Lovelock by Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd

There were many people in my summer course who read books by Card and really enjoyed them. The most often mentioned was Ender's Game, which was not available at my library before I went on vacation. I checked out this one instead, which was a collaborative project and the first book of the Mayflower Trilogy.

The narrator of the book is Lovelock, an enhanced capuchin monkey who serves as a witness for one of the top scientists of the day, Carol Jeanne Cocciolone. His job as witness involves recording everything that she does and also performing special tasks that she requests. The action starts on earth as the Carol Jeanne and her family are preparing to move to a space station called the Ark. It is a transport vessel that will colonize a new world in another solar system. The family endures many trials and tribulations as they adjust to living in a new community that they will be bound to for the rest of their lives. Lovelock observes the weaknesses and vices of the humans to whom he is enslaved. The story is as much about the humans difficulties with adapting to a new environment as it is the monkey learning about his true state of enslavement and trying to break his programming.

I can't say that I really enjoyed the book. It started out well enough. I found it to be humorous and engaging. Once the characters got settled on the Ark, the tone began to change. Like trapped mice, behavior became erratic and frantic, desperate almost as a response to their new environment and the absolute nature of their task. I will probably not read the rest of the trilogy, but I must admit to a wild curiosity of how the story will turn out. Perhaps my curiosity will get the better of me.