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The Ozimord Project

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After centuries of armed conflict, the three most powerful nations have at last formed an alliance that has the capability to conquer space. A thousand years from now, a rejuvenated Earth is expanding its interstellar empire. It has two off-world colonies and established trade with a far-away alien race. While the home planet is not without its ongoing challenges: political tension, popular unrest and a chronic shortage of energy, a solution suddenly appears in the form of a newly discovered planet. Ozimord: rich in resources, accessible, habitable, sparsely populated. The Federation Spaceship Vanguard has taken up geosynchronous orbit and landed a survey team on the surface. Their early findings promise an unlimited wealth of fuel-grade ore. And then, troubling news is broadcast back to Earth: they’ve gone missing. That’s only the beginning of the troubles…

380 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 22, 2019

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Vera Mont

13 books11 followers

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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Profile Image for Kat.
Author 11 books507 followers
October 7, 2019
“A tale as old as time…” humankind (in this case planet Earth) needs something and spies a civilization that has that precious commodity. The story of colonization has played out countless times throughout the history books, and still Vera Mont’s tale of an Earth a thousand years in the future that wishes to take control of a habitable planet, convert its occupants as a means of controlling them, and mine its resources is a rich, fresh take with wonderful prose, excellent depth in world building, and characters that keep you turning page after page.

My favorite character was Gard, a crewmember stranded on the surface of Ozimord who is forced to learn to survive. Through his eyes, we watch as he learns their language, experiences paper books for the first time as more than museum relics (ha), is befriended by the native inhabitants of Ozimord in their villages, around campfires, and as they ride horses between villages across the countryside, and slowly begins to change in substantial ways.

”The prospect of his own people’s return filled him, not with relief and hope but fear and foreboding… And something more: a vague, unsettling, charcoal-burning resentment. The thought that bobbed to the surface of his mind was: Why must they spoil everything? ‘They’-not ‘we.’ This was the danger of “going native.” “

This was both an excellent read from a sci-fi lover’s perspective and also for its clever construction with overarching themes. Highly recommended!

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.
Profile Image for Chris Angelis.
Author 16 books44 followers
September 25, 2019
“…Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

No, this isn’t a quotation from the book. I’ll get back to this in a while. First, let’s talk about yet another quotation. Winston Churchill, referring to some unnamed individual, noted how “[o]ccasionally he stumbled over the truth but he always picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened”. This is exactly what 9 out of 10 readers will sadly get out of Vera Mont’s The Ozimord Project. Most meaningful things are hidden in plain sight, and as such, few people manage to see them.

The Ozimord Project is a science-fiction novel following a long, established tradition of space colonization literature. In many ways, we could refer to it as “old-school”. This isn’t a book preoccupied with larger-than-life plots, involving impossible temporalities, or containing artificial intelligence so complex not even its author can make sense of it. Quite frankly, I’ve read too many modern science-fiction novels of that variety, and they almost always degenerate into incoherence.

Mont’s novel doesn’t involve any conceptually complex plot—though, it must be said, in terms of worldbuilding and character development there is incredible depth and attention to detail that, crucially, is fully justified in creative terms. I could mention many things but, to this literature & language specialist, the most pleasant surprise was the highly imaginative use of flawed English to portray the process of foreign-language acquisition. This isn't simply a matter of using the wrong syntax or choosing the wrong word. The author has put a lot of work into understanding and explicating how it feels to learn a new language, how hypernyms and hyponyms work (and can frustrate the language learner) and this assigns unique realism to the relevant scenes.

As I said, the plot isn't conceptually complex. Indeed, it could be called fairly simple and traditional: A mission to explore a distant planet, Ozimord, runs into trouble due to logistical and political problems back home. The novel basically unfolds in three locations concurrently: Earth, Ozimord, and the spaceship orbiting Ozimord that, like an ambiguous in-between space, is a connecting link between these two different worlds. Each of these settings is mostly presented from the perspective of an individual character, but the novel does have one protagonist: Gard, one of the crew members of the spaceship, who is stranded on Ozimord and must adapt to the local way of life. There is no reason not to mention the unsurprising plot detail (it’s really not a spoiler): Gard soon begins to question the way of life on Earth, and begins to realize there is an alternative.

Obviously, this has been done before. The right term is “going native” (indeed mentioned in the novel), though you could also call it “Dances with Wolves in Space”—what James Cameron used to describe Avatar. To be clear, this in no way takes anything away from the novel’s value. Indeed, what makes Mont’s novel so exceptionally interesting is that this simple, often-used plot scheme, allows her to deploy a magnificent narrative, exhibiting a panoply of comments on sociocultural issues. That’s what makes The Ozimord Project science fiction, not spaceships and the like.

Popular fiction—from Gothic to science fiction, and from horror to fantasy—must be about expressing the inexpressible, about speaking about the unspeakable, and about voicing all the what-must-not-be-mentioned’s that canonical literature is often unable to contain within its realistic framework. Mont’s novel delivers in spades. More importantly, it does so on many levels.

There is a top level, that most readers should be able to access, where things are talked about and pondered on explicitly. Gard, at first wondering why women on Ozimord are allowed to teach or build boats, later wonders why women on Earth aren’t. But even beyond that, there is a very subtle conceptual grid built deep in the narrative structure that conveys similar meanings in a way that is almost unconscious—needless to say, that’s how art should operate.

To name just one example, chapters and scenes taking place on Ozimord flow effortlessly, are replete with humanity, and—what comes in direct conflict with the plot-based elements of the narrative—seem to be the ones determining the outcome, rather than what takes place on Earth. Events taking place on the latter seem to be going nowhere, are always marred by intrigue, and there is a perfectly controlled sense of pointlessness. To be clear, this both seems intentional and it never gets in the way. Frankly, it reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, where there are chapters with long, tedious descriptions of Hi-Fi systems or music charts, that are precisely meant to help the reader feel the protagonist’s boredom. In The Ozimord Project, true life, exciting life, takes place on the eponymous planet; not on Earth.

Of course, every great narrative must stay away from simple, black-and-white solutions, and this is precisely what Mont’s novel does. What initially seems like a clearly defined border between “this” and “that” eventually becomes a little more complicated. There is a plot twist that, in all honesty, is probably fairly easy to guess—especially if you’re an advanced sci-fi reader who has read some old-school sci-fi—but, again, this takes nothing away from it. That’s the benefit of not placing your proverbial eggs in the basket of plot, focusing on narrative and affect instead.

The way things turn out in the end assigns a lot of credibility to the novel. Ozimord isn’t some unreachable utopia where people eat grapes listening to a golden harp. At the same time, the novel in its entirety—following Aristotelian views on what consists a good narrative—is focused neither on presenting such a utopia as an idealistic (and unattainable) goal, nor on moralistically pointing out how awful our current life is. The novel’s simple—hidden in plain sight—message is this: We can definitely do better. We can’t magically solve all our issues but, for goodness’ sake, we can do better. We can share our resources, try to help each other, and focus on truly meaningful things.

If this sounds a bit Marxist, that’s because it is. One of the biggest misunderstandings about Marx is that he advocated we should all be poor. As Terry Eagleton has said, Marxism is about how developed, advanced capitalist nations can use their unthinkable prosperity to promote justice for and the wellbeing of their people. That’s it. As I'm writing these lines, three (3) individuals in the US sit on more wealth than the bottom 50% of their compatriots. We can do better than this. We have done better than this.

But that’s not a message everyone wants to hear. The novel discloses every lie humans tell each other, from views on homosexuality to gender (in)equality, and from class issues to what George Carlin aptly called “the greatest bullshit story ever told”, religion. The Ozimord Project, like any self-respecting novel, throws truths at you. One of them is bound to be something you feel uncomfortable with; if not anything else, the idea that human civilization is finite and will inevitably end.

Which brings us back to the quotation I began this text with. Allow me to quote it in its entirety, revealing the source. I’ll let you figure out the rest.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
[“Ozymandias”, by Percy Bysshe Shelley]
Profile Image for Cathleen Townsend.
Author 11 books64 followers
September 10, 2019
The Ozimord Project is an extremely well-written space story—good grammar, punctuation, editing, etc., which is always pleasant—you don’t have to worry about getting constantly knocked from the story due to sloppy craftmanship. The world-building is impressive, without obvious holes. And the story is cohesive, if unfinished. This is very much a Book One.

It describes the space journey to a distant planet, Ozimord, where Earth is planning to set up its most recent land grab. Ozimord has several important mineral concentrations, and Earth needs them. The spaceship Vanguard is orbiting the future colony, and their orders are to secure the planet for colonization. However, every member of the landing party has gone insane, some dangerously so.

I usually try to help books find their audience when I review, so I’ll take a stab at that here. For most of the book, there’s a dearth of sympathetic characters and a whole lot of political intrigue. So, this tale would appeal more to readers who enjoy a story similar to Game of Thrones rather than something like The Lord of the Rings. Also, a very particular form of morality is held up as a model, like something out of John Lennon’s Imagine: no religion—it’s portrayed as merely a tool to control the masses, widespread acceptance of LGBT norms, no real borders or countries…that sort of thing. As a religious person, I disliked it. However, there’s certainly an audience for that sort of tale, so if that’s the kind of read you’re looking for, the Ozimord Project should suit very well.
Profile Image for T.C. Michael.
Author 7 books55 followers
October 13, 2019
This was a good read and a thrilling story of adventure, political intrigue, character relationships and space travel. One of the most interesting things I found about this book was the seamless combination of space science fiction and a sort of pre-modern technology fantasy (Ozimord). I really like the idea of modern and futuristic multi-star societies traveling to far out places in search of saving society. Similar to the Alien movie prequels. It's an idea that gives reads/viewers a sense of mystery, doom, and time-sensitive anxiety. It can hold ideas of horror, war, and the clash of major characters. The book does some of those things well. I would say my only complaint is the books cover. It needs something much better because what's currently there doesn't do the fantastic story any justice. However, that shouldn't be held against the story itself.
Profile Image for Donnally Miller.
Author 2 books12 followers
October 9, 2019
Vera Mont’s The Ozimord Project is a deftly constructed science fiction novel that depicts two worlds. One is an imperialistic Earth intent on colonizing a newly found planet with valuable resources and an aboriginal population they intend to enslave. The other is the newly found planet of Ozimord, an idyllic land inhabited by a happy, agrarian population . As I turned the pages of this book, I started having the feeling I had read all this before. Then it struck me: Ozimord is a portmanteau word combining Oz and Emerald. This was a retelling in space of L. Frank Baum’s lovely The Emerald City of Oz. That was the book in which Dorothy Gale ‘went native’ and settled down in Oz. She brings Aunt Em and Uncle Henry with her, and the book alternates between chapters telling of their travels around Oz, with other chapters describing the terrible Kingdom of the Nomes, and General Guph’s efforts to assemble an army that will invade Oz and enslave all its people.
This is exactly duplicated in The Ozimord Project. The reader soon realizes that the inhabitants of Ozimord are not really all that simple. They have somehow managed to create a Rousseau like civilization of fraternity, liberty and equality while keeping their population low enough that practically everybody knows everybody else (the largest city has a population of about three thousand), and there are no squabbles over resources. I saw that one reviewer said the depiction of this society was Marxist. However, it lacks the intellectual rigor of Marxism and is in fact that of the land of Oz:
“There were no poor people in the land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money . . . Each person was given freely by his neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much as anyone may reasonably desire. Some tilled the lands and raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among the entire population, so that all had enough. There were many tailors and dressmakers and shoemakers and the like, who made things that any who desired them might wear. Likewise there were jewelers who made ornaments for the person, which pleased and beautified the people, and these ornaments also were free to those who asked for them. Each man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was taken from the great storehouses . . . which were afterward filled up again when there was more of any article that the people needed. Every one worked half the time and played half the time, and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the play, because it is good to be occupied and to have something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch them, and no one to rebuke them or find fault with them. So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he produced. You will know, by what I have here told you, that the Land of Oz was a remarkable country. I do not suppose such an arrangement would be practical with us, but Dorothy assures me that it works finely with the Oz people.” Those words, from The Emerald City of Oz, by that astute political philosopher L. Frank Baum, would apply equally well to the social system of Ozimord.
When General Guph’s army invades Oz, the first thing they do is drink the Water of Oblivion, which acts on them like a mild hallucinogen and they start wandering around the strange and beautiful country they’ve come to, forgetting all their enmity. The same thing happens to the first spacemen to land on Ozimord. For a while, Mont makes us think we are going to be given a demonstration of two sociopolitical systems with differing concepts of justice, but the author was not up to creating anything that demanding. As soon as the terms of the debate are drawn up, the book ends. The ending was a bit abrupt, as all the story lines got suddenly wrapped up. The sympathetic characters in the Earth civilization all dropped out, turning into desperadoes and mutineers, while the Ozimordians carried on, unconcerned by any possible threat.
This novel could, conceivably, stand on its own, but it seems to call for a sequel in which the destiny of Ozimord and its relationship to Earth can be fleshed out. It would be especially intriguing to see the author explore Gard’s reaction upon realizing that the land he has been made to love is in fact a carefully-tailored lie. Also, is it possible that the seriously restricted and homogeneous population of Ozimord is the result of a system that is actually more sinister than that of the multi-cultural, albeit violent and vicious, culture of Earth?
A note on the writing and the copy editing: they are at a highly professional level, much better than one is accustomed to in most independently published works. Reading was a pleasure. Vera Mont is a writer to take note of. Her work strikes me as similar in many ways to that of C. J. Cherryh, and I would expect readers of Cherryh’s books would enjoy this one as well. Although many of the minor characters were hard to distinguish from one another, the main characters were well drawn, and the reader became invested in their fate, which was why this reader, at least, felt a little as though the rug had been pulled out from under his feet by the way things were wound up abruptly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
653 reviews25 followers
August 17, 2023
Not my typical genre but gave it a try. For my taste, it was too lengthy. Things were added and described to the point of boredom and confusion. There were parts I skimmed over and pages skipped but still didn’t miss much that was relevant.
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Profile Image for Ali Seegar.
Author 3 books14 followers
November 17, 2019
There is far more richness to Vera Mont’s latest offering, The Ozimord Project than the usual science-fiction story; political intrigue, frailties of a dysfunctional society, religious manipulations, and yet, simultaneously, it is a classic telling of space exploration; the self-proclaimed ‘higher’ species discover a new planet with ore deposits in abundance and a population they deem to be half savage.

The story weaves between three different locations, each with their own protagonist; Grivas on Earth who is worried about his career, family and future, Gard (who I particularly enjoyed) stranded on the new planet Ozimord learning the Ozimordian way of living and in doing so discovering the differences between his new home and Earth, and Captain Nere from the Vanguard, the spaceship stuck mid-space awaiting orders from Earth.

I particularly enjoyed Mont’s ability to build believable worlds, with well rounded depth topped with beautiful, poetic descriptions. We learn about Ozimord through the almost childlike eyes of Gard, as he steadily immerses himself in Ozimordian life. This contrasts superbly with the increasingly cynical mind of Grivas who is fighting in whatever way he can for a better future for his family. I struggled slightly with the intricate details of the Council and the who’s who (or rather who wants to dispose of whom) of Earth’s Government, and felt this weighed the book down although maybe in a way this was intentional to further contrast the two planets’ differences. I also almost missed the beginning of the book’s end as it arrived so abruptly and left me wanting more... a sequel perhaps to come?

All in all, though, I found this an exciting and stimulating read - the key messages and themes played in my thoughts and made me want to keep reading - and Mont’s talent as a writer shines from the pages.
Profile Image for Hikes in Rain.
132 reviews4 followers
November 3, 2019
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for a fair review, who which I am very grateful.

I finished this book around 4:00 this morning. Yes, it was good enough I stayed up late to see what happened. There is something classic about this story. People with "superior technology" arrive in a new, fertile land (planet, in this case), and take over all the resources and the indigenous population. Sounds familiar.

Only in this case, the invaders have bitten off a little more than they can chew.

The world building in this story is very good. The new planet, Ozimord, is very detailed, as are the folks fortunate to live there. It’s a place I would enjoy. Future Earth is every bit as detailed, but in a more disturbing way. Not a place I would want to live, but disturbingly familiar. The story line is also very good. I enjoyed the scenes on the planet Ozimord and the starship that has visited it more than the scenes on Earth. The author used board meetings to advance the plot on Earth. Meeting after meeting. Effective, but I’ve spent way too much of my time in similar meetings. Even in retirement, I still participate in meetings. Toward the last of the book, however, the main character there and a couple of secondary ones break out of the meeting mold in a very interesting way, which redeems the previous scenes. I liked that part, a lot, so persevere through them. Without adding spoilers, it’s worth it.

Given that it’s a pre-publication issue, there are a very few spelling and word usage errors, curiously grouped mostly in the last quarter or so of the manuscript. Nothing serious. Overall, a very enjoyable read.
Profile Image for Alexis Lantgen.
Author 8 books44 followers
October 17, 2019
This is a complicated book for me to review, because while there were some things I like about it, it definitely had some problems.

I'll start with the good. I liked some of the world-building, and I enjoyed the characters. I felt their motivations and struggles felt very vivid and real. In particular, I felt Grivas and Gard were compelling, well-developed characters. I thought the descriptions of Ozimord and Earth felt realistic and interesting as well.

However, much of this book is horribly bogged down in what I'd consider plot minutiae. This book has far, far too many committee meetings. I'm not kidding--actual, in-book, committee meetings. There is literally no reason why one character must constantly be sitting in committee meetings--they are dull and seem like a way to try to advance the plot in the slowest way possible. I felt like this book would have been tremendously more enjoyable if the author had simply cut all the tedious meetings and given the reader crucial information in a different way.
I also felt like the main character's endings felt a bit out of nowhere. One of the big reveals felt unearned, and the other ending felt out of character. Also, nothing felt truly resolved.

Overall, there were some interesting things about this book. It was very hard for me to get into, but the characters definitely grew on me. But the plot minutiae and committee meetings made it very hard to enjoy.

Profile Image for Tristen Kozinski.
Author 5 books15 followers
March 31, 2020
Actual rating 3.5

The Ozimord Projects serves as a light Pocahontas retelling, but with a more political bent rather than the action of Avatar. It has solid prose and decently-well developed characters. It's main flaw is that very little actually happens. The political elements (which is something I often enjoy in books) generally occur in boardrooms and clandestine meetings that are largely bereft of stakes. The book's other two storylines don't provide much in narrative push either, with one feeling more like an occasional check-in rather than important. Of its narrative arcs, the Ozimord planet is the best because we get to watch that protagonist's transformation on the idyllic world without ever escaping the looming threat of his homeworld.
This threat is what provides the story's core conflict, Earth's desperate need for resources against the knowledge that they will destroy Ozimord and its native inhabitants despite their best efforts to avoid it.
All of this is not to say the book isn't entertaining, because it is and the world-building is complex if a little more distant (being rarely immediately relevant and present) than I would like. It's just not exciting.

If you interested in a video review of this galactic adventure, my brother and I dared to record one. I'd say it's more in-depth, but that might just be the latest plunge of my literary-fed self-delusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GL13...
Profile Image for S.D..
Author 22 books18 followers
September 19, 2019
Mont is masterful in world-building. The story opens and the reader is thrust into the action amid discovering the threats of a new world and navigating the complex political-arena taking place behind the scenes. Told from several points of view, the story unfolds to reveal that not all is what it seems. Earth needs Ozimord's rich mineral fields and is in the beginning stages of procuring them. Earth assumes the inhabitants are primitive and colonization will be easy. And perhaps it would be if the assumptions were true.
While the world was interesting, the political intrigue front and center, I did not really identify with individual characters. It felt like just as their stories were introduced, the story moved on like an episode of a Netflix series. In spite of this, I found myself binge-reading to see what happened next. The prose is excellent. Serious Sci Fi fans should enjoy.
Profile Image for Adriana Porter Felt.
360 reviews79 followers
December 8, 2019
One of the story arcs of "The Ozimord Project" is excellent. The rest is poorly paced and terribly boring.

The part I enjoyed was the actual space travel: a space pioneer marooned on an unfamiliar planet, learning to love the alien people there. If the whole book were trimmed to this plot line, it would be a poignant tale of survival and kinship. I give this part of the book four or five stars.

But the rest of the book... large chunks of the book are profoundly boring. Pages and pages of committee meetings, political news stories, and union strike negotiations. The reader drowns in minutiae. My interest kept wandering. These plot points could have been significantly more succinct, or told in another way that didn't require reading meeting minutes.
1,792 reviews59 followers
December 15, 2019
A great book! I’m not usually a sci-fi fan but this book really did it for me. From the first page, I got interested in the effort of ‘Earth’ to conquer a new, strange and distant planet to supply much needed fuel supplies. Along with their struggles in that area, they were also dealing with political and societal issues that seem uncannily familiar to today’s world. On the other side of the coin, we discover a type of humanoid on this new planet that reflects a different mind set regarding ethics, power and morality. This is all wrapped up with great characters (especially Grivas and Gard), clever dialogue and sharp plotting. A story I really enjoyed.
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway for this honest review.
Profile Image for Shai.
40 reviews2 followers
April 18, 2022
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.

This is a great science fiction novel. I fell in love with Ozimordian culture and was so entranced by that part of the plot. A lot of the plot about Earth was kind of lost to me, it was not as enjoyable to read and got kind of sad and boring at times. The overall story was fantastic. After a few chapters in though, I was thinking, “This is just like Avatar.”
6 reviews
October 31, 2019
I found the book very enjoyable. The detail of world-building and character development was done very well. It is good science fiction in line with Heinlein and Asimov.
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