It’s been a number of years since I last read an Aldiss work. His SF was never based in the pulp roots of theories. In looking over early reviews, readers seem to nearly unanimously pan the Finches of Mars. One five star, one four, and a whole slew of one and two stars.
Not sure what they were reading.
Announced as his final book(he is ninety)and by no means his best, I still found it an interesting read. Infused with a number of ideas, and not a long book at that(under two hundred pages), it kept me sufficiently engaged throughout.
Mars had been colonized a decade before as a hedge against an Earth in decline from centuries of wars, climate change brought on by technology, and religious intolerance. The charter spelled out only atheists in the colony.
But in that decade, no viable births had happened. Eighty-five still births, only a handful born alive, but horribly deformed, dying very quickly after that.
Then life is discovered in one of the many underground pools of water. Not micro-organisms, but an advanced form humans were still not sure a type of fish or something else.
A worthwhile read that kept me there til the end. Publication date is August 4th.