uneven inventiveness ( )

Book club pick ;)

Gorgeous writing that slowly drowns in plot and character issues.

Let me elaborate.

The first chapter is full of magic of words. There is a life well lived, a life of love and loss, of longing and dreams. “This is going to be a wonderful book,” I thought.

Then the tone changed, and I was on a spaceship full of broken people with broken things in their past. I liked how the relationship between Nia and the boy developed, “…drawing out the moment when she would throw open the hatch, delighting in the fact that on the other side was a person who could not wait to see her.” I did not quite believe in Nia as a captain of a starship – not with the relationships she has with some of her crew, the unhealthy friendships. It seems to me that the unhealthy friendship was there simply so that the author could write a strong emotional scene a couple of chapters later – and then that character was just gone, never to be seen again. But why?

Next chapter: Enter Fumiko, the crazy genius with poor people skills and a great backstory. All well and good, but in these first few chapters it feels like the author lets you fall in love with a chapter universe, and then dumps you rather rudely into another one.

I enjoyed the different POV’s once the stakes became clear. Unfortunately, I found Debby’s journey mostly uninteresting, there were just a few great scenes and conversations that moved me. Found family is a wonderful thing, but I didn’t see it happening – we are just told that it happened. This sort of thing annoys me ;)

The last third of the book is rushed. The plot stutters and rambles, things are left hanging, and some of them are just there for the drama. Evil corporation is doing horrific things that have no logic to them. Because they are eeeeevil, don’t you know?

How can a stranded starship have enough food for four months and one month of air? Let’s have some suffocating drama, that’s how. Then there is the poor, poor traitor feeling oh so guilty – but could you please tell me what’s the point of a betrayal if the one you really wanted to betray might never find out that it was you or why you did it? Gaaah. The traitor wants redemption, but naturally, there is none, in a rather anticlimactic manner. But whyyyy? The writing is beautiful throughout, though.

One of the things that annoyed me the most was that the eeeeevil corporation that has existed for thousands of years has not heard of cloning or molecular biology in general. I would like to state that even in our day and age there would have been no need for the cannibalistic stuff the eeeeevil corporation did. I know, I know they are eeeevil, that’s why. (*My eye is beginning to twitch.*)

The very long ending felt like a combination of fantasy, acid trip and deus ex machina. (I have so many questions about the latter…)

What a long rant, lol. I do feel that this author is talented and I am slightly curious about his second novel. Maybe there will be fewer plot issues there? Perhaps I will find out…
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Whether the impact is on an individual's life or on a planet's culture the Umbai corporation blights aspirations across interstellar distances from it's origins on earth to the stations it controls and the planet it isolates in order to exploit for a millennium.

Fumiko is the scientist who has sacrificed the core of her life to designing stations for Umbai and wants to find the way around it's stranglehold on pocket space travel which requires travelers to live at relativistic speeds while touching planets at years long local intervals. Nai is the ship captain who makes a connection with a boy who appeared mysteriously on an exploited planet and who chooses to accept Fumiko's offer to spend years outside Umbai's sphere in the hope that he is the one who embodies the secrets of Jaunting, instantaneous star travel.

This felt like a tribute and extraction of such disparate mid-20th century authors as LeGuin and Blish and others as well, presented through 21st century relentlessly anti-corporate filters. I found the mythic language wearying when it went on at length. ( )

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/qhEIfjdR0Xg

Enjoy! ( )

I liked the first part, and a lot more than the middle which was passable. The ending was very very grim and crushing though. No thank you.
The last portion eventually reads like an attempt at a story in prose poetry. It is a style I dislike in my fiction. The ending tone with most all the characters dying is far to dark for me even if ‘oh hey this awful company was destroyed surely’. In so many sections and so many ways the writing style shifts again and again.
I probably should have expected this when the writer thought having the old hunter go off to fight (be eaten by) the monster was a good idea after she helped Ahro. Ugh ( )