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tigger89's review
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Overall, I enjoyed this read. It's not a terribly optimistic piece(no, I don't consider "the children will carry on the fight" as an optimistic ending), so if you're inclined to doom I'd give this one a pass. A major focus of the work is just how badly corporations, by virtue of their very structure and motivations, can screw things up. Every time you think you've seen the worst of it, another layer peels back and oh no, there's something worse. I found the criticism to be very on-point, especially with regard to how employees will act when pressed beyond reason and how we deal(or don't deal) with surveillance. I also thoroughly enjoyed the ambiguity of how much of what happened with Mary Agnes was happenstance or her own free will, and how much was her being manipulated by the algo. Same goes for the development of the invasive algae species.
A flaw that I had a hard time looking past was the "near future" setting of this novel. The author tried very hard to avoid setting a hard "this is what year it is," but some of the early chapters had dates in them. To me, at least, things just seemed to be moving too fast, both in terms of technology(phones and space station) and climate situation. I believe the story may have been set in 2033(that date was in a computer record one of the characters opened), but that just felt too early to me, and it broke my immersion a bit.
There's a fair bit of casual background LGB rep in this. Some of the people on the station mention previous same-gender partners, and there's a gay family. However, the viewpoint characters are, to my recollection, all depicted as straight.
A flaw that I had a hard time looking past was the "near future" setting of this novel. The author tried very hard to avoid setting a hard "this is what year it is," but some of the early chapters had dates in them. To me, at least, things just seemed to be moving too fast, both in terms of technology(phones and space station) and climate situation. I believe the story may have been set in 2033(that date was in a computer record one of the characters opened), but that just felt too early to me, and it broke my immersion a bit.
There's a fair bit of casual background LGB rep in this. Some of the people on the station mention previous same-gender partners, and there's a gay family. However, the viewpoint characters are, to my recollection, all depicted as straight.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Sexual assault
Moderate: Classism, Death, and Death of parent
A character drugs high school girls to record them and produce pornography deepfakes.
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