Book Review: The Scourge Between Stars

You'll wish that space were a little more empty

We like to refer to the vastness of space, of space as a gulf, a maw, an expanse. All of these bring into stark relief the scale of the universe, so much bigger than anything that we can realistically comprehend on an individual level. With training, we can grok it with high level mathematics. With space so big, and with so many things unknown in it (cosmologists believe that much of the matter in the universe is not composed of atoms at all), it is logical that humanity would put scary things in it in our myths; after all that is what we have done with caves, with oceans, with jungles, with mountains. It is that urge, to fill in the scary unknown with something scary yet comprehensible is what Ness Brown’s 2023 novella The Scourge Between Stars runs on.

The plot is aboard the generation ship Calypso, one of several arks carrying what’s left of a failed extrasolar colony on its long, cold journey back to Earth; there, one can see a philosophical parallel to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, a book which takes the twelve-year-old you once were who fell in love with the grandeur and majesty of science fiction and strangles them with a bedsheet. But Brown adds another element to the mix: something is aboard the Calypso, and it apparently had been on the other ships before all contact with them was lost. Your protagonist, Jacklyn Albright, is acting captain of the Calypso, is leading the effort aboard the ship to figure out what the hell is going on, and what is killing so many of her shipmates.

There is a particular cramped atmosphere to this whole story that really works. Not too long ago I read Alexei Panshin’s novel Rite of Passage, much of which is set on a similar ship. The ship in Panshin’s novel feels spartan if pleasant, at times. Not so here - the Calypso is a ship in dire straits. There are rebellions in different parts of the ship, going on to downright mutinies in parts. Things are so bad to the point that there is significant dissent as to where even this ship should go: onward to Earth, or back to their ruined colony to give that planet another go. This is not a harmonious voyage, and this is not a harmonious ship. Brown does a good job of creating a ship that feels not only lived in, but overcrowded, even with plenty of physical space. When I imagined the innards of this ship, much of which involves the passages within the walls, I visualized it as very, very dark, a sort of horror movie lighting if you will.

Jacklyn Albright is a character who will be instantly relatable to anyone who has had to juggle too much on their plate. She is in charge after her father, the previous captain, has locked himself away in his quarters and refuses to leave for any reason. She has become the apocryphal turtle on a post, and the post is the captain’s post, and she herself is wondering why she was put there. She is determined, but Brown is more than willing to show just how taxing this is on her, how much everything crashing down around her is destroying her sanity. In this regard, she is a traditional sort of horror protagonist given substantially more responsibility; one could describe her as the ‘owner’ of the house that is being haunted.

There is a major side character, by the name of Watson, who is a robot. She was created by one of the chief scientists aboard the Calypso, a cantankerous sort with many highly visible flaws and a willingness to cause mischief. What is particularly interesting about Watson is that she only recently received the programming to be able to experience human-like emotions. As anything resembling normalcy disintegrates around the human protagonists, Watson is experiencing a rapid crash-familiarization with the very concept of feeling anything. This means that she is both incredibly empathetic and surprisingly levelheaded, if a bit bewildered now and then. Watson as a character is an interesting addition to this sort of story, with a particular point of view that inflects everything towards the reader in a way that illuminates the stakes.

The only particular issue that stood out to me in the novella taken as a whole is that the ending can feel a bit too convenient, bordering on a deus ex machina. The entire plot, messy and gory as appropriate for what could be considered Alien on a generation ship is eventually wrapped up with a bow. It’s too clean, ultimately, and the major conflicts are ultimately resolved by certain things being possible that were not given nearly enough foreshadowing or at least a sense that they were possible in this particular universe. As a result the end of the book feels unearned on some level, that this ending wasn’t justified. It’s disappointing, as the rest of this book is properly harrowing as a horror story set in the gulfs of space should be.

I ultimately enjoyed The Scourge Between Stars, too clean an ending notwithstanding. One of the cover blurbs says that it could be read in a single sitting, and it would be great for someone looking for something matching that description (I confess that I intended to do so but I felt myself nodding off for non-book related reasons so I ultimately finished it at a Japanese restaurant on lunch break from work the next day). More than anything else, Ness Brown succeeds in creating a compelling unsettled feeling that never lets up until the end, which will keep the seasoned horror reader turning the pages. I think that Brown has a good career ahead of them, and I’d like to see what they can come up with. They just need to find a way to wrap up their stories better, make those endings feel a bit more earned.

--

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Reference: Brown, Ness. The Scourge Between Stars (Tor Nightfire, 2023)

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.

Microreview [Book]: Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

Fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea are in for a treat that's both somewhat familiar in tone to what came before, but with more than enough deviations to feel fresh.

In Under the Whispering Door, the protagonist is dead almost from the novel's start. His body is buried, unable to scramble out of the ground. His life was not a life well lived. It was one of bitterness and heartless misdeeds. And now death has robbed his body of any opportunity for redemption. It's an image of hopelessness, of being tamped down by earthly forces out of your control without any recourse of getting out. But while his living body's journey is complete, he has a new one in ghostly form. That ghost, as it leaves his body, is a form of a second chance. Just because his life was a lost cause doesn't mean his death has to be, too.

Following Wallace's death, he is situated in a place where people with fantastical gifts, including Mei, a reaper, and Hugo, a ferryman, work to acclimate Wallace to his death with eventual plans of him transitioning to what lies beyond. His rehabilitation and preparation is done at a tea shop owned by Hugo. Warring with Wallace's protestations are feelings of affection beginning to form for those in the tea shop. Feelings that he never felt before, even when he was alive.

While the premise doesn't exactly break new ground in fantasy, the character interactions are where the novel is at its best. Whether its friendship between the protagonist and other the other ghosts he meets,  budding, believable romance that had its hooks in me until I was tensed and engaged, along with heartbreak and grief that is native to deathly situations--everything is handled with sincerity and emotional intelligence. The bits of wisdom might be parceled with a couple anodyne platitudes, but that adds to the cozy feeling that covers Under the Whispering Door like a warm blanket.

Don't go into the novel expecting rollicking, action-packed chapters. The roiling is more within the characters than pyrotechnic spectacles. The settings aren't varied, with most of the interactions confined to the tea shop--which sometimes have conversations extended to superfluity. But often it feels like a crucible for character growth with all the epiphanies, realizations, and disillusionments that comes with it. Just because the setting is relatively static doesn't mean that characters are taking steps of their own, even if they're metaphorical rather than literal.

Wallace might have been stuck in a rut in life, but in death the novel showcases him finding a pathway of ascending. In the year I'm writing this (2021), in which I am confined, often static, and sometimes pathless, Under the Whispering Door has come at a perfect time to offer a roadmap forward in literary form. Its pages might not be literal steps, but as the characters evolve internally, the novel's words made my heart warm and molded it into something sweeter, something that I think is more capable of approaching the world's clinical processes and rampant rage with more grace.

The Math

Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: + 1 For having so much heart that even the grinchiest people will be moved. +1 For expertly vibrant banter.

Penalties: - 1 For a middle-third that is a little too slow and long.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Klune, T.J. Under the Whispering Door (Tor, 2021)

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

Microreview [Book]: Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings

 Flyaway is a rare confection with an acquired taste.

Flyaway is masterfully written but will be a tough sell to some readers. Reading it is like walking through a foggy road, disoriented, eventually seeing beautiful features in fogless area. It builds an atmosphere amidst its mysticism that only expands and elucidates its beauty. And eventually, after much enjoyment of the atmosphere, things start to click to an extent. The fog is still there, because the novel is rooted in ambiguity and relative obscurity, but the disorientation is gone. You get what it’s going for. However, some readers may tire of the beauty along the way and move to a book where things are always clear. Flyaway is the epitome of a well-written book with limited appeal.

The story follows Bettina Scott - a girl dutifully tied to her mother’s wishes - who has a hazy memory regarding the disappearance of her brothers and father. Prompted by a mysterious letter, she goes on a journey with her friends, Gary and Trish, to figure out what is going on

Jenning’s writing carries a lot of the novella. Descriptions sometimes transcend even the most masterful fiction—each sentence is a treasure trove for those who admire wordsmithery. And that lyricism aids the story as it takes risky perspective changes--because interspersed with the journey are mythical tales set in the same region as the main plot. They’re fairytales that circle the periphery of the narrative as you wait for them to come into view and somehow tie in with the main thread.

And things do tie up and make sense by the last quarter of the book. The early goings don't focus on propelling toward answers and are instead  hyper-focused on establishing a tone--a sort of quiet Gothic horror that imbues the story with a feel quite unlike anything else. And events have a murkiness that behooves the story, because it largely deals with the mystery of whether the mystical events being described are real or myth. But unique tones are even better when they’re married with fully formed characters. And despite some development, the characters never become complex. Instead, they take a backseat to tales that favor inventive happenings and construction over inventive characters.

Not only does the story put a fog over the reader, but also a fog over the characters, in which many of them are willfully ignorant to any indications of fantasy. They trudge through their area without wary glances or suspicions of the fantastic, and Jennings doesn’t reveal the truth of whether or not they have anything suspicious to look out for until the end.

While Flyaway has a great mystery that demands the reader work to figure out the secrets along with the characters, it would be nice to have an easier foothold on the story. It throws a lot at you, especially in the earlier chapters, which is sometimes frustrating. A mystery threaded throughout the story is fine, but to not even be sure what that thread is for the initial chunk of the novel is needlessly abstruse.

Flyaway is an expertly crafted novel with pitch perfect prose, surprising twists, and a world that is satisfyingly fleshed out while leaving it with a sense of unsettling mystery permeating the entire novel. Flyaway also demands your patience a little too much and has characters that sometimes feels as wispy as the fog that covers it. It escalates in quality, arriving at a satisfying conclusion. The question is, how much effort are you willing to put into a novella to get there? Your sentiments to that question will decide if it’s right for you.

The Math

Baseline Score: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 For accomplishing the rare feat of being unlike any fiction out there.
+1 For a satisfying conclusion.

Negatives: -1 For having underdeveloped characters.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!

Reference: Jennings, Kathleen. Flyaway [Tor.com, 2020]

Microreview [Book]: Static Ruin by Corey J. White

Not Exactly Planet Smashing

Mars Xi is a "void-damned space witch", meaning she's super telekinetic and knows how to use that. In this third entry of the Voidwitch Saga novellas, Mars is searching for someone who can help her save a child weapon and finds that the only person who can help her is the last person she wants to deal with: her father.

It's rare that I pick up a series anywhere but the beginning but, whoops, I stepped in it this time. The bad news is that this story assumes you've read the previous ones, which is fair. It doesn't do much explaining about where some of these characters come from and only the barest amount needed to connect them to Mars. It also alludes to some pretty rad things that Mars does in the previous books that aren't topped here.

The good news is that I did find this to be a fun read, even without 100% of the backstory. Mars has a lot of built up anger from her past as a child born and raised to be a weapon, and this story takes her all the way back to where she came from. The complicated relationship Mars has with her family is front and center, with a minor detour at the end for some planet-owning entrepreneur nightmares. It got me invested in the well-being of Mars' cat-thing Ocho, maybe moreso than the well-being of Mars herself. It's probably more satisfying as a (possible) final chapter in the Voidwitch Saga, but it's fine without the backstory.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +2 if you've read the previous books, it's probably a good conclusion.

Penalties: -1 seems like it didn't exactly top the exploits of the previous books, which this story made me want to go back and read them.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: White, Corey J. Static Ruin [Tor, 2018]

Microreview [book] Shadow Sun Seven by Spencer Ellsworth

Shadow Sun Seven Deepens and improves upon the Space Opera verse of Spencer Ellsworth's A Red Peace

The complex tale of Jaqi, reluctant opposition to a Resistance that has in turn just toppled an oppressive human galactic empire, continues in Shadow Sun Seven, sequel to Spencer Ellsworth debut novella A Red Peace. This second novella jumps off not long after the first. It should be said that discussion of this second volume, a short novel, does necessarily spoil the first novella.

That novella, which posited, explored and depicted a wide ranging universe with half-Jorians, lots of biological weapons and creatures that would fit in a Kameron Hurley novel, and a net of complicated characters. By the end of the first novella, Jaqi, Half-Jorian, and Half Human pilot, had managed to spirit away two children from the Resistance that are looking for them at any cost, and had slowly started to learn that she has a destiny and power that she never knew, a destiny and power tied to the original, extinct race of which she is just a hybrid descendant gene engineered cross. Or is she?

These novellas are secondarily the story of Araskar. Araskar started his life fairly high in the Resistance, and even more poignantly, tied to Rashiya, daughter of the Resistance leader John Starfire. In the events of the first novella, Araskar’s sense of morality and what’s right led him to kill his former love and turn against the Resistance, and join Jaqi’s crew. Thanks to the circumstances of her death, Rashiya’s ghost is a recurring presence in Araskar’s head and provides dry and mordant company for Araskar. Their weird relationship is something that Ellsworth does not use overmuch, and in fact I could have stood far more of.

With this gang assembled assembled, on the run, and with a large price on their heads, Shadow Sun Seven is the story of what happens once this team is together and under the gun. In order to protect themselves from a mercenary group , the Matakas, ooking to cash in on their fugitive status, Jaqi and Araskar agree to lead them on a mission of plunder for an even bigger payoff than they’d get for turning them in. The dynamic between the main characters and their allies is a nice running tension throughout the novel, their lack of trust in each other driving character and plot.

Jaqi and Araskar are the highlights of this novel, from a character point of view but the novel is full of colorful characters, writ large and small. The warrior Z, given relatively little play in the first novel, gets a lot of character development in this novel, as it turns out that Z’s people, the Zarra, have a dark history with the head of Shadow Sun Seven. And so when the gang arrives at the station, Z has a distinct agenda of their own. Also of interest is the Queen of the Matakas, whose negotiation with Jaqi and Araskar is a delightful dance of culture and species conflict.

Worldbuilding is something that readers of my reviews know that I key on, and this novel delivers with verve and invention. The biopunk-esque nature of Ellsworth’s space opera universe continues to delight and interest me as a reader. The expansion of space and length in this second volume over the first, I think, allows the author the opportunity to more fully explore the sometimes gonzo universe that he has created. Far from a standard issue space opera universe with pointy eared and rubber headed aliens in a verse seen a hundred times before, the author provides a breath of invention that allows his characters to inhabit a world that is always surprising. Even as the plot in the abstract is simple and straightforward--an infiltration and break-in with the mercenaries to a mining space station (the eponymous Shadow Sun Seven) to get a valuable commodity (and free the key prisoner), the uniqueness of the world makes it intriguing and fresh. The valuable commodity are pure oxygen cells, uncommon and extremely necessary for space travel. The mining/prison space station is an imaginative space of prisoners, a fighting arena and much more. The aforementioned untrustworthy mercenary allies and their Queen working with Jaqi? They are distinctive and wonderfully realized inhuman, insectoid aliens. And then there are the Moorcockian style soul-sucking swords that Araskar wields.

That breath of invention and reinvention,, combined with interesting characters, a slowly revealing backstory of a universe and a future destiny for Jaqi, make Shadow Sun Seven a winning read. It is novels like this that reinforce and reify my love of space opera, making it tangible and real. This is a most successful jump from novella to novel for the author. I look forward to more with Jaqi and Araskar in this most interesting universe.


The Math

Baseline Assessment 7/10 

Bonuses: +1 for good development of characters backstory and depth +1 for an absolutely gonzo universe overstuffed with intriguing ideas, locations and species.

Penalties: -1 the science fantasy elements may turn off readers more interested in a purer Space Opera experience.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 well worth your time and attention

***

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Microreview [book]: The Atrocities by Jeremy C. Shipp

Not Quite a Nightmare

Isabella has been summoned to the house (manor?) of a couple in need of an in-home tutor. The approach takes her through a maze filled with horrifying statues, but she soon learns that this family has more nightmarish secrets hidden within the estate.

A brief novel, The Atrocities impresses with its atmospheric setting. This is a Gothic style horror novel from beginning to end. It starts in a bad place, and only gets worse. Shipp deftly blends the real world with the nightmare to the point where it's sometimes difficult to tell when the fiction has gone into its own unreality. The central mystery doesn't exactly grab, but it does tug you along to the end.

Unfortunately, the end is where it kind of falls down as it has a sudden and simple end. Its simplicity left me feeling unfulfilled as the rest of story had been rather well woven. It's the kind of ending that could've happened in the first 10 pages and totally discounts the experience. It's not a total deal breaker, but it does badly affect how I felt about the whole novel and makes a recommendation much harder.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 100 pages of grotesquery!

Penalties: -3 wow, it ended like that?

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10 (problematic, but has redeeming qualities)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Shipp, Jeremy C. The Atrocities [Tor, 2018]  

Microreview [book]: The Warrior Within by Angus McIntyre

A Quick Trip Down the Road

Three men cross the wastelands to a strip town along the Road. They've come to kill a woman. The only person seemingly in their way is unofficial mayor Karsman. Officially Not in Charge, but Karsman's brain houses multiple personalities that could mean the difference between life and death for the hunted.

While not going to thrill many, The Warrior Within is a competent novel. It's short, but rarely strays from its compact plot, while still developing a world and characters in it. Karsman gets the most focus and is distinctly a reluctant hero. While shaping Karsman's voice, his other personalities, named by function like Warrior, Diplomat, and Strategist, likewise have their own aims and tone. Karsman and his personalities easily double the cast of characters, with the rest functional but a little flat. In particular, the villains of the story don't really have much going on beyond menacing.

There's no indication that this novel is setting up a series, but it could. It takes place on a backwaters world in a larger universe, and hints at what could be beyond this small town, its benevolent autocracy, and the people scraping by. If anything, The Warrior Within did a better job of setting up future works than telling this story, but it's by no means bad.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 doesn't waste much time

Penalties: -1 ... except for an overly long wall climbing chapter

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: McIntyre, Angus. The Warrior Within [Tor, 2018]  

Microreview [book]: Dayfall by Michael David Ares

Close the Shades, Stay Inside

Dayfall takes place in too-near-future New York City. After nuclear war has put a permanent cloud over the city, the weather is about to improve and "Dayfall", the first time sun has shone on New York City in a very long time, is coming. But the city is torn between its elected mayor and a privately-owned security company that rebuilt it after the darkness came. Some mysterious killings threaten to cause chaos when Dayfall happens, favoring the security company, and the mayor wants to get to the bottom of the murders. Enter outsider detective, Jon Phillips, hired by the mayor to solve these crimes before Dayfall.

Let's get this out of the way first; this is not a good read. Look no further than the name of the main character, Jon Phillips. It's about as bland as you get, and the rest of the novel follows suit. Phillips himself is utterly without character. He likes old detective novels and falls in love easily. That's about all I could attribute to him. The rest of the cast is no better. Even Halladay, the big Scot police officer, who's probably supposed to be the big, loud character in the story, isn't really there. He's got some racist tendencies and nicknames for people. That's about it.

The story takes no surprising turns. The pair of Phillips and Halladay investigate a crime scene, follow up on some leads, and eventually solve the crimes. I'm not convinced that this wouldn't have gone the same way with any other pair of police officers. In fact, midway through their investigation that's on an extremely short timeline, they lose several hours to a little shut eye and some alone time with the women in their life! I'm talking they've got 30 hours to solve this, but they've got enough time to get some sleep and, for Phillips, to fall in love/lust with a bartender. Later, Phillips confronts a suspect with some extremely flimsy evidence, and it does nothing but make him look like an idiot. I guess the most intriguing parts of this story are these scenes that don't really make a lot of sense.

At no point was I impressed, but I definitely checked out about 3/4ths through it when the author conflates ex-military with sociopaths with transgender people with identity switching for the sake of blending in. It's a flipping mess and I was very much not into any of it. It's the worst of a clumsy, boring book that ends abruptly but not soon enough. There's no reason to read this.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 4/10

Bonuses: Nope, sorry, I've got nothing.

Penalties: -1 bring a map, because it spends more pages giving character to the city than any of the people in the book.

Nerd Coefficient: 3/10 (just bad)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Ares, Michael David. Dayfall [Tor, 2018]  

Microreview [book]: The Fortress at the End of Time by Joe M. McDermott

Like Watching Paint Dry, But Better

Here's the truth about military service: it's boring. You do the same things over and over for preparedness. It's incestuous. All the same people run in the same circles and when you're ready to get out, there's no shortage of defense contractors ready to pay you more to do the same thing you used to do. And it's extremely political. Not in the red versus blue way, in the make friends and do favors to get things done way, regardless of how things should work. All of this amplified by at least a factor of five when you're deployed. The Fortress at the End of Time gets all of this right.

Ronaldo Aldo attends a war college to be an astronavigator to improve his lot in life. However, his duty assignment is an outpost at the farthest reaches of humanity called Citadel. And he doesn't have go, but his clone does. His body will be scanned and transmitted, and reconstructed at Citadel, all memories intact and no way to escape. You see the only way out of this dead end assignment is to do so well he can transcend and get another clone sent somewhere better, get himself discharged to the colony below, or die. The story's told from the past tense, and from the perspective of Aldo confessing to a terrible sin, so you can tell it's going only one of two ways.

I can't find any indication that McDermott has served, but he clearly gets what military service is like. It grinds people down, just as it does Aldo and the other service members aboard Citadel station. They're all on a career-long deployment to the most boring and poorly supported space station in the galaxy. Having spent some time myself in places that felt like the edge of the world, McDermott accurately portrays the life of people who are going slowly insane of boredom. They're constantly polishing floors, trying not to kill themselves, having the same arguments, and picking each other apart at any opportunity. It's awful in real life, and it's doesn't make for a particularly exciting read, but isn't that the point? It's all building to answer the question of what Aldo did to warrant this extended time with a confessor.

This boredom cuts two ways though. I spent most of the time wondering where in the world this story was going. And the end is unlikely to blow anyone away. However, if you make it to the end, it comes together in a way that's unexpected. It's the kind of novel that I like more the farther away I get from it. It not only does the military stuff well, but it asks some difficult questions about the fairness of being a clone of somebody with memories of a world you'll never see, and no hope of improving your situation personally. It reads like a running train of thought, but it goes some places.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 painfully accurate portrayal of the most boring parts of military life

Penalties: -1 You've got to stick through it and it's going to try your patience to get anything resembling a payoff.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: McDermott, Joe M. The Fortress at the End of Time [Tor, 2017] 

Microreview [book]: The Burning Light by Bradley P. Beaulieu and Rob Ziegler

Burning Bright

Novellas aren't really my thing. Not that I've got anything against them, it's just that the bulk of my reading is the standard 300 something page novel, sometimes venturing into those 1,000 page fantasy tomes (hello Malazan series). Novellas have to work hard; they've got a short amount of time to build a world, flesh out characters, and tell a story. But the synopsis of The Burning Light sounded like something I'd enjoy, and I'm really glad I went outside my comfort zone on it. The Burning Light delivers.

Colonel Chu is on a mission. The Light is spreading like an epidemic. It's destroyed her life and it's burning out people who come in contact with it. She's going to snuff it out. Zola used to be a pilot for a corporate collective, but the Light changed all that. She has a special connection to the Light, but Chu is closing in on her.

Being a novella, The Burning Light has to be efficient and it absolutely is. It moves fast to establish its setting and characters. It's aided by a lot of cyberpunk shorthand. Gov soldiers are black-clad and sleek, junkies are strapped for cash and burnt out, and the world is flooded and filthy. It's not that it's cliche or stereotype, but taking some smart shortcuts to get to the meat of what the story is about, which is Chu and Zola and the Light. It didn't take more than 10 pages for me "get it".

Then it gets to the characters, and their motivations. This is where no shortcut will really suffice, and Beaulieu and Ziegler handle it well. Both of the main characters have complex histories, supporting characters exist with enough to have voices of their own, and The Light is more than a MacGuffin.

I don't really have much negative to say. It does everything well and I didn't get tired of it. With only 100 pages, it would be easy to this go wrong, either leaving too little story or crafting characters out of cardboard. It's clear that The Burning Light was written with skilled hands. It packs a lot into a novella and left me wanting more.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 9/10

Bonuses: +1 a lot of cyberpunk/dystopian goodness in very few pages

Penalties: -1 relies on some SFF tropes that could lose someone unfamiliar with the genre

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 (very high quality/standout in its category)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Beaulieu, Bradley P. & Ziegler, Rob The Burning Light [Tor, 2016] 

Microreview [book]: A Borrowed Man by Gene Wolfe

Almost Human

E.A. Smithe is a reclone; he was an author but he died. The library system brought him back to life, as well as many other authors, poets, and artists, and they loan him out to people for any variety of reasons. Collette Coldbrook needs him to help her solve a mystery; her brother and father have recently died under strange circumstances, and her most relevant piece of evidence involves one of Smithe's books. 

A Borrowed Man deftly blends a futuristic setting with a noir style. Collette and Smithe are pursued from the start by unknown individuals who may have been involved in the Coldbrook family deaths, or may be trying to collect on her father's debts. Smithe isn't treated like a "full human" because he's a reclone, so the story has a lot of elements of "what makes a man?" blended in with the central mystery surrounding the Coldbrook family. Complicating the story, Smithe was recloned from a point before he wrote the novel Collette has in her possession, so he doesn't particularly know its significance either. When I started it, the story sank its hooks in deep. 

But halfway through, it loses the plot. The story is told from the perspective of Smithe looking back at the events of the past, so when a significant character goes away, we (the readers) lose a valuable point of view. Without them, Smithe is almost robotic in his behavior. His programming takes over and he starts doing things that take us away from the mystery. It eventually gets back on track, but there's a strong feeling of lost momentum. The conclusion is satisfactory, but it has a lot of knots and a fair amount of handwaving.

I spent a lot of the second half of the book scratching my head. I couldn't tell where we were going or why. The strong start convinced me to see it through to the end, but it shouldn't have nearly lost me in the first place. It's a net positive, but barely.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 intriguing story and core mystery

Penalties: -1 throws the whole story off the rails halfway through

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10 (still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Wolfe, Gene A Borrowed Man [Tor, 2015]  

Microreview [book]: Shadows of Self, by Brandon Sanderson

A first-rate second installment for this sequelilogy! Branderson strikes (gold) again!

Sanderson, Brandon. Shadows of Self. Tor: 2015.

Buy it here.

What is a sequelilogy, you ask? Simple: it’s a sequel trilogy, of which this is the second volume. I’m getting a massive tsunami of déjà vu writing this, so perhaps I’ve already coined a new term for this phenomenon, but if so, I doubt it can hold a candle to the brilliance of sequelilogy, am I right?

Anyway, the original Mistborn trilogy by Brandon “Branderson” Sanderson was fantastic, so any sequel effort was bound to feel a little underwhelming. Sure enough, Alloy of Law, the first in the new series, evidently conceived as more of a one-off at first than the start of a new trilogy, left me intrigued but somewhat unmoved. Wax and the others, especially Wayne, were compelling enough as characters go, and Branderson’s interesting mixing of near-modern technology with allomancy and other essentially magical arts was spellbinding. But overall, something just felt a bit lacking. This led to slightly reduced expectations on my part for Shadows of Self, which I knew to be a continuation of the Wax storyline. Surely there was no way Branderson could continue a story already palpably less awesome than Vin’s and somehow raise his game?

My oh my, was I wrong! Like Empire Strikes Back (though emphatically not SW 2, Clone Wars!) before it, the middle volume of the sequelilogy delivers the emotional punch, and a more cosmic sense of crisis (and mystery), than the initial installment. I would still rate Vin’s story as superior, but Wax’s emotional journey in this volume is certainly nothing to sneeze at, and the stakes are much higher than merely a tough-to-kill baddie and a cabalistic business conspiracy (a la Alloy of Law). Heck, even the title ‘Shadows of Self’ is oodles better than Alloy of Law.

All in all, Branderson has given us an excellent ride in this volume, and raised expectations considerably for the concluding installment in the sequelilogy, due out later this month. Here’s hoping you deliver, Branderson!

The Math:

Objective assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for giving us the first hint of a foe truly worthy, not only of Wax himself, but of his god, +1 for integrating the mythological aspects of the world so seamlessly with the present-day ones, and +1 for managing to package the emotional wallop of the story in always amusing one-liners and situations (thanks mostly to Wayne)

Penalties: -1 for still failing to live up to the glory of the Ascendant Warrior (or her life story)

Nerd coefficient: 8/10 “Pretty frickin’ awesome” 

(fact is, I’d give it an 8.5 if such things were allowed! See here for more on our scoring system)

This review brought to you by Zhaoyun, would-be Allomancer and actual NOAF reviewer since 2013.

Microreview [book] Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

Deep Underground

Echopraxia is a hard act to follow. I was extremely impressed by it, and thought about the story for several days after I finished it. Dark Orbit features several interweaving plots, and a very alien environment that were all very intriguing. Unfortunately, it doesn't all shake out.

Dark Orbit chiefly follows two women: Sara Callicot, an exoethnologist, and Thora Lassiter, a sensualist who was "corrected" after her visions led to a revolt. Thora and Sara are part of an exploratory mission to the planet Iris. Thora's an important person, akin to royalty, and Sara has been sent to secretly keep an eye on her. However, a murder on the questship they use as their base leads to suspicions on who committed it, and Thora disappears shortly after planetfall. She encounters a village of people who live in utter darkness who can somehow travel far beyond their physical means. It all goes downhill from here as Thora tries to get back to the questship, Sara tries to get back to Thora, and the crew tries to solve the mysteries of Iris.

Right off the bat, there's a lot going on. The planet Iris is a mystery reminiscent of Solaris. Despite being firmly in the hard sci-fi genre, Gilman has a firm grasp on the human elements as well, such as how we perceive things is shaped by what we already know. For example, the scientists on the planetary expedition start to refer to thick areas of metallic "vegetation" as "forests" despite having absolutely no connection to any forest previously known. This idea of preconceived notions influencing exploration comes into play often as Sara and Thora individually try to come to grips with a society that operates in complete blindness. As far as the thought provoking parts of the science that goes into first contact and exploration of an alien world go, this book is top-notch.

However, the many-layered plot does come across as a bit under baked and wraps up extremely fast. With so much going on between Thora's visions and her attempts to return to her colleagues, Sara's first contact work, the plot against Thora, the corporate overlords of the mission, and the strange disturbances that surround Iris and confuse the science teams, they don't all really get enough attention. Early on, we're presented with the facts about how traveling to the questship involves lightspeed transmission and physical reconstruction that takes 58 years to accomplish, and it felt like there could've been more said about how Sara and the others on the ships' lives would change by taking a trip that would see them returning 116 years after they've left without aging. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they wrap up in an unsatisfying way, but it felt like Dark Orbit is the first part of a series. There's still a lot of ground to tread here, so I hope there will be a followup.

Regardless, Dark Orbit is rather good in what it does deliver: a multilayered story about exploration and first contact on an alien planet. It made me want more, and I will be disappointed if it ends here.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 the planet Iris is as much of character as any of the people in the book

Penalties: -1 wraps up so fast, your head will spin

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Gilman, Carolyn Ives. Dark Orbit [Tor Books, 2015] 

Microreview [book]: Unbreakable by W.C. Bauers

Entirely Plastic

"Hollywood doesn't always get it right. Authors don't always get it right. "Civvies" like me don't always get it right either." - W.C. Bauers, from his blog

While I was reading Unbreakable, I had to question the author's background and I found this quote from his blog. It really struck me because he's absolutely right. I am notorious to people who know me for picking apart badly done military costumes in media. As an ex-Army veteran, I know all too well the modern uniform standards, and seeing those standards done poorly in TV and movies really grinds my gears. It's not hard to get right, so I don't understand why it is done wrong so often. It's arguably harder to get the military right in other aspects, particularly when you don't have the visual crutch. Bauers didn't get it right.

After her father is killed in a raid on their farm on planet Montana, Promise Paen enlists in the Republic of Aligned Worlds Marine Corp. After a mercifully brief stop through training (the 'basic training' chapters of mil sci-fi are something I find painfully overdone), Promise ends up back on Montana, now as a marine, in support of the RAW as they attempt to protect Montana from pirate raids, and prevent the Lusitanian Empire from taking the mineral-rich planet.

What Bauers gets right is the mechanics of the book. It moves at a steady pace, and it competently weaves its tale. He also gets the mechanics of the military right. Each faction has the right branches and departments and roles. There's no lack for acronyms, ranks, hierarchy, or cool military weapons.

But Bauers' military is a cartoon. Worse, it's doesn't feel authentic. Nevermind that Promise rockets to the top of her local command chain through field promotion. Every mil sci-fi does that. But the whole of the book is very cookie cutter. Promise is a young leader put in a tough position, much like every other protagonist in mil sci-fi. Her forces are always outnumbered but never defeated. She's the President's buddy, because she's apparently the only marine from Montana. The colonists on planet Montana are all rugged individualists with their own antiquated firearms. Even the names of these fictional locations, governments, and people define who they are. It's no coincidence that the planet of rugged individualists is Montana. Does the name 'Lusitanians' evoke an image for you?

The book doesn't make a convincing argument for why I shouldn't be rooting for the Lusitanians. With the exception of a couple of villainous Lusitanians, who are operating outside of command, they're not really even evil. It is implied that they pay mercenaries to attack RAW planets disguised as pirates, but the RAW wants Montana as much as they do. If the tables were turned, I'm not convinced that the RAW wouldn't do the same things the Lusitanians do.

Despite some gruesomely described deaths, I don't feel like I'm down on Montana with Promise. I feel like I'm watching her on TV. None of the characters come off as human, least of all Promise. She's nearly omniscient in her foresight. This is troublesome, because I never felt like something bad was going to happen in a story where the protagonists are desperately outnumbered. We're told early on that Montana's citizens have been burned by the RAW before and not likely to be receptive, but they are absolutely helpful, receptive, docile even. They don't show an inkling of resistance to the RAW occupation, nevermind turning against them and aligning with the Lusitanians. Their only detractor is an old man, whom the rest of Montana tells to stuff it.

There are also some little things that might be classified as mere pet peeves. Characters in the book refer to platoons as 'toons'. I have never ever ever ever heard anyone refer to their platoon as a toon. I've also never cared about where anyone's helmet was but mine and my soldiers', but I'm well aware of where Promise put hers because she racks it on her hip frequently. Yeah, sure, knowing where your stuff is is absolutely important. But have you ever walked around with a helmet attached to your hip? I'd rather wear mine. Of course, the Lusitanians, the so-called bad guys, are duplicitous, cheats, liars, and their uniforms are black and red.

But the worst, the absolute worst, is that Promise is haunted by her long-dead mother. Her mother, whose death is either not explained or poorly explained to the point that I glossed over it, frequently converses with Promise to give her life advice. Her mother's a tough woman, like all Montana women, but I'm particularly bothered that Promise might be insane and in a command position. We see enough of the other side's perspective that perhaps we're not dealing with an unreliable narrator, but this is the first part of The Chronicles of Promise Paen, and presumably her command won't be taken from her, despite being a person who's guided by the ghost of her mother.

Color me disappointed or annoyed more than anything. I feel like it would take more than a little bit of work to make me interested in another story about Promise. Maybe I'd be interested if Promise actually were insane, and we were to see what a broken person in a position of authority does. It would at least make for a more interesting story. Unbreakable is YA mil sci-fi. It's G.I. Joe. I don't dislike G.I. Joe, but I'm too old for it. I want more than what G.I. Joe has to offer. Likewise, Unbreakable could stand to be more adult.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 Well paced

Penalties: -2 Entirely cartoonish in almost every way, nevermind military conflict

Nerd Coefficient: 4/10 (Not very good)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Bauers, W.C.. Unbreakable [Tor, 2015] 

Microreview [book]: Lock In, by John Scalzi

An Entertaining Sci-fi Mystery Slightly Marred by Too Many 'What If' Departures from Today's Society

Scalzi, John. Lock In. Tor Books: 2014.

Buy it here starting Aug. 26th, 2014.

Seems like everything I read these days has some connection to locked-in syndrome. But in John Scalzi's futuristic mystery Lock In, there's a twist: technology has unlocked said individuals, in bizarre and interesting ways. Imagine a world where a pretty serious virus, Haden's, has killed many millions but left a few percent in what is essentially a permanent coma—but with fully functional minds. An even smaller minority, once ravaged by the disease, develop the ability to 'integrate' (that is, host) those locked in due to Haden's, essentially loaning their bodies to those trapped into permanent immobility. Additionally, technology has apparently advanced far enough to offer Haden's patients the chance to interface remotely with robotic bodies.

While you're still wrapping your mind around all these fundamental changes from the world we know, add in a murder mystery that a prominent Haden's FBI agent (or his robotic simulacrum, in any case) must solve before the entire fragile community of Haden's and Integrators is imperiled. Whew!

Is it exciting? You betcha, thanks to Scalzi's gift with snappy dialogue and no-nonsense narration of action sequences. Is it intriguing? Oh, yes—especially where Scalzi begins to speculate, via his characters' speeches and actions, on issues of legal and moral definitions of humanity and questions of ethics (particularly when Integrators are concerned). In Scalzi's vision of the future, for example, legally an attack on a robot body of a Haden's patient is considered attempted murder, even when the person's body is, of course, unharmed by whatever damage the robot suffers. Is that how I think such a future would develop, legally speaking? No...but it was certainly interesting.

Where the story feels less successful, to me, is in the sheer number of foundational changes from our own world of 2014. Call me a traditionalist, but I've always preferred a 'single tweak' model of science fiction, where things in the fictional world are pretty much like the present world, except for one giant 'what if' variable. Ursula Le Guin is the master of this mode of storytelling, as evidenced by her magisterial Left Hand of Darkness (cyclic changes in gender), or that excellent short story about a world with sixteen times as many women as men. A single change allows us, the readers, to focus all our attention on this aspect of our lives, and speculate how different things would be if that one aspect were different.

Scalzi, by contrast, has introduced a slew of what ifs, any one of which would have been more than interesting enough to hang a story around, but all of which together end up in a less thought-provoking jumble, to my mind at least. I can't say much more without ruining the mystery aspect of the story, but I can safely say that despite my reservations, Lock In is well worth reading, so you can decide for yourselves whether I'm being small-minded in not wanting so many huge variables.

NB: Just like I, Zombie, the last book I reviewed, this book should definitely be read while listening to Metallica's "One", if only for the liberating feeling of having 'solved' the problem of locked-in syndrome!

The Math

Objective assessment: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for generally great dialogue, +1 for the awesomeness of unlocking those locked in

Penalties: -1 for having too many sci fi variables all a-jumble, when any one would have done

Nerd coefficient: 7/10 "An enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws"

[Let me stop you right there, objector: here at NOAF, a 7/10 is positively great!]

Zhaoyun, passionate lover of sci fi, fantasy, and speculative fiction alike, has been flocking here at Nerds of a Feather since 2013.