Gurley experiments with the concept, and leaves the book heading in a direction that makes me want more. Sitting here now, he has made me wonder if it is better to live in a place where the government openly denies equality, or one that says everyone is equal but in fact they never will be. Basically, would you rather someone lie to your face, or do it behind your back? Thanks for putting out such a great book, Jason Gurley. I look forward to the rest.

I appreciate the attempt to create a "crisis" that could compel millions of humans to leave Earth. Melting ice caps caused by those who wouldn't listen or accept mans complicity in the demise of Earth wouldn't have be my choice, for the author however, it provides the groundwork to support the premise that humanity is and will continue to be self destructive. The despair represented by senior citizens slogging their walkers through ankle deep water on their way to air fields, only to be denied seats on the space shuttle helps to reinforce the degradation of humanity and the imminent passing of Earth as life supporting planet. Of course, all is not lost. There are those who will try to save humanity from itself and the bad guys (who have not really been identified) the ones instrumental in building the space stations and setting the rules governing admission to and life on the station. Humanities saviors, the good guys, are two friends who have been extraordinarily lucky "surviving" conditions where others perished to, at some point, become the ones who provoke the fight to restore human rights to the masses. It was an ok plot but there was too much missing information. The "luck" of the main characters is too remarkable to be left unexplained. Their absence from much of the story doesn't make them the sort of memorable characters they should be and for the most part they are detached and void of emotion. The large time/place gaps in the story segments were disruptive and made them seem like a collection of side stories. The scene with Emil and Gretchen was touching and brought some much needed warmth to the story but it seemed out of place as did the other random and infrequent acts of kindness. The potential to build a case against the lack of forethought and or foresight in establishing the social structure of each station was there but little information was offered to justify that position. The social evolution that motivates revolution was never demonstrated. At one point it was even implied things were looking up for humanity right before the "plunge" represented by the experimental social plan of Argus. Inescapable oppression ferments rebellion. The people signed up for the life they were offered on Argus and it seemed many came from the still trying to die Earth, so it would take some time for dissatisfaction to truly take root and support an uprising. I liked some of the pieces the author offered but the overall story did not have enough to bind those pieces together. Maybe all this information will be found in future installments but for me, it was a struggle to to get through this one and feel that the entire story was plausible.

This book was quite different to what I was expecting. It is essentially a collection of stories examining the lives of various characters living on several space stations, after the surface of Earth becomes too dangerous for long-term survival. These stories tend to have quite a lot of emotional resonance.The early part of the book focuses on the idea of immortality, and what might happen if you attempt to create a serum to extend human life. The later part of the book looks at the formation of a dystopian society.The various parts of the book, while essentially stand-alone stories all tie together reasonably well. It does feel like a cohesive book.The main thing that bugged me about The Settlers was the lack of quotation marks around dialog. I'm not sure if this was a formatting error or something intentional, but it made the text unnecessarily difficult to follow.

Why are there no quotation marks around the dialogue? It makes the story quite difficult to read, requires more concentration and interrupts the flow.

Settlers is a very literary sci-fi novel that looks at society in space from the perspective of a number of different lives, put together as facets of the larger time and place. We see the stories of a grandfather with his grandchild, a heartbroken, widowed man, a woman who is almost immortal, and a man whose mind is preserved within a computer chip, among others. These stories jump from space station to space station and between decades at will, following each other in an order which often seems to jar when we swap from one story to another. We are left with a clear picture of what society is and what it is becoming, but receive little satisfaction from the individual stories told, which often are left without a satisfactory ending.I found the lack of a satisfactory ending to each mini tale to be a mark against the book, despite the overall view that's created of an intriguing, changing world. Other readers may dislike the book because it doesn't use speech marks, which can sometimes be confusing when distinguishing between thought and speech but I did grow used to this strange stylistic choice relatively quickly.All in all, this is a book for you if you've ever wondered what life would be like (particularly philosophically) if the survivors of a dying Earth are on the ground and yet another section of humanity watches them from the stars. This book looks at that question from many eyes but with an almost detached attitude.

Short of something to read between finishing part 1 and buying part 2 of another trilogy (completely unrelated to this one), I 'selected ' The Movement series by jabbing a finger into a long list of unread sci-fi freebies that I never seem to get round to reading...And discovered an absolute gem of a series.There's just so much to recommend this book. The series begins after the end of the world - so it's not an apocalyptic story as such - more than that, it creates a 'world ' for humanity as we head out into space. The story follows man's evolution into a creature without a home.... The universe of the book mixes history, anthropology (one of the central characters is an anthropologist) politics and science fiction brilliantly and believably. There's not a superfluous word, phrase or deed in the whole of volume 1...And it's a testament to the skill of Jason Gurley's writing that, against this backdrop spanning hundreds of years of history, and set in the endless tracts of space, he's managed to write a series woven around the individual stories of characters that you actually feel for, and care about.All the different elements of the story so far work beautifully in tandem, and I can't wait to read books 2 and 3... I'm enjoying this series as much as I enjoyed a couple of other surprising standout books that I have stumbled upon the same way - It reminds me a little of "The Worthing Chronicle" in scope, and I'm the depth of its characters. In atmosphere - though less poignantly, and more hopeful - It reminds me of Chris Deitzel's 'end of the world ' series ( "The Man who Watched the World End" and the rest) If you enjoyed this book, then I recommend the aforementioned, and vice versa.

I loved reading this book. The characters are well formed and immersive with diversity.The book jumps through time which at times feels odd however the writer has a way of tying it in to the story in such a way that I didn't notice until describing the book to a fellow reader.I would reccomend this book to anyone that likes a space based story. It is not an action packed book yet I always wanted to read a few more pages.I will be purchasing the subsequent books and following the author in the future.