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A review by rochellehickey
Loki's Ring by Stina Leicht
2.0
DNF
I tried. I got 60% of the way through but could not finish. The idea is fun: a rescue mission in space! 99% female cast of characters! Diverse populations!
The downside, it wanted to hit you over the head with diverse descriptions that it completely took away from the plot and pacing of the story. It went into in-depth detail about multiple characters pronouns instead of letting it just be and letting the story flow. Page 309, for example, refers to “masculine-presenting” servers. The biggest dilemmas the characters seem to address are what someone’s pronouns are. As an example, on page 310, “She decided to stick with gender-neutral pronouns.” Every decryption of someone’s pronouns could have been added in the dialogue as “she said”, “they said”, “he said”, etc. This happens in every single chapter, multiple times. An entire paragraph was dedicated to explaining why someone’s pronouns were “they/them”.
The majority of the beginning of the book is narrative description. It repeats itself multiple times so you understand the point that AI’s are people. Star Trek does this with Data but they don’t repeat this sentiment after every commercial break to make sure you understand it.
A really exciting part happens where you see the perspective of the victims of the rescue mission and the mysterious planet they landed on. It’s fascinating and you want to stay to learn more, except it goes back into space and you don’t hear about it again. You might after page 310 but I don’t know. It’s brief and it’s what pushed me to page 310, but there was no going back to that planet in sight.
If you can get past the long drawn out descriptions then you might enjoy this book.
Thank you to Saga Press for sending me an advanced readers copy for my honest and unbiased opinion.
I tried. I got 60% of the way through but could not finish. The idea is fun: a rescue mission in space! 99% female cast of characters! Diverse populations!
The downside, it wanted to hit you over the head with diverse descriptions that it completely took away from the plot and pacing of the story. It went into in-depth detail about multiple characters pronouns instead of letting it just be and letting the story flow. Page 309, for example, refers to “masculine-presenting” servers. The biggest dilemmas the characters seem to address are what someone’s pronouns are. As an example, on page 310, “She decided to stick with gender-neutral pronouns.” Every decryption of someone’s pronouns could have been added in the dialogue as “she said”, “they said”, “he said”, etc. This happens in every single chapter, multiple times. An entire paragraph was dedicated to explaining why someone’s pronouns were “they/them”.
The majority of the beginning of the book is narrative description. It repeats itself multiple times so you understand the point that AI’s are people. Star Trek does this with Data but they don’t repeat this sentiment after every commercial break to make sure you understand it.
A really exciting part happens where you see the perspective of the victims of the rescue mission and the mysterious planet they landed on. It’s fascinating and you want to stay to learn more, except it goes back into space and you don’t hear about it again. You might after page 310 but I don’t know. It’s brief and it’s what pushed me to page 310, but there was no going back to that planet in sight.
If you can get past the long drawn out descriptions then you might enjoy this book.
Thank you to Saga Press for sending me an advanced readers copy for my honest and unbiased opinion.