A review by ineffablebob
Deception Well by Linda Nagata

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I felt Deception Well has promise that it can't fulfill, due to a bad combination of confusing and boring. The beginning is promising enough, with the protagonist Lot taking part in an assault with his father's army, headed through the space-elevator-city of Silk to the planet below. They fail, Lot and half the army is captured, his father is lost, and then there's a ten year gap. And this is where the boring comes in, as the rest of the first half of the book is taken up with Lot and friends in Silk trying to fit in, find out what happened to his father, and eventually escaping. This entire section feels like about 2 chapters of content stretched into half a book, taking forever before the story started moving again. Which it does, turning into an adventure as Lot finally gets out of Silk and explores the planet, discovering what exists there and even answering some of the mystery of what happened to his father. But through this whole section, it's hard to understand what's actually happening, because it depends on centuries of history that is only hinted at throughout the book. I think by the end I finally figured out what "Hallowed Vasties" and "Chenzeme" and similar terms were referring to, but it's never clearly explained to the reader and the characters themselves seem to have only a foggy idea. There's certainly some interesting world-building along the way, with people who live effectively forever due to medical nanotechnology, and the resulting societal implications and resource constraints and new kinds of disease. I just wish the story told in that world was related in a more coherent and concise way.