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mordshunger's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
We are in the prosperous future and the MC has a PhD, but doesn't know what a coming out is. Hmmm.
The eugenics stuff was weirdly implemented and not explored in depth, but comes with the territory of the premise. The premise is definitely not explained or explored enough. They just say "this is the greatest idea" and that's it.
The sudden slavery was disgusting, unappealing, underexplored and not foreshadowed in the slightest. I found it entirely unbelievable, especially in a fictional society like this. They are all selected to be community oriented, empathetic and balanced. They are socialised to value the merit for the community above all. They are highly technical and have all possible know how. There is little reason why they wouldn't just mine themselves. Build mining bots. Spend five years after the planned retirement mining. Anything but this disgusting mess.
I wouldn't say this is hard sci Fi. It doesn't feel like it takes its premise all that seriously and wobbles between genetic determinism being real or not. Everything has to be explained to you in plain text. God help us if there was to be lively and believable dialogue without exposition! Who ever heard of such a thing... The more you think about all the assumptions here the more you'll go crazy. Imagine earth sending space ships out. Would they just sit idly and not continue space travel and science for TWO THOUSAND years?! Why would they? One shot and that's it? Ridiculous, and never addressed. The ending was a big fat letdown. This book is great at waving something puzzling in your face and NEVER giving you a chance to figure it out yourself. There are no satisfying answers given for anything. This feels a lot like a piece of fanfiction that just pitches a bunch of ideas to itself and then abandons all ambition to do something with them. I rage read the last fifth.
The sudden slavery was disgusting, unappealing, underexplored and not foreshadowed in the slightest. I found it entirely unbelievable, especially in a fictional society like this. They are all selected to be community oriented, empathetic and balanced. They are socialised to value the merit for the community above all. They are highly technical and have all possible know how. There is little reason why they wouldn't just mine themselves. Build mining bots. Spend five years after the planned retirement mining. Anything but this disgusting mess.
I wouldn't say this is hard sci Fi. It doesn't feel like it takes its premise all that seriously and wobbles between genetic determinism being real or not. Everything has to be explained to you in plain text. God help us if there was to be lively and believable dialogue without exposition! Who ever heard of such a thing... The more you think about all the assumptions here the more you'll go crazy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Slavery, Police brutality, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Violence, Racism, and Racial slurs
taaya's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
While the style itself is easy to read, the book has so many problems.
Let's start with the major one, that kept me reading in the hopes that at some point the social commentary will focus on that:
THIS BOOK DESCRIBES GENOCIDE ON DISABLED PEOPLE LIKE THAT'S A RATIONAL THING TO DO!
Great, they wanted to have diversity, they have queer people (though only binaries?), they have a multitude of ethnicities. As long as they're the leading experts in something, they're welcome.
Except for disabled people??? Suddenly, with disability, it's irrelevant what a person could do or be. They're not chosen for the mission. And worse, if a disability, a mental or chronic physical illness is found in one of the clones, their lines are being discontinued. And a person who gets disabled or chronically ill during their life is murdered even earlier than usual - because EVERYONE gets murdered before they get old. No retirement, nothing.
They are being bred to work, nothing else. This society is the wet dream of an ultra-capitalist. And still they all like it? Yes, because they're brainwashed into liking it, but in so many generations nobody breaks free of the brainwashing process on a societal basis and not just "Oh no, you killed my found family-grandpa"?
This is so BEYOND dystopian, and still we are supposed to be sympathetic towards the crew?
Okay, but on to other issues: No redundancies. They have separate ships for separate departments - but only one of each? Wtf?!
And then the cloning thing. How the hell did that work? Like... The clones have different personalities, love different people than their former or later iterations. And still they are supposed to not only like the same job, but also have the same talents, for 10+ iterations? A job isn't a genetical thing!
And then the mission itself. They knew it would take them two thousand earth years. The roman empire is closer to us than that. What the hell did they expect would happen during that time? That the earth would stagnate? We even lack historical documents to help understand people only two hundred years ago. How did they not consider what might happen on earth while the mission was on their way, BEFORE starting the mission?
None of this makes any sense!
(Which kinda makes it human, I guess. It sounds like something as ignorant as what our species likes to do. But if you wanna portray how bullshitty of a species we are, at least make clear that you are criticising it, and not actually think what your characters do makes any sense.)
Let's start with the major one, that kept me reading in the hopes that at some point the social commentary will focus on that:
THIS BOOK DESCRIBES GENOCIDE ON DISABLED PEOPLE LIKE THAT'S A RATIONAL THING TO DO!
Great, they wanted to have diversity, they have queer people (though only binaries?), they have a multitude of ethnicities. As long as they're the leading experts in something, they're welcome.
Except for disabled people??? Suddenly, with disability, it's irrelevant what a person could do or be. They're not chosen for the mission. And worse, if a disability, a mental or chronic physical illness is found in one of the clones, their lines are being discontinued. And a person who gets disabled or chronically ill during their life is murdered even earlier than usual - because EVERYONE gets murdered before they get old. No retirement, nothing.
They are being bred to work, nothing else. This society is the wet dream of an ultra-capitalist. And still they all like it? Yes, because they're brainwashed into liking it, but in so many generations nobody breaks free of the brainwashing process on a societal basis and not just "Oh no, you killed my found family-grandpa"?
This is so BEYOND dystopian, and still we are supposed to be sympathetic towards the crew?
Okay, but on to other issues: No redundancies. They have separate ships for separate departments - but only one of each? Wtf?!
And then the cloning thing. How the hell did that work? Like... The clones have different personalities, love different people than their former or later iterations. And still they are supposed to not only like the same job, but also have the same talents, for 10+ iterations? A job isn't a genetical thing!
And then the mission itself. They knew it would take them two thousand earth years. The roman empire is closer to us than that. What the hell did they expect would happen during that time? That the earth would stagnate? We even lack historical documents to help understand people only two hundred years ago. How did they not consider what might happen on earth while the mission was on their way, BEFORE starting the mission?
None of this makes any sense!
(Which kinda makes it human, I guess. It sounds like something as ignorant as what our species likes to do. But if you wanna portray how bullshitty of a species we are, at least make clear that you are criticising it, and not actually think what your characters do makes any sense.)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Slavery, Genocide, Suicide, Ableism, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Alcohol, Violence, Torture, and Classism
onthesamepage's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
It has honestly been a really long time since I've read a hard scifi that was this compelling. The premise of the book is that a scientist discovers a mysterious object in space, and humans plan a mission to investigate it. Because of how far it is, they end up sending clones. I wasn't sure I would even finish this book when I started--looking at my track record for hard scifi this year, there have been mostly misses. But I think the reason this worked for me, is because it's not so much about the destination, but the journey.
We operated that way because that's the way many Earth societies operated--they didn't respond to potential tragedy, only actualized tragedy. Once we could make our own laws we needed to abandon those ways. We were no longer bound to Earth by its gravity, why should we remain bound by its customs?
This book focuses a lot on characters, relationships, and what a society in space would look like. How communities would evolve. What traditions, rules, and laws would they retain from Earth, and what would inevitably end up changing. If you have finite resources, how do you make sure you don't run out because of population growth? How could AIs develop? What problems might they run into, despite the careful selection of the genes that should go on this journey? And the exploration was fascinating to me. All the scenarios the author came up with felt plausible, even if they were hard to swallow sometimes.
The way it's structured allows us to follow many points of view, without it ever feeling overwhelming. This includes the world building, which is one of my most common complaints when it comes to scifi. But I thought everything was very well explained; you don't always get the answers right away, but you also don't have to wait half a book for them. Things progress slowly but steadily, and each perspective is a jump forward in time, and a jump forward in the development of their society, which means we get to learn a bunch of new things about the challenges they face and how they deal with them.
The last chunk of the book didn't work as well for me. I know it's a series, but I don't feel like I need to know more about the mysterious object than I do now. The journey to get there was enough.
I'm ending this review with two of my favourite quotes, hidden under a spoiler tag because they are definitely spoilers:
The prisoners were all criminals, but not a one knew what his or her crime had been--just that it was a crime in their genes, not one they'd enacted themselves.
and
"You realize this isn't a homecoming, don't you?" he said sternly.
"I know," she said, running a hand through her hair. "It's First Contact."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery
Moderate: Suicide
CWs:bookcaptivated's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Suicide
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, and Police brutality
Minor: Blood and Confinement
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