Rating: 
Summary: A fun and thought-provoking read
Review: Brin has a great ability to play with scientific concepts in an understandable way. And in this novel he toys with a world in which the basic rules of genetics and reproduction have been altered - in favor of the dominant female class. Although he explores and tweaks some scientific concepts, the story is enough in itself to keep anybody entertained.
I loved the inclusion of the game of Life - not your typical Parker Bros. board game, but the mathematical one. What a concept! That you could actually have a strategy for it. This book keeps you thinking.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't wait to put it down
Review: Brin is an excellent author but I think he missed it on this one. Glory Season held my attention well enough that I was able to stick with it until the lame ending but I'll be more careful next time I buy a book of this lenght by this author. There were very tedious attempts to describe the strategy of a game I'll never play and the end of the book seemed like the author was getting as tired as I was and just quit. The redeeming aspect of this book was that Brin made the matriarchal society very belevable. As a standard phylum male, I feel that I could have run amuck on that planet. I was not surprised to read in the afterword that Brin based this book partly on his observation of aphid sex. You'll have to read it yourself to understand that comment. KK
Rating:
Summary: Glory Season (review)
Review: Glory Season is perhaps David Brin's best work to date (Nov-2000). Lyrical, principled, thought provoking, and even well-plotted, Brin--always a political author--obliquely questions some of his most fundamental programatic axioms.
Rating: 
Summary: Okay, the ending was lame, but the rest was pretty good
Review: It's a very well written book, and the main character and her society is believable. Aside from the ending, the only real problem I had with it was that none of the other characters were as multidimensional as Maia. Her twin and Renna the alien could definitely have used some more character development. It's a good book if you're into sociatal critiques and lots of discusion on imaginary games especially, but I'd stear clear if you want nonstop action.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, the ending was lame, but the rest was pretty good
Review: It's a very well written book, and the main character and her society is believable. Aside from the ending, the only real problem I had with it was that none of the other characters were as multidimensional as Maia. Her twin and Renna the alien could definitely have used some more character development. It's a good book if you're into sociatal critiques and lots of discusion on imaginary games especially, but I'd stear clear if you want nonstop action.
Rating:
Summary: Not up tor Brin
Review: Ok, I'm imagining a drinking game--every time David Brin uses the words "route" or "ululation," take a drink. Every time the heroine of Glory Season, Maia, goes unconscious, take a drink. After a few chapters, you and your friends will be too blind to read any more.Science fiction is not about the future, but about the present, and Brin likes to push buttons on 20th century issues with his books. in Earth, he tackled environmentalism, in the Uplift books, he allegorically ponders racial diversity and tolerance. In Glory Season, Brin has written a dependable, if heavy-handed adventure, imagining a future feminism in a matriarchal world of mostly cloned women, but there's a lot more going on here than some tables-are-turned male-bashing. Taking a cue from noir detective novels, the author has Maia, a good-hearted and bright young woman who finds herself at the lowest rungs of society, gradually unraveling a twisted plot, complete with double-crosses, unlikely allies, and even an exotic "homme fatale"(?) from outer space. And what private dick story would be complete without the protagonist getting conked on the head repeatedly? Brin's prose is serviceable, and he loves to pepper the action with extrapolated future words, corrupted from familiar English in a way that's just too precious sometimes. Also bordering on too-cute is the unquenchable optimism. Maia takes on loss, grief, kidnapping, beating, betrayal, torture, imprisonment, shipwreck, starvation, prostitutes, drug dealers, guerillas, pirates, all with Dickensian pluck and resourcefulness. Despite the silliness, though, Glory Season really has some Points to Ponder, some hardcore anthropological and evolutionary speculation, and lots of geeky humor (for example, in every Brin book, at least one character has to put on a fake Scottish accent at least once, no matter how unlikely, and Glory Season is no exception). Fans of traditional sci-fi adventure will appreciate it.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful SciFi plus high adventure
Review: One reader commented that this book is "not up to Brin's standards." Never having read Brin before, I can't say if that's true, but I can say that if this book is below average for him, his others must be truly amazing. GLORY SEASON is both a tale of high adventure and a thoughtful, mature exploration of where technology and idealism can take us. I'm highly critical of writing style -- especially in SF/Fantasy novels, which can be quite poor -- but the writing here is so smoothly and effortlessly crafted that I never had to think about it. Through 764 pages, it kept me glued to my seat and begging for more, trying to unravel the mysteries before Maia (the smart, stubborn heroine of the tale) could get captured or knocked out or thrown overboard again, and wake up to another piece of the puzzle. This is good stuff: immediate escape reading that leaves you with something to think about. It's not a combination I come across often, or at least not put together so well with seamless writing, fascinating plot, and a strong human interest. Read some good SciFi for a change.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful SciFi plus high adventure
Review: One reader commented that this book is "not up to Brin's standards." Never having read Brin before, I can't say if that's true, but I can say that if this book is below average for him, his others must be truly amazing. GLORY SEASON is both a tale of high adventure and a thoughtful, mature exploration of where technology and idealism can take us. I'm highly critical of writing style -- especially in SF/Fantasy novels, which can be quite poor -- but the writing here is so smoothly and effortlessly crafted that I never had to think about it. Through 764 pages, it kept me glued to my seat and begging for more, trying to unravel the mysteries before Maia (the smart, stubborn heroine of the tale) could get captured or knocked out or thrown overboard again, and wake up to another piece of the puzzle. This is good stuff: immediate escape reading that leaves you with something to think about. It's not a combination I come across often, or at least not put together so well with seamless writing, fascinating plot, and a strong human interest. Read some good SciFi for a change.
Rating:
Summary: The End does not justify the Means.
Review: This is a book that I adored until the final let's call it 20 pages or so. The culture of this matriarchal world was painted in an intelligent way without resorting to some form of amazonian fantasy, with checks and balances in their system. The characters were engaging and the over-reaching plot was fascinating... and then the ending comes. What impact would the ending of a Sherlock Holmes mystery have if Moriarity fiendishly clever were to blurt out the details of his plan ala a James Bond villain? What impact the ending of the initial Star Wars trilogy if the Emperor had tripped and fallen down that shaft? The journey of these characters, and what you learn about them, leads towards one resolution, and the ending comes not so much as a 'surprise' as an incredible let-down..... I was heartily disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi at its absolute best.
Review: This is one of the best sci-fi books I have ever read, and if you read many of my reviews you will realise that I do not say this lightly, nor do I often award five stars for anything. This is an intriguing and intelligent book set in a world where women dominate life in great families of female clones and where men are the lesser species. Both species are ruled by sexual urges, but at different times of the year, Summer for men and Winter for women. The result is a stagnant population level. We follow two sisters who are of low status because they are Summer babies, not clones, who travel together to pretend they are clone sisters. They run into a man from "normal" humankind who has come to bring this planet back into the human collective and is imprisoned by the great families who do not want their stable society disrupted. This is a great adventure story told against the backdrop of a rich history on a planet that is moving slowly away from technology in a reverse development towards an agrarian existence. The great families of clone sisters are the equivalent of medieval feudal families who kept Europe in stagnant thrall for so long in the middle ages. This book is in some ways like 1984 by George Orwell, where the great families take the role of big brother to keep things stable, but in a feminine, non agressive way. The book is littered with sub plots, each rich and full in its own way, a drug running scam, a war with an extraterrestrial species, the story of setting up the planet and the genetic enhancements required to adapt humans to it, the travels of the sisters and the game of life played by the sailors. The worst thing about this book is that it ever ends. This is a world you want to stay in because it is so full and interesting.
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