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evan_j_dove_007's review
2.0
So, a few base observations first. You can tell that this is a first book. The author is quite intelligent. I’m not sure that it’s particularly good.
Those aside, this is definitely a book that suffers rather than benefits from being “real” or “hard” science fiction. The explanation of neural phenomenon and his descriptions of neurochemistry are largely correct, albeit exaggerated in effect. This can be chalked up to future society achieving what we can only imagine etc. However, it’s hard to read. Like, really hard. I understand what he’s talking about (at least somewhat) and I found it a pain. And it doesn’t really need to be there. The book is essentially an allegory for war and the military industrial complex, which the author basically states outright towards the very end of the book. The revelation made the whole book seem rather pointless. Obviously you had some societal critiques throughout the whole work, and you could tell Quasar was being taken advantage of by her guardian. Hell, even the crazy sadist aunt fit the story of corrupting power, all the more relevant as we learn more and more about how sick some of the people who run our world are, a la Epstein. But then over the course of a few pages and an admittedly mediocre hallucination sequence he turns it into something about the military industrial complex and the cosmic proliferation of evil? If that’s the point he wanted to make he should have done it sooner because entwining it with a massive, poorly defined twist at the end makes the entire rest of the story seem trite and unneeded. There were bits where the security guards actions obviously were meant to let us decry the control over our lives that the government has, but the ending takes it way further with literally no sound basis in my opinion. I don’t mind Deus Ex Machinas. Life is by and large governed by chance, sometimes we are saved randomly by a conveniently unstable rock formation, and sometimes there is just randomly a gun lying around when the bad guy tries to get you. But binding up what seems to be the chief theme of your work into a complete D.E.M. at the very end of the book is just poor writing.
Those aside, this is definitely a book that suffers rather than benefits from being “real” or “hard” science fiction. The explanation of neural phenomenon and his descriptions of neurochemistry are largely correct, albeit exaggerated in effect. This can be chalked up to future society achieving what we can only imagine etc. However, it’s hard to read. Like, really hard. I understand what he’s talking about (at least somewhat) and I found it a pain. And it doesn’t really need to be there. The book is essentially an allegory for war and the military industrial complex, which the author basically states outright towards the very end of the book. The revelation made the whole book seem rather pointless. Obviously you had some societal critiques throughout the whole work, and you could tell Quasar was being taken advantage of by her guardian. Hell, even the crazy sadist aunt fit the story of corrupting power, all the more relevant as we learn more and more about how sick some of the people who run our world are, a la Epstein. But then over the course of a few pages and an admittedly mediocre hallucination sequence he turns it into something about the military industrial complex and the cosmic proliferation of evil? If that’s the point he wanted to make he should have done it sooner because entwining it with a massive, poorly defined twist at the end makes the entire rest of the story seem trite and unneeded. There were bits where the security guards actions obviously were meant to let us decry the control over our lives that the government has, but the ending takes it way further with literally no sound basis in my opinion. I don’t mind Deus Ex Machinas. Life is by and large governed by chance, sometimes we are saved randomly by a conveniently unstable rock formation, and sometimes there is just randomly a gun lying around when the bad guy tries to get you. But binding up what seems to be the chief theme of your work into a complete D.E.M. at the very end of the book is just poor writing.
snood's review
4.0
A strange and muddied allegory about the dangers of discrimination told through a cyberpunk adventure of androids, mutants, and sewer people? Sign me up!
Seeing two of the top reviews being so low, I expected a much worse book. Many of their criticisms are valid: the psychological babble is a bit too prevalent and the ending is kind of a deus ex machina, but I still found it to be a fun sci-fi adventure if you’re into pulpier genre fiction.
Seeing two of the top reviews being so low, I expected a much worse book. Many of their criticisms are valid: the psychological babble is a bit too prevalent and the ending is kind of a deus ex machina, but I still found it to be a fun sci-fi adventure if you’re into pulpier genre fiction.
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