Usurpation

Semiosis, Book 3

By: Sue Burke

Narrated by: Caitlin Davies, Daniel Thomas May

After her rollicking standalone Dual Memory, Sue Burke returns to her Semiosis series and the world of Pax in Usurpation, which combines the thrill of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening with the eco-empowerment of VanderMeer’s Dead Astronauts.

Stevland, the dominant sentient lifeform of Pax, has clandestinely sent some of its progeny to Earth. To explore, to spread, to report back.

Since their germination, Earth has been a powder keg. Human rebellion, robot uprisings, and global pandemics have created chaos, distrust, and deaths.

As more and more conflicts break out across Earth, Stevland's children work in the background, in an attempt to control human behavior and perhaps, bring peace to the planet. Stevland took control of Pax. Earth shouldn’t be too difficult…

©2024 Sue Burke (P)2024 Dreamscape Lore

This book is clearly under appreciated!

If you feel this authors lexicon (hint) you will see the beauty and growth even how there is a loose connection with Dual Memory. I hope the author chooses to expand on these sentient plants.

Wanted more.

I absolutely love the first and second books so I was disappointed that the third book wasn’t as impactful. It started off strong and I was really excited to meet and learn of Levanter. However the plot moved so quickly, once I got acquainted with a crisis it was already over and moving on to the next one. I truly missed Steveland’s perspective and wish we had heard more from PAX.

Part of me hopes maybe another book will come out so we can follow up on Steveland, the Queens, heck even the Corals or the other bamboo. I just wanted more overall.

An enjoyable new entry

There is a lot to like about this addition to the rainbow bamboo universe, continuing our story on Earth with its transplanted Rainbow Bamboo. It isn’t perfect however.

Most of my complaints are towards the end of the book, where problem after problem arise which are all sorted out. Not necessarily in short order, but simply one after the other with no breathing room.

The most enjoyable parts are the bamboo POV chapters, and any chapter where bamboo and humans are interacting. While chapters that drag are the standalone human POV chapters.

An additional complaint of mine, though really it is just a nit pick, is that it feels a little unbelievable that all the cetaceans species (in the book most dolphins and whales are self aware sentient/sapient/sophontic life) want nothing to do with humans. This just feels odd, that of the dozen or so implied self aware cetacean species none of them have active interest in communicating and learning from humans. But, as I said, this is simply a nit pick of mine and it really doesn’t play that big a role in the story.

With all that said though I still highly recommend this book to those who enjoyed the earlier novels, and those who enjoy similar stories involving strange aliens. It’s a very specific niche in sci-fi that this book represents, and it does it very very well.

I’m excited for the next novel!

A deep dive into the power of plants!

A fantastic entry into the world of the rainbow bamboo. The power of plants and the science behind them in this story continues to amaze. I love the fact that with every word I become more convinced that the plants around me are communicating amongst eachother and ponder what they are talking about. This series maintains its roots while growing into an expanded field that I was not expecting but am delighted to be in.

great job and keep up the good work!!!

Book #3 of Semiosis trilogy

A disappointing ending to the Semiosis Trilogy. A real let down from a promising series. Narrator was mediocre in books one & two but even worse in book three. A boring ending to a promising premise.

Terribly inadequate compared to the prequels

Don’t waste your credit. None of the amazing characters or even the attributes that made them great

Worst of the series.

I truly enjoyed books 1 and 2. However this one did not do it for me. In short, this one just sucked.

Kinda meh!

I loved Semiosis and Interference, but this third book, Usurpation, was not my cup of tea. It just didn’t feel like it was in the same vein as the original two, and the story wasn’t as gripping overall. I was hoping to hear about glassmakers and coral more, as well as the dynamics of living on Pax (continued). When I read the blurb, I thought I’d give it a whirl despite my apprehensions. But it just didn’t land for me. And the reading performances were a bit haphazard at times, as well as super shrieky at times. Overall, it was just meh for me. But I still love the first two books.

What Just Happened?

This book is a mess. A variety of topics that couldn't possibly be covered in the allotted pages, so none was done justice. I started a list of topics this book discusses because I was having trouble sorting the info dump, and it descended into a disorderly joke really fast including but not limited to: political revolution/insurgence, 3 different alien sentience discussions, a fungal sex-zombie pandemic, fundamentalist deportation police, an AI robot uprising/war, is god real/who is god? and my personal favorite: Oceanic Whale Cult.

Book #2 (Interference) was already questionable but I thought it could be saved by a really good follow-up novel. No. Usurpation sealed the deal - I will never read these books again.