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lesserjoke 's review for:
Noumenon
by Marina J. Lostetter
I've enjoyed much of this novel's middle sections, but the beginning is boilerplate sci-fi, and I'm not quite satisfied by the rather abrupt and open ending. It's the story of an interstellar fleet launched to investigate a strange object detected in deep space, a journey that will take more than a century at relativistic speeds and almost ten times as long for the population left on earth -- plus the same on the voyage back. The hook here is that each chapter leaps forward to a new generation, and the ship culture undergoes some interesting fluctuations and mission creep over that span, especially once they lose contact with the homeworld. I'm reminded of titles like A Canticle for Leibowitz or The Years of Rice and Salt, which similarly build up and discard multiple eras across the length of their narratives. All crew members in this tale are clones as well, inviting the reader to consider nature-versus-nurture issues as identical gene blueprints surface as successive figures throughout the text.
There's a lot to dig into and appreciate in that premise, but not every individual protagonist and subplot is equally engaging, and the larger thematic thrust of the work is somewhat hazy for me. I expect the sequels will continue jumping further into the future and eventually reveal more about the alien artifact and its creators, but without the continuity of characters beyond the shipboard A.I., I'm not sure I'm invested enough in that storyline to stick with the series and find out.
[Content warning for slavery and mention of rape.]
[I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke !]
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There's a lot to dig into and appreciate in that premise, but not every individual protagonist and subplot is equally engaging, and the larger thematic thrust of the work is somewhat hazy for me. I expect the sequels will continue jumping further into the future and eventually reveal more about the alien artifact and its creators, but without the continuity of characters beyond the shipboard A.I., I'm not sure I'm invested enough in that storyline to stick with the series and find out.
[Content warning for slavery and mention of rape.]
[I read and reviewed this title at a Patreon donor’s request. Want to nominate your own books for me to read and review (or otherwise support my writing)? Sign up for a small monthly donation today at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke !]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter