Roger Levy (1)

4,8 stars

This is the best book I've read so far in 2019 and I have no idea how I'm supposed to write a review for it. Maybe I'll take the coward's way out and go with a simple list:

- I loved the writing, which was vivid yet easy to read
- The book throws you into the deep end and expects you to either sink or swim with absolutely no flotation devices
- The world is imaginative, original, and a little bit scifi noir (is that a thing?)
- The characters feel real, even though most of them are extreme and implausible
- No one's exactly good in this book, but they still have you on their side
- I had my mind screech to a halt on several occasions when the plot did not go at all where I expected it to
- Yet by the end there was a big plot twist that I did catch on to, and thus didn't have the desired shock value
- The story was so incredibly well constructed from beginning to end, that I feel like this will be a definite re-read in the future

What I don't understand is how this book isn't more popular. A definite hidden gem.… (meer)

Clever science fiction, well done. Two very different threads of characters are interleaved and only join together very close to the end of the story in an unexpected twist. There's a bit of clever wordplay and devolution of the language but only in a few terms, which are easy to understand.

Alef has a very faculty for numbers and computing, but living on an extremist religious planet leaves him with little opportunity to exercise his talent. He helps his father run a small shop and lives in as much contentment as the strict rules allow, with little knowledge of the wider universe, as such questions are heresy. The arrival of Pollenarc, a very rare immigrant upsets matters to a small degree, but routine quickly re-establishes itself. Years pass and then suddenly his family are attacked, Pollenarcs mum is killed, and the pair flee into space where alef learns that there are many forces acting over which he'd had no prior comprehension and hadn't allowed for in his calculations.

Meanwhile (ish) Razor is a writer for one of the Para-sites from Afterlife the social media platform of the System - all teraformed planets settled after Earth's diaspora made such homes as they could. She talks to interesting people (as defined by her AI guide) and learns their life stories to add hope to those seeking to some of the few who can be resurrected - for all people die, and even now the life expectancy isn't much about 50. She's been sent to the planet Bleak, only poorly formed with dramatic winds and raging seas. Here miners extract vital elements and also safeguard those people in suspension awaiting chances of return. Her assignation is one Bale, a police officer (Pax - keeper of the peace) who has a dangerous hobby and a somewhat one track mind when it comes to corruption and gangs.

As you get further and further along the two storylines I really couldnt' see how they were going to converge, even though a few hints started to be dropped. The revelation about 3/4 in was very well done, the remaining consequences worked out more or less as expected. There's some neat commentary on religions and technology and interesting thoughts of death resurrection and the like. This is what the best science fiction does - tells a story and makes you think. It is long and fairly slow paced, with a number of unpleasant characters and societies, but well worth persevering with.

Proper science fiction! very impressed.… (meer)