The Human Blend

Tipping Point, Book 1

By: Alan Dean Foster

Narrated by: David Colacci

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

The Human Blend is a science-fiction adventure centered around a group of thieves living in a future in which physical alterations and enhancements are a common occurrence. If you could take on a body with any features you wanted, what would it look like? And what would you do with them - human or otherwise?

Given his name because radical surgery and implants have reduced him to preternatural thinness, Whispr is a thug. His partner in crime, Jiminy Cricket, has also been physically altered with nanocarbonic prosthetic legs and high-strength fast-twitch muscle fibers that give him great jumping abilities. In a dark alley in Savannah, Whispr and Jiminy murder what they take to be a random tourist in order to amputate and then fence his sophisticated artificial hand. But the hapless victim also happens to be carrying an unusual silver thread that appears to be some kind of storage medium....

©2010 Thranx, Inc. (P)2010 Tantor

Loved the book!

Looking forward to sequels. Became more and more involved in the mystery while becoming unable to solve

What happened to Book 2?

Any additional comments?

It's bad enough to end Book 1 in a cliffhanger. What makes it particularly galling is that Book 2 is not even available. Are you suggesting we buy the print version if we want to continue the story?

Very well done and excellently narrated...loved it

This was a great listen. Well narrated and kept you thinking as well as guessing all the way through. I am patiently waiting for the second book in the series and it can't come soon enough for me. Definately recomended.

Spy Novel for The Borg

This looks like the start of an interesting series. It's kinda like a Borg spy novel. I give it a 4½. One of the characters is also interesting; a cold blooded murderer with a heart of gold. The author seems to be doing his best to depict him as a sympathedic character; but, I can't help wondering, 'Who mourns Lefty?'

Awful Ending

I love Foster's books. I get the impression sometimes he's off reading about topics that are future science based and he using those topics for his books. Usually it works really well since he weaves together a great story.

*Spoiler Alert*

Not so this time. The Human Blend seems to focus solely on a slow buildup about what it means to be human as humanity's technology 200 years into the future with the advent of meld technology.

The main characters uncover a mystery and attempt to solve it while bad guys chase them. That's essentially the whole book.

But the ending is pointless, nothing else gets resolved. No mystery is answered, we never know anything about what happens to the main characters, or even really who the bad guys are truly. It's like Foster gave up somewhere or had to turn in an unfinished book to meet a deadline with the publisher. Where is the real ending???

Foster, I love your books but please finish this book.

I feel cheated

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I have loved Alan Dean Foster's books for many years. In fact, his Flinx and Pip series took over 30 years to finish but every book had an ending. The Human Blend was very interesting and a good read for as much as there was. However, there were no completions of anything. The book had one main thread (to those of you who have read this, sorry about the thread reference) and that thread did not go anywhere. The author could have published all three books as one and still been a reasonable length, but that would not have generated as much income as three separate but incomplete books. If you want to read this series, and I suggest you do, wait until all three are available on audio and then get them. There is no indication when that will be.By the way, I feel that David Colacci did an exceptional job of reading this book.

Too long for a story that goes nowhere . . .

The characters could be interesting, but they have no depth, nothing to make them resonate. Even though this is the first book in a series, I expected something of importance to happen. Instead it's just, "creepy guy has stolen something valuable, but he doesn't know what, so he meets with other characters to help him figure it out, then runs and leaves them to get beaten up or killed. Over and over and over. No big revelations, no relationship forming with the woman who decides to accompany him - - and foot the bill - - just blah, blah, blah. It seems like this story should have been a single book, not a series. I won't waste a credit to learn if the story gets better in the second book. Disappointing, as this author's work is usually highly entertaining.

A cliff hanger

First I do not like cliff hangers. Saying that...the book had a slow start. Foster went into a lot of detail to establish the characters but the main point of the novel, what is the sliver thread, is an unanswered question. The world Forster created is interesting but many things have not been explained because this book is the start of a series.