Melissa Scott (1) (1960–)

There are the recently, uncomfortably reunited trio of salvagers, two layers of Ancient space civilizations, the remnants of 2 dark times and a baddy who is after the same relicts as the good gang, but for civilization destroying purposes. Just over the edge of interesting enough except during the too frequent navigational sequences which are burdened with techno-garble.
Physically, the trade paperback that had been bound for library use with clear stiff covers was difficult to hold, sharp edged and pointy cornered.… (meer)

Back in the 1990s, there was a time when I considered Melissa Scott appointment reading, when she was writing space fiction with a filigree of cyberpunk. Situations change though and Scott fell out of my reading rotation, mostly because I don't read tie-in novels and Scott's idea of fantasy didn't appeal to me.

Flash forward 30 or so years, and one day I was wondering what Scott has been up to, in part when thinking about a constellation of female writers from the 1990s who are either out of circulation, or are no longer with us, and discovered "The Order of the Air." My thought being this should be right up my alley.

Unfortunately, the execution did not match my hopes. The high concept is cool. The prose is better than workmanlike. The characters are at least acceptable. The big problem is that this story has all the narrative snap of a wet noodle. I plowed through it but the overall execution doesn't make me want to rush right out and hunt down the rest of the series. To put it another way, all the components were there for a thriller, or a story of gothic atmosphere, but Mmes Scott & Graham just didn't seem to have that sort of novel in them, and that's unfortunate. Silvia Moreno-Garcia would have had a field day with this material.

My final thought is that narrative drive might always have been a problem with Scott's novels, even in her prime writing for Tor, and that's why I don't remember those novels better.… (meer)