Signs of Life

Cherry Wilder entered the SF field nearly thirty years ago with her stories - and one novel, Second Nature (1982) - of Rhomary Land, a distant planet settled by the survivors of the crash of the colony ship Rho Maryland.
In Signs of Life Wilder returns to Rhomary Land to tell a new tale. Now most of the crew and passengers of an interstellar ship escape on lifeships before the ship explodes and land, widely dispersed, on Rhomary Land. This is the story of how these people survive and are reunited with each other and with the original survivors who have now been living for generations on the planet. Signs of Life is about survival and the heroic struggle to maintain civilization in the face of disaster. Wilder gives this significant theme the thoughtful treatment it deserves, producing a dramatic and powerful science fiction novel.

In Second Nature (1982), Wilder imagined a party of interstellar castaways and the society they formed on the planet Rhomary. Now, centuries later, more castaways have landed on that planet, unaware that others have preceded them. The survivors of the starship Serendip Dana are a mixed lot comprised of its regular crew, members of a paramilitary unit known as the Silvos and devotees of the Zen-like Kamalin Movement. Assisting all three groups are the oxper, enormously competent androids. It's soon clear that the greatest challenge facing the castaways is their anger and the violence it breeds, including several murders; only the intervention of the oxper and of a courageous female officer prevents still more deaths. Wilder's characters speak a futuristic slang and tech-talk that's difficult to decipher, and their development is limited, particularly among the Silvos. The oxper, however, are fascinating creations. Intelligent, physically strong but emotionally fragile, they are both more and less than the humans they guard. This novel, though not without interest, isn't up to the superior work of which Wilder appears capable.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Wilder returns to the planet Rhomary (Second Nature, not reviewed) for this tale of a far-future cultural clash. In the feeble, jargon-cluttered opening, the starship Serendip Dana breaks into self-contained units (but why?) that land or crash on Rhomary. Unknown to the castaways, Rhomary is already inhabited by humans who arrived generations ago. One section of the starship lands on a large tropical island; aboard are First Lieutenant Anat Asher in charge of the crew members, several android ``oxper'' (Bishop from Alien is clearly the model here), the Silver Cross, a touchy and militaristic party of maintenance engineers, and the konos, a family group of entertainers. With no hope of rescue, the crew and the entertainers intend to settle down and build new lives, but the dangerously unstable Captain Boyle takes command of the Silver Cross and soon assumes authority over the entire group, against the wishes of the majority. Meanwhile, the Rhomarian brig Dancer, having observed the fall of the spaceship fragments, sails toward the island hoping to make contact with the newcomers. Wilder handles the complications caused by the castaways' power struggle and their eventual contact with the natives, with skill and insight. A dreadful start, but thereafter the laid-back narrative shapes up into a thoroughly believable and wholly absorbing venture. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

On the way to colonize Arkady, the Earth transport Serendip Dana malfunctions, but the crew abandons it in emergency capsules. One capsule crash-lands on an island of the hospitable planet Rhomary Land (also the setting for Wilder's novel, Second Nature and several of her short stories). As the castaways begin to adapt to their new environment and search for signs of human life, internal conflicts threaten their survival. This study of a microcosmic society nicely integrates space and nautical themes. Recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Wilder has been writing sf for 20 years but has not yet gained the attention merited by her richly imagined novels, despite acclaim from the likes of sf encyclopedia editor Peter Nichols, who praises her "evocative style and rounded characterizations." Perhaps this masterfully executed new novel will remedy this. Wilder returns to Rhomary, a world she has often traversed, with a subtly rendered meditation on community survival in alien surroundings. Needing a world to settle before their starship disintegrates, the crew of the Serendip Dana discovers Rhomary and breaks out the lifeboats, sending one of five scattered landing parties to a remote island, where the survivors begin to secure shelter and scout for alien life-forms. While searching for other survivors and contending with personality clashes, the crew suffers a series of inexplicable murders that leads them to Rhomary's unique but very human natives. What Wilder often loses in plot she makes up for with rich interactions between fully fleshed characters and a quirky but compelling style. Carl Hays