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A review by qalminator
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi
4.0
Very enjoyable, despite a few gaping plot-holes. I enjoyed the characters enough to mentally handwave those and keep going. My favorite detail is that nearly the entire cast is female. There is one major male character (Ovie), and one minor (father of the girl Alana spoke to while scavenging for parts), and I do not recall any others. Such a refreshing change from the usual testosterone-laden characters typical of space operas.
But, about those plot holes... Major plot spoilers follow.
(1) However I try, I cannot make sense of the destruction of Adul. So, supposedly Birke did this to make sure the crew of the Tangled Axon didn't harm Nova. Um. Really? So... now Nova is on a ship with a crew wanted for genocide, and might be blown to bits by the people searching for said ship. The best easy fix for this would have been a snippet in the alternate-versions-of-people sequence, showing Birke suddenly panicking, acting, and too late realizing what a foolish thing it was to do. A better fix might have been a more minor incident, but this would have lost a lot of the emotional impact. Note: early on, I wondered if the creatures of Adul had some weird interaction with Transliminal's "tech", as it seemed utterly absurd to destroy a planet over one person; perhaps something could have been made from that.
(2) The device on the ship supposedly couldn't be taken out while in space because it would detonate in zero-G. Fine. So shouldn't they have tried to get it out once they were planet-side again? No? No one thought of this? * sigh * Now, it would have been easy enough to tie the detonation simply to removal from the ship, rather than to zero-G, without disturbing the plot-flow.
Those are the two that annoyed me the most.
But, about those plot holes... Major plot spoilers follow.
Spoiler
(1) However I try, I cannot make sense of the destruction of Adul. So, supposedly Birke did this to make sure the crew of the Tangled Axon didn't harm Nova. Um. Really? So... now Nova is on a ship with a crew wanted for genocide, and might be blown to bits by the people searching for said ship. The best easy fix for this would have been a snippet in the alternate-versions-of-people sequence, showing Birke suddenly panicking, acting, and too late realizing what a foolish thing it was to do. A better fix might have been a more minor incident, but this would have lost a lot of the emotional impact. Note: early on, I wondered if the creatures of Adul had some weird interaction with Transliminal's "tech", as it seemed utterly absurd to destroy a planet over one person; perhaps something could have been made from that.
(2) The device on the ship supposedly couldn't be taken out while in space because it would detonate in zero-G. Fine. So shouldn't they have tried to get it out once they were planet-side again? No? No one thought of this? * sigh * Now, it would have been easy enough to tie the detonation simply to removal from the ship, rather than to zero-G, without disturbing the plot-flow.
Those are the two that annoyed me the most.