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Average customer rating:

There's talent here, but it's not refined
beautiful and unique
sf romance
Must read for performers ...
Simply wonderful

Merro Tree (Del Rey Discovery)
Katie Waitman
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0345414365
Release Date: 1997-08-30

Book Description

In the far reaches of our galaxy, the artist will face the ultimate censorship.

Mikk of Vyzania, the galaxy's greatest performance master, commanded stages on all the myriad worlds. His sublime, ethereal performances were unforgettable, drawing on the most treasured traditions of every culture, every people, throughout inhabited space. His crowning achievement, and his obsession: the Somalite song dance, an art form that transcends both song and movement to become something greater and more spectacular . . . almost divine.

When tragic events caused performance of the song dance to be proscribed, Mikk was devastated . . . until his strong sense of justice forced him to defy the ban. His trial will be the most sensational in the recent history of the galaxy; the sentence he faces is death.

Now the greatest performance master must hope to become the greatest escape artist. Somehow Mikk must break the stranglehold of censorship and change the law . . . or die trying!

Customer Reviews:

There's talent here, but it's not refined.......2006-10-22

This book had no middle ground. It was by turns creative and stunning, and flat and boring.
Some things Waitman did really well were the character development of Mikk, the memories of his mother, and the Master.
Yet mixed in with this were some horribly written scenes and characters. Thissizz, the famed snake, wasn't described very well. Mikk's brilliance was very overdone, making him less easy to identify with- and making me sick with jealousy, of course.
It's worth reading for the good parts, but the bad parts were painfully so. The relationship between Thissizz and Mikk, while essential to the book, was a strange and uninformed depiction of homosexual love which involved overdone feminity on Mikk's part and loads of love-bird prattle between the two.

beautiful and unique.......2006-07-03

"The Merro Tree" is one of my favorite stand-alone novels. It is beautifully written and -- a rarity in SF these days -- unique both in its characterizations and its plot. It is one of those rare books which I found myself still thinking about many days after reading it. Kudos to Waitman for her stunning debut novel!

Unfortunately, Waitman's second and only other novel to date ("The Divideded") was a sore disappointment.

sf romance.......2005-04-08

i read all the reviews about this book and i decided to add mine because nobody seems to catch what in my opinion is the point of this novel.

this work has undoubtedly a sf background: alien worlds and races, spaceships, etc.
it deals with important issues such as the value of art, censorship, the tendency of people to create sort of dictatorial institutions they must afterwards fight against, same sex and interracial relationships.

still one has to admit this is not really pure sf, because ms waitman seems to have decided to use such a (interesting and detailed) background to express her views on some topics. she manages to do it with little inconsistencies and very few slow pages, which is remarkable for a first novel.
this is a bildungsroman (sorry, i do not know the english word) such as goethe's but it is not half as boring or selfindulgent: ms waitman writing might not be spotless but the plot structure is complex, intriguing and achieves a lot of tension.

what one would not expect is that this novel is basically an enthralling if a little exotic love story: the two main characters share a growing, developing, intimate affection depicted in a simple but moving way. one of them is humanoid, the other a sort of giant snake, both are males (and the author is not, one should remember) but disbelief is easily suspended and ms waitman manages to give us a very effective idea of their PHYSICAL desire for each other too. the only point i feel i have to complain about is the idea of both being basically heterosexuals who share love out of a kind of predestination. i found this rather unbelievable; but this is sf, so i imagine her idea is legitimate.

Must read for performers ..........2003-07-04

This book is simply amazing. As one of the reviews before me states, it really gets into some of the base psychological issues a performer feels as they learn and atempt to master their craft and shape into an art that is their own. If you don't recognize parts of yourself in Mik you'll see a friend. I am an avid reader and this is one of the few books I have enjoyed time and time again.

I have looked for another book by this author every single time I have been in a book store since, hoping to find another gem like this one. Thank you, Katie.. and I hope your writing the next one now!

Simply wonderful.......2001-05-02

This is a fabulous book. Waitman is brilliant.

Allan Cole

The Merro Tree
Average customer rating:
The Merro Tree
Katie Waitman
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OVJ4AM

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