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A review by kynan
Suicide Run by Nathan Lowell
2.0
TL;DR: The Renaissance-Woman vibe went too far here and made willing suspension of disbelief tragically impossible.
TL: I knew what I was getting into with this book. I am a big fan of Ishmael Wang and the original Solar Clipper series and this series very obviously shares the same basic DNA. The general synopsis of Mr Lowell's style at the back of the books states that "he paints a richly vivid and realistic world where the “hero” uses hard work and [their] own innate talents to improve [their] station and the lives of those of [their] community" - that's what I'm here for! However, Ishmael's story was a little easier to swallow. He's the ship's boy and works his way up from making coffee (soooo much coffee) through diligence, luck and perseverance to a higher rank. Nothing he does is outrageously unlikely.
Suicide Run starts out reasonably with Natalya and Zoya busy losing out in Toe Hold space to the cold hard realities of life. Through a little luck they land a job, a very interesting job, and their trajectory towards success is boosted a little. However (and this is going to be a little spoilery so maybe skip to the end of this paragraph if you don't want to know exactly what they get into) they end up working for High Tortuga and, unknowingly, as pawns in an internal battle for bureaucratic-superiority.
Despite being fresh out of the Academy, Zoya and Natalya between them display a level of business acumen and engineering nous that not only could put the combined business and engineering arms of a centuries old communications conglomerate to shame, but does. They repeatedly show up any number of execs and engineers at the jobs they're getting paid for and manage to come up with some revolutionary advances in both communications and ship-design, all whilst thwarting corporate fraud at the coalface all the way up to board-level! So, yay for them, but reallly now?
In general this felt like we went from A to B with a little too much panache and self-assurance. I'm still going to read [b:Home Run|40962187|Home Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper #3)|Nathan Lowell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532721755l/40962187._SY75_.jpg|63896419] because I like these characters and love this universe and I would like to understand exactly why these two are in the situation they're in.
TL: I knew what I was getting into with this book. I am a big fan of Ishmael Wang and the original Solar Clipper series and this series very obviously shares the same basic DNA. The general synopsis of Mr Lowell's style at the back of the books states that "he paints a richly vivid and realistic world where the “hero” uses hard work and [their] own innate talents to improve [their] station and the lives of those of [their] community" - that's what I'm here for! However, Ishmael's story was a little easier to swallow. He's the ship's boy and works his way up from making coffee (soooo much coffee) through diligence, luck and perseverance to a higher rank. Nothing he does is outrageously unlikely.
Suicide Run starts out reasonably with Natalya and Zoya busy losing out in Toe Hold space to the cold hard realities of life. Through a little luck they land a job, a very interesting job, and their trajectory towards success is boosted a little. However (and this is going to be a little spoilery so maybe skip to the end of this paragraph if you don't want to know exactly what they get into) they end up working for High Tortuga and, unknowingly, as pawns in an internal battle for bureaucratic-superiority.
Despite being fresh out of the Academy, Zoya and Natalya between them display a level of business acumen and engineering nous that not only could put the combined business and engineering arms of a centuries old communications conglomerate to shame, but does. They repeatedly show up any number of execs and engineers at the jobs they're getting paid for and manage to come up with some revolutionary advances in both communications and ship-design, all whilst thwarting corporate fraud at the coalface all the way up to board-level! So, yay for them, but reallly now?
In general this felt like we went from A to B with a little too much panache and self-assurance. I'm still going to read [b:Home Run|40962187|Home Run (Smuggler's Tales From The Golden Age Of The Solar Clipper #3)|Nathan Lowell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532721755l/40962187._SY75_.jpg|63896419] because I like these characters and love this universe and I would like to understand exactly why these two are in the situation they're in.