Mother of Eden

I wanted to like this book. I had read the first in the series which was nominated for the British SF Association award and won the Clarke award. The characters are well drawn, the planet and it's ecology is novel. But...

The actually premise of the book is not as original as it first seems. Basically, it's the post-nuclear apocalypse story - people dragging their way back to civilization, mutated people etc. The cause of this (one woman and two men stranded on a planet with limited resources) but the outcome is basically the same. It's told well however and the slant is new. But...

My problem, which I had to a lesser extent with the first novel, is pacing. This book is a slow as molasses. This is civilization building as a paint drying spectacle; the paint dries, it cracks, it starts to peel, it falls off the wall.

I got as far as the first couple of cracks and gave up.