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A review by vickycbooks
Rise of the Red Hand by Olivia Chadha
I was debating whether or not to write a review because, to be completely frank, I was pretty let down by RISE OF THE RED HAND.
It had potential--the underlying story of rebellion, class conflict, corrupt systems in politics and science were all inherently interesting. There's mechas! And hacking! What was happening in the world was interesting.
But the presentation of the underlying story just kind of muddled the essence of it, and made it difficult to understand and not as engaging as it should have been.
The worldbuilding was not to my taste. I'm not sure what really happened in the first half of the novel, and I genuinely feel like the story would have benefited a lot from being presented to us a little differently. Maybe if it began further along into the action and divulged information about the world as it becomes necessary. Starting the story when Kid Synth is Riz-Ali is taking the hacking challenge, and when the Narrows is being attacked.
It felt like the beginning was so broad, almost in that detached, adult sci-fi storytelling way. And that would have been fine, except it never fully committed to the more broad style. RISE OF THE RED HAND never really told the history of the world linearly in one place, and that's part of why it was so confusing in the beginning. It tried to fit it all into the current storyline.
We get repeated references to the world's history, but nothing direct enough that a casual reader can easily pick together. There's WWIII, the New Treaty, the Great Migration, something about a rare resource neo-something, a past nuclear conflict between America and the Middle East, a space colony, a pandemic, PAC (I still don't know what this stands for), the different places (Liminal? Narrows? Central? Rings?) and so much more. It's just so much background information, and it was just really difficult for me to get a clear sense of what was happening.
Maybe someone smarter & more dedicated than I am was able to get a better sense of it, but I felt like it could have been condensed more. Told on a need-to-know basis. The name of the resource kind of gets lost along the story, turning into "rare resources," and a lot of the history was never really relevant to the central story of Ashiva & the Red Hand.
I'm sure Chadha had reasons for doing things this way, but unfortunately it didn't work for me.
The actual meat of the story (especially everything happening from when Ashiva and Riz-Ali meet at the 50% mark) was a lot more clear--not the background info, but what was happening in the present. There's an infiltration plot and multiple rebellious movements happening. There's actions and fighting giant mechas.
And only near the end did I begin to fully understand the emotional notes of Ashiva & her little sister Taru's relationship, which could have been played up a lot more to be super evocative.
I think RISE OF THE RED HAND had so much potential, but something about the framing and worldbuilding posed a huge roadblock that I feel is stopping readers from understanding the heart of the story, the connections that are happening with Ashiva and Riz-Ali, Ashiva and her sister, Ashiva and her questionable mentor figure. These all got lost in the world and that was the biggest disappointment for me.
Content Warnings:
Also, quick pet peeve.
I wasn't a huge fan of how Chadha split the world into provinces—I understand why it was done, in a way, but I still wish this part of the worldbuilding was done differently. I was both a little unsettled by how large some of the regions were (Africa is just one large "African Province"? When it's like 30% larger with almost 2x as many people as North America?) as well as unsatisfied with how the regions were named.
Why is there an "American Province" and a "South American Province"? Wouldn't it be better than to say "North (or North and Central) American Province" instead? And why is there an "Asian Province" which is different from the "South Asian Province" and the "East Asian Province"?
Is this just ARC inconsistency (the "East Asian Province" is never mentioned until past the 3/4 mark of the story), or is the worldbuilding super sloppy? I can't tell.
It had potential--the underlying story of rebellion, class conflict, corrupt systems in politics and science were all inherently interesting. There's mechas! And hacking! What was happening in the world was interesting.
But the presentation of the underlying story just kind of muddled the essence of it, and made it difficult to understand and not as engaging as it should have been.
The worldbuilding was not to my taste. I'm not sure what really happened in the first half of the novel, and I genuinely feel like the story would have benefited a lot from being presented to us a little differently. Maybe if it began further along into the action and divulged information about the world as it becomes necessary. Starting the story when Kid Synth is Riz-Ali is taking the hacking challenge, and when the Narrows is being attacked.
It felt like the beginning was so broad, almost in that detached, adult sci-fi storytelling way. And that would have been fine, except it never fully committed to the more broad style. RISE OF THE RED HAND never really told the history of the world linearly in one place, and that's part of why it was so confusing in the beginning. It tried to fit it all into the current storyline.
We get repeated references to the world's history, but nothing direct enough that a casual reader can easily pick together. There's WWIII, the New Treaty, the Great Migration, something about a rare resource neo-something, a past nuclear conflict between America and the Middle East, a space colony, a pandemic, PAC (I still don't know what this stands for), the different places (Liminal? Narrows? Central? Rings?) and so much more. It's just so much background information, and it was just really difficult for me to get a clear sense of what was happening.
Maybe someone smarter & more dedicated than I am was able to get a better sense of it, but I felt like it could have been condensed more. Told on a need-to-know basis. The name of the resource kind of gets lost along the story, turning into "rare resources," and a lot of the history was never really relevant to the central story of Ashiva & the Red Hand.
I'm sure Chadha had reasons for doing things this way, but unfortunately it didn't work for me.
The actual meat of the story (especially everything happening from when Ashiva and Riz-Ali meet at the 50% mark) was a lot more clear--not the background info, but what was happening in the present. There's an infiltration plot and multiple rebellious movements happening. There's actions and fighting giant mechas.
And only near the end did I begin to fully understand the emotional notes of Ashiva & her little sister Taru's relationship, which could have been played up a lot more to be super evocative.
I think RISE OF THE RED HAND had so much potential, but something about the framing and worldbuilding posed a huge roadblock that I feel is stopping readers from understanding the heart of the story, the connections that are happening with Ashiva and Riz-Ali, Ashiva and her sister, Ashiva and her questionable mentor figure. These all got lost in the world and that was the biggest disappointment for me.
Content Warnings:
Spoiler
violence, class-conflict, genocide, death & murder, hostage, medical experimentation, body horror (mechas & cyborgs), use of ableist slurs (lame & dumb, casually by a minor-character), use of "obese" in the narration onceAlso, quick pet peeve.
I wasn't a huge fan of how Chadha split the world into provinces—I understand why it was done, in a way, but I still wish this part of the worldbuilding was done differently. I was both a little unsettled by how large some of the regions were (Africa is just one large "African Province"? When it's like 30% larger with almost 2x as many people as North America?) as well as unsatisfied with how the regions were named.
Why is there an "American Province" and a "South American Province"? Wouldn't it be better than to say "North (or North and Central) American Province" instead? And why is there an "Asian Province" which is different from the "South Asian Province" and the "East Asian Province"?
Is this just ARC inconsistency (the "East Asian Province" is never mentioned until past the 3/4 mark of the story), or is the worldbuilding super sloppy? I can't tell.