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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.carireadsbooksandtarot's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I heard about this book on BookRiot’s All the Books! podcast, and thought it sounded like an entry-level sci-fi that I might enjoy. Set in the near future, Sensus, a gigantic tech company run by two sisters, is building a space station between the earth and the moon. The first residents are a team of scientists tasked with making the station habitable as Earth is ravaged by daily climate disasters. We follow several characters: Alex, a scientist working to create algae specialized for increased carbon capture, his daughter, Mary Agnes, a teenagrer trying to navigate in a world where phones are implanted aurally, and Tess, who watches their lives through their eyes in an attempt to create an algorithm for human behavior. As the story progresses, and people are both hurt and helped by technology, questions arise about the ethics of big technology.
There are no good or bad characters here, just people doing what they think is right in this completely plausible future scenario. I love a story with realistic characters relating to one another in the flawed way that we humans do. While the book brought up many questions, none of them are new to me, despite only rarely dipping my toes into science fiction. We live in a time when science fiction, depicting a vastly different existence, is set just ten or twenty years in the future. We see new technologies every day and wonder “What will they think of next?” We are inundated daily by messaging from big tech companies and the rules of social engagement online change constantly. This book could be set in the present with only a few changes. It feels familiar and its frightening.
I’m not sure this is a book that I could say I enjoyed reading. It was uncomfortable and tense. But it was also definitely engaging and thought-provoking. I think I was right in thinking it was a good entry-point into sci-fi for those like me with an interest to dip their toes in. I doubt that more experienced sci-fi fans will find much that is new here. The writing is great and the narration was enjoyable, I was able to listen at 1x speed, which is a rarity (I usually speed it up).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Death, Sexual assault, and Bullying
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