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The Disestablishment of Paradise Paperback – 13 Feb. 2014

by Phillip Mann (Author)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 54 ratings
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Something has gone wrong on the planet of Paradise.

The human settlers - farmers and scientists - are finding that their crops won't grow and their lives are becoming more and more dangerous. The indigenous plant life - never entirely safe - is changing in unpredictable ways, and the imported plantings wither and die. And so the order is given - Paradise will be abandoned. All personnel will be removed and reassigned. And all human presence on the planet will be disestablished.

Not all agree with the decision. There are some who believe that Paradise has more to offer the human race. That the planet is not finished with the intruders, and that the risks of staying are outweighed by the possible rewards. And so the leader of the research team and one of the demolition workers set off on a journey across the planet. Along the way they will encounter the last of the near-mythical Dendron, the vicious Reapers and the deadly Tattersall Weeds as they embark on an adventure which will bring them closer to nature, to each other and, eventually, to Paradise.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    528 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Gollancz
  4. Publication date
    13 Feb. 2014
  5. Dimensions
    12.7 x 3.81 x 20.32 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0575132639
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0575132634
  8. See all details
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Product description

Book Description

An ecological SF thriller from one of the greats of the genre, with elements of AVATAR and SILENT RUNNING.

About the Author

Phillip Mann (1942 - )
Phillip Mann was born in Yorkshire in 1942. he studied English and Drama at Manchester University and later in California. He worked for the New China News Agency in Beijing for two years, but since 1969 has lived principally in New Zealand, where he held the position of Professor of Drama at Victoria University, Wellington, until he retired in 1998. His first novel, The Eye of the Queen was published in 1982 and was followed by seven others including the 'Story of the Gardener' and 'A Land Fit for Heroes' sequences. He has had many plays and stories broadcast on Radio New Zealand, which also adapted his Gardener novels Master of Paxwax and Fall of the Families.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gollancz; Reprint edition (13 Feb. 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0575132639
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0575132634
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 3.81 x 20.32 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 54 ratings

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Phillip Mann

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Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
54 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Terry from Brighton
5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous novel about our relationship with the world around us
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2013
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The story details what happens to Dr Hera Melhuish, a research scientist, when she remains behind alone on a lush alien planet - Paradise - for a short period to complete her work. The Space Council has decided to abandon their attempts to colonise the planet after crop failures and other setbacks. Hera soon becomes aware that the flora is fighting back against the intruders. She and Mack, who comes to her rescue, are nicely developed characters and the imaginative descriptions of the plant and tree life are carefully articulated. It is a book about our relationship with the world we live in but it is also about human relationships. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and my only slight criticism is that it is a little over long but I don't hesitate to give it five stars.
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Rob
4.0 out of 5 stars This was a fantastic read. My kind of science fiction in that ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2014
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This was a fantastic read. My kind of science fiction in that it has a strong character focus and a well developed alien world to explore and understand. The underlying message, especially as it evolved in the last few chapters, was very clear and well written. My only complaint (which is a good complaint) is that the ending felt a wee bit rushed. I would have liked it to be rounded out just a bit more.
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Maddie
3.0 out of 5 stars brill in the last few chapters
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 August 2014
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I found this slow to start, but once Hera returned to the planet, then joined by Mack, I could not put this down
One person found this helpful
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Mr. M. G. Helliwell
2.0 out of 5 stars Didn't get on with it at all
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2014
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I know others like this and its in the short list for a SF award but personally I couldn't stand the book and gave you half way through. My problems with it were:

1. There wasn't any plot. The book is written from the perspective of the main character being interviewed for a biography so you end up being told what's going to happen by the biographer followed by the event actually being written about. As a consequence there are no surprises and no suspense. For example, you're told the planet is abandoned due to politics and then you get pages describing it all in irrelevant detail.

2. The characters are caricatures and cliched ones at that. For example, the author tries to paint the demolition team as blue
collar, macho but with a soft side. When they fly off in their flier, they sit with their legs hanging off the side drinking beer, just like proper work class people do. Their leader has a suitably macho name of "Mack", but guess what - he also like poetry.

3. The prose is dull. Don't expect any great lyricism. The writing is overly long, flowering and pedestrian.

4. The demolition of artifacts left on evacuated worlds never gets properly explained (at least not in the first half of the book I read). It read like a device to introduce the demolition team (and their poetry loving team leader) or to pad out the book.

I'm not sure why I found this book so much worse than others, but there you go!
3 people found this helpful
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Matthew Whyndham
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, probably unforgettable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 April 2014
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Exploring a fresh planet, hoping to exploit it, the human race encounters strangeness it simply can't deal with.

This book is posed as a retrospective of the retreat from an alien sphere.

The story is wonderful, full of unlikely magic and substantial characters. There are some great science fiction ideas too, and the telling is smart too. I particularly liked the supplementary documents and the layered narrative.

Great stuff.
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Mr. David Mason
4.0 out of 5 stars a welcome addition
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 August 2014
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A welcome addition to the humans meet aliens sub-genre. I really liked this book and the ideas were most interesting. The writing style was at times hwsvy going and I found myself skipping some pages but my overall interest I the story and characters remained. Definitely worth persevering.
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Piotr Świetlik
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh, whilst still "good old sci-fi"
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2019
I have picked this book on an exchange table during one of the British sci-fi conventions and that is always a lottery. This time I hit gold. I will admit, roughly halfway through the book I was afraid that the author will not keep up with his own pace and that the ending will be boring, especially as the reader learns of the general story outcome at the very beginning. That being said, the execution of style is superb and if anything, knowing the ending of the story compels you to read further (paradox, yeah, I know, I've been there).
All in all, a very good read and one of a handful of recently tried sci-fi books I've actually finished. Give it a go.
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Mark Joyce
3.0 out of 5 stars I didn't really like the "biographical" writing style
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2014
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Inventive but slow to get going. I didn't really like the "biographical" writing style. All in all it was a little disappointing.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Lee Murray
5.0 out of 5 stars Not since Card’s Speaker for the Dead, have I enjoyed discovering a new world quite so much.
Reviewed in the United States on 7 December 2015
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The planet of Paradise is being disestablished. Discredited and disgraced, ORBE director, Dr Hera Melhuish becomes its official scapegoat, attempting suicide even as the population moves out and the demolition crews move in to begin the dismantling process. But an unexpected request sees Hera allowed unfettered access to Paradise to continue her research, at least until the disestablishment is complete and the last shuttle heads through the fractal gate. Only, Paradise reacts to the eviction order in her own way, rejecting everything human, while also demanding Hera’s help...
Full of footnotes, interview transcripts and research material, and with plenty of authorial, or rather, narrator intrusion, The Disestablishment of Paradise is a story which deliberately distances its reader. Writers will know exactly what I’m getting at. Editors remind us ad nauseum to keep our dialogue natural, to employ the techniques of show-not-tell, and to remove filtering at every opportunity. Cut the chaff, we’re told. Mann ignores these rules entirely — there is barely a contraction anywhere — the advantage of being an established writer perhaps, and yet for all the distance his writing style creates, strangely, it works here. I wonder if this is because it embodies the theme: the planet of Paradise is being disestablished, after all. Or it might be because the story is in fact a historical account of the planet’s last days as told by its only surviving human inhabitant, and as such it is forcibly far-off and retrospective. In a sense, the tale is revealed with all its flaws intact, including the bias of its researcher, and the naïve, and oftentimes pig-headed, perspective of its primary narrator. Or is it because, as the earthbound ancestors of those who will one day be sent forth to colonise and exploit other planets, Mann kindly exonerates us, the reader, from responsibility for Paradise’s inevitable failure? I suspect this pandering is necessary if mankind is to reflect without prejudice on the potential impact our actions have had, and will have on the ecosystems we encounter. Would Mann’s message have been clearer without this distance? Certainly, the story might have gained wider readership, were it given a more modern, pacy style. But in that case, the story of Paradise’s demolition might have been relegated to just another space adventure with romantic elements, and The Disestablishment of Paradise deserves more than that. As Goldilocks might have put it, Mann’s approach is, ‘just right’.
As a world, Paradise is so like Earth, and yet so different. It is stunningly beautiful, with green landscapes and blue lakes, its pop of colour provided by its red Valentine poppies and blue Tattersall blooms. Even the dying Dendron is a kaleidoscope of colour. There is no doubt that Mann is a master of world building.
The story itself is inherently sexual, with the cleaving apart of the Dendron (and the cleaving together of Hera and Mack), and it is also violent, due to the playful nature of the Reapers, and the protective tendency of the deadly Tattersall weeds, so I am pleased to see there is a YA tale, entitled Mission to Paradise, an early adventure set just after the discovery of the planet. I think the kids will like the thunderball plants.
I imagine this novel being the outcome of Mann sitting down to coffee and cake with Prince Charles and the pair of them having a highly erudite conversation about the ability of plants to perceive and feel. A fanciful idea, of course, but Mann’s careful treatment of his theme, its presentation in an academic manner, reveals the author’s deep desire to take the condition of plants out of the realm of heresy and anecdote. I wonder what the garden is like at Mann’s Brooklyn home. I’m told it is quite beautiful. More evidence that preserving the organisms with which we share this planet is something Mann lives and breathes and truly believes in. Indeed, I wonder if Mann has unconsciously written himself into the story as Theodore Vollens, Hera’s mysterious benefactor on the Space Council, who enables the academic to share in the planet’s last hours, an event which ultimately leads to its recovery and resurrection.
Not since Card’s Speaker for the Dead, have I enjoyed discovering a new world quite so much. I can see why The Disestablishment of Paradise merited its Arthur C. Clarke nomination. Highly recommended.
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TW
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent ecological sci-fi thriller
Reviewed in Germany on 22 August 2014
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I'd forgotten that Mann had written Master Of Paxwax, but when I read this book this book it evoked many of the same ecological themes. I liked it a lot.
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Adam Shand
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story (but beware the Kindle version!)
Reviewed in the United States on 10 May 2013
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I throughly enjoyed this book, as I've enjoyed Phil's other books. Not only was it a beautifully told story but I found the characters engaging and enjoyable. Even better it struck me as an interesting parable for modern times, and one which was delivered without preaching.

My only criticism of the book was that it got a little long winded in the middle and I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. The story began with the narrator and to me it felt that in order to be complete it needed to come back to her somehow. Regardless, both of those are quibbles with what is otherwise and excellent and beautiful story.

HOWEVER!! The Kindle version which I received was full of typos, missing letters and missing words. There were enough mistakes that it passed through annoying and actually affected my ability to follow the story. To their credit the publisher contacted me directly to apologise and asked for examples of mistakes. I've provided some examples but have not heard back, nor do I know how to verify that current versions of the Kindle book have been fixed.

I'm giving this a four star rating despite the terrible quality of the Kindle version in the hopes that the issues have already been resolved for future readers.
8 people found this helpful
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Les Barrow
3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad, but!
Reviewed in the United States on 24 July 2014
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Enjoyed the main story but was let down by the documents at the end
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Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars A Plea To Our Better Natures
Reviewed in the United States on 13 September 2015
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Much of science fiction is what I call 'colonial narrative', which is the settlement and establishment of new human colonies throughout the galaxy. In this way, 'The Disestablishment of Paradise' is the opposite of such narratives.

It is the story of humanity abandoning a failed colony, with twists. It asks us to imagine what circumstances and personalities have been charged with the welfare of infant planet colonies, and how these fall prey to the most typical of human vices. It is a pensive work that gently guides the reader through the complexities of the society's technological development, cultural values and history before immersing us in the challenge that is the world of Paradise, a land that cannot be trusted any more than the humans inhabiting it.

To explain further is to ruin the story. What compels the reader is Mann's firm grasp of prose, character and plot development. One identifies with the slightly dysfunctional characters that we recognise in our families and workplaces, the heartbreak that bureaucracy inflicts upon those talented individuals with true understanding of their trade, and the determination of the occasional upright character to attempt to right what wrongs have been done in their name.

A rare delight.
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