This was a fascinating idea for a book, but I don't think it was the book for me. As a reader, I struggle with complex world building, and it took me a while to get adjusted to the alien world that was presented. I enjoyed the little details about the experience, but I wasn't able to connect to the story like I hoped for.

Abandoned at 50% mark.

Loved the premise, but with the last human in the universe being taken in by an alien society I really wanted some sense of wonderment in the writing. Instead I got a moody protagonist who repeatedly wandered off by himself only to find himself getting into fights. It does read a bit like a novelization of a sci-fi action movie, which makes sense given the author's other work.

It's a bit hard to pinpoint why this book didn't work for me. I can't say there was too much world building. It was necessary because the world was so complicated. I felt like I was slogging through the first half of the book though. I didn't really become interested until they followed a lead for another human. Other alien species and creatures were introduced. I liked learning about those and reading about the adventure that the search seemed to be. The world needed to be set up for me to understand what came later. I gave this book three stars because it needed a bit more excitement in the beginning like some of the stuff included toward the end.

I wasn't particularly entertained with this book. In particular, I wasn't sold on the sci fi setting and premise, and felt that though it showed promise, the final product wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

The descriptions overwhelmed the storyline and I found my attention drifting. By the third or fourth chapter I started skimming, looking for the meat of the plot.

This is a beautifully written story about the end of our species. We have wiped ourselves out. The great human race reduced to one lonely survivor. In our rush to inhabit the stars we somehow destroyed it all. Everything we have worked on for millennia gone in the blink of an eye. For all of our genius our future selves create a virus that literally cleanses the universe of our presence.

Don't worry I didn't spoil anything and I won't. Throughout this book we follow the musing of Ruslan, the last surviving human. He was rescued by an alien race from one of our colonies among the stars. He's become something of a celebrity being the only living specimen of a once great species. He's fairly old and a bit lonely even among his rescuers. He yearns to hear another human but the virus made sure that never happens again. This story hit on every emotion. Its happy, sad, exciting, scary, you name it I felt it. But the best part. The absolute most amazing thing about this story is it gives you hope. Hope that we learn from our mistakes...and don't kill ourselves off. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a new unique story about our future among the stars.

Published by Del Rey on August 14, 2018

Relic is sort of a “last man standing” novel, the last man being the last surviving human. So I guess that makes it a post-apocalyptic novel, except that the apocalypse is a really big one.

The last man (as far as he knows) is Ruslan. He has a natural immunity to a biological weapon that killed all the other humans on his world, and apparently on all other worlds to which humanity has spread. Aliens find Ruslan, restore his health, and propose to recreate human civilization by cloning him, adding such genetic variants as they can to create males and females capable of reproduction. Ruslan opposes being the model for a future race, but the aliens — a scholarly race of tripods who are quite fascinated by humankind — hope Ruslan will teach the clones how to be fully human. In exchange for his cooperation, Ruslan wants the Myssari to find Earth (its location has long been lost to history) and to take him there.

To search for Earth, the Myssari look for clues on other planets that humans colonized. Ruslan’s existence soon attracts the attention of another alien race, the Vrizan, who are a bit closer to humankind in both appearance and behavior, which is not necessarily a good thing given human history. Eventually the Myssari and the Vrizan are in conflict about possession of the last surviving human.

By the novel’s midpoint, the reader will learn whether Ruslan is, in fact, the only human left alive. Other challenges Ruslan faces include whether he will be treated as a lab specimen that belongs to either the Myssari or the Vrizan, as opposed to an individual with all the freedoms that individuals should have, and whether as a human he has any claim on now-abandoned human worlds, including the one on which humans originated.

Relic tells a simple story that is pleasant and consistently interesting. It holds few surprises and the aliens seem more alien in appearance than behavior — they could almost be humans if they weren’t so unfailingly civilized. I think a serialized version of Relic could easily have been published in Galaxy or If during the 1950s. I got a kick out of its throwback nature, and I enjoyed it more than a couple of sf novels with more modern themes that I recently started and abandoned. Unlike some writers who are managing to get published, Alan Dean Foster at least knows how to construct a graceful sentence.

RECOMMENDED

One of the aspects of science fiction that draws me in is the same sense that I get when travelling in real life: that I'm getting a peek into very different lives. In Relic, a stand-alone volume, #1 N.Y. Times bestselling writer Alan Dean Foster introduces readers to other species of self-aware beings, on other planets. His imagination is in full bloom: he shows us beings who are three-legged and much kinder and far less aggressive and competitive than the humans that make up (and, in the story, have ruined) our own planet. Those aspects of character alone open up the story in unexpected ways. The human protagonist is believably world-weary. The provocative ending was worth the wait.

(Posted on amazon.com 10/6/2018

I will be the first to admit that I've never read an Alan Dean Foster book before, despite being an 'Alien' acolyte and longtime science fiction fan; reading "Relic" was a kind of necessary catch-up. I'll keep my review short, as I'm sure others have long ago beaten me to the dystopic futuristic punch, but suffice it to say: I understand why Foster is so important to the world of science fiction, and I understand too why his writing style (assuming that there's continuity there with the books I've still not read) was so cinematic as to be conducive to creating the landmark film 'Alien' in the first place. That said, Foster's characters here are rather flat, and they often say or do things which strikes me as problematic. In several cases, for example, the older male POV character describes himself as feeling "protective" of a young human girl whose discovery prompts their rescuers to design a not-quite-forced, but definitely not informedly-consensual breeding program using her eggs; and yet, the POV male fails, again and again, to explain the sanctity of a woman's right to choose to the aliens. I don't have a clue as to Foster's political views or religious background, and perhaps there's something there to explain Ruslan's silence on this issue, but I don't *want* to believe that's true—I want this to be an oversight, not a deliberate failure. Given the flatness of the characters, both are certainly a possibility.

Apart from the nascent consent/lack of consent elements to this book, I found "Relic" to be thought-provoking and enjoyable, if not stylistically exceptional. Foster knows his way around science fiction, and around alien worldbuilding. I'd read more if this were a series.

Ruslan is the last human survivor. Having been rescued by the Myssari, he is resigned to spending the rest of his long life with them, being treated very well, but no less a specimen of his doomed race for all that, as he reminds the reader at least once in nearly every chapter. For all its repetitiveness on this subject, this is good science fiction. It's got everything from technology and alien worlds and cultures (and clashes), and the ultimate question of whether humanity can be resurrected will keep you reading until the very end.

This reminds me of The Sparrow. It's a bit of a sci-fi literary fiction book, with cool world building combined with character development and introspection.

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Where this book really resonated for me was in the exploration of the highs and lows of living in your own head in depressing on circumstances. I've never been the last human being in the universe, but I've been lonely enough that even hoping for better could be heartwrenching.

If you're in the right headspace to read a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story, I think you'll definitely dig this one.

I just finished reading Alan Dean Foster's latest novel "Relic". What an excellent read, intriguing, thought-provoking, and ultimately satisfying. Relic presents realistically drawn and all-too-probable look at a future we are perhaps on track with creating, a timeline filled with a mix of catastrophic end-game, and renewed hope. It is well-paced and well-plotted, with solid characters, well-painted locales, and unexpected twists and turns through out. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend it.

In Alan Dean Foster’s new novel, Relic, there is only one known human left in the universe. Ruslan is found by the alien Myssari, wandering the crumbling wasteland of his home planet Seraboth after a super virus called the Aura Malignance wiped out all other human life from every human occupied system in the galaxy. The worst part is, the virus was engineered by humans as a kind of doomsday weapon, which, it would appear, lived up to its billing. Now, the various alien species who populate the rest of the galaxy are moving in to claim the territories the nearly extinct human civilization left behind, and the discovery of any remaining humans becomes a political football between two of the expanding groups: the aforementioned Myssari and the more aggressive Vrizan. Both want to reseed humanity, and while the Myssari appear to have benevolent intentions, the Vrizan’s motives are more uncertain. The problem is, Ruslan isn’t sure the human race deserves to exist anymore, and he certainly doesn’t want to be its new progenitor. Eventually, he strikes a deal with the Myssari: He will let them use their cloning technology to restore the human race, if they agree to help him find the location of the human home world, which had long ago been lost to history.
Foster writes with an easy confidence one would expect from someone who has written more than a hundred novels and novelizations in a career than will soon span half a century. The plot runs on the kind of motor an experienced hand can build: efficient and engrossing in a seemingly effortless way. Foster gets down to business right away, laying out the history that led humanity to its demise and leading right into the major dramatic question Ruslan faces. He sets a clear goal for the story and charges ahead until all the questions are answered and obstacles overcome. Even if the storytelling is too clean and straightforward at times, there is comfort to be had in being in the hands of a seasoned pro.
Despite my general enjoyment of the book, little issues nagged at me from the corners, and compounded as the novel progressed. Though Ruslan spends most of his time in the company of the Myssari and even counts many of them as friends, I never felt that enough effort went into distinguishing them as individuals beyond a few prescribed personality traits. Their society appears entirely homogenized in terms of culture, motivation, and their intentions toward Ruslan and the restoration of humanity. Additionally, much needed tension arises in the form of obstacles placed in their path by the Vrizan, but most of these conflicts are resolved too quickly and easily, and more than once the Vrizan back down at the first sign of push back from the Myssari, even though the Myssari are described as a less militant and technologically inferior race. The most significant issue I had, though, was that the novel rather quickly becomes enamored with its search for the possibility of other living humans, and while this provides much of the excitement that made the novel upbeat and hopeful rather than cynical and depressing, it sidelines one of the main thematic threads that hooked me from the start: the idea of one lone human contemplating and coping with the tragedy of his uniqueness.
In the end, Relic is a well-written, well-structured and reasonably satisfying novel that doesn’t quite elevate itself above the fray.

Loved it! What a great story to safely escape with! Creative story and well laid out details. It kept me engagedright to the last page.

#Relic by Alan Dean Foster, started off dry and almost made me stop reading, but quickly picked up and piqued my interest. What would you do as the last man in the universe? You are the Relic of humanity and a species of interest to the aliens who found you, now what do you do?

This is a great read! It starts out fairly dark. We (humans) have finally managed to wipe ourselves out with a biological weapon. All but one man. Ruslan is all that is left of humanity and is found by the Myssari. The Myssari are very scientifically curious and want to bring back the human race. Ruslan is not so sure that bringing humans back is such a great idea.

I can't say more without spoilers, but I can say that I really enjoyed this book. It was fun to read. I have read Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek books so I expected a good story and I was not disappointed. I recommend this book to any sci-fi fans!

Featuring a chilling premise of the end of humanity, the story details the struggle of a lone human as he struggles to find his away in the universe. Filled with different alien species clamoring for the empty worlds of humanity, Foster provides a unique universe revealing a rather surprising ending.

Rating: 4 stars

[Excerpt]:

This novel was unexpectedly captivating. The synopsis goes a little something like this: after a galaxy-wide (well, universe-wide) plague (engineered by humans themselves) sweeps through the human population, killing basically 99.9999% of people, one human remains: Ruslan. He’s middle-aged, and for whatever reason, he’s immune to the Aura Malignance. He lives on a human-colonized planet called Seraboth, and he survives there for a few decades before an alien race finds him. The Myssari are tripeds – they have three legs and three arms, and they’re kind of triangular in shape. Above all, they’re EXCEEDINGLY polite. They study him for a few more decades before Ruslan gets it into his head to search out humanity’s birthplace, Earth. Along the way, Ruslan encounters quite a few surprises.

Now, the idea that only one human (supposedly) survives a plague which otherwise has extinguished the human race (across not just continents or even planets, but whole galaxies!) is totally up my alley. I love aliens, and space, and dystopia-like devastations. I’m not usually one for male protagonists or male POVs, but I thought this would be an exception. Alan Dean Foster is also a popular Star Wars novelist (he wrote The Force Awakens novelization), so I thought his writing and pacing (and so on) would be worth reading. I wasn’t wrong!

Ruslan first encounters Cherpa, an 11-year-old girl living in the wild on a planet that once was home to humans. She’s a bit mad, but then as she ages she eventually regains most of her sanity, though she does still call Ruslan “Bogo” and has some other unusual quirks. Before they leave the planet, Cherpa tells Ruslan that “oh, by the way, there’s another human here, but I hate him so I wasn’t going to tell you.” This guy is a little older, around 17 years old, but Ruslan and his alien friends are overjoyed. The human race isn’t dead after all!

[Full review on my blog!]

I received a free Kindle copy of Relic by Alan Dean Foster courtesy of Net Galley  and Random House, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have read other books by the author - some of them good and some of them left me lacking and thought I would give him another try.

The premise of this book is what happens when a human developed plague targeting only humans wipes out the entire human race except for one individual who is discovered by an alien race on a colonized planet and becomes a living archelogical specimum who can answer some of the questions they have about human civilization. In time a couple of other specimums are discovered on another planet which expands the aliens opportunity for study.The trade-off is that the surviving wants the aliens to find Earth (not sure why and neither does he) so he can visit the home world. Over time they finally locate Earth and it is full of surprises once they arrive.

This is one of Foster's better books and I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in reading good science fiction/fantasy.