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A review by sstorm548
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro
2.0
I was back and forth on this book as I read through it. There are two major sci-fi premises; the first, the idea of telepathy based on empathy and enhanced by some generic tech, was pretty interesting and well-applied throughout the book. It’s neatly tied to major plot points and had the effect of drawing the reader pleasantly into the story on an emotional level. The second, the “inversion” tech that hand-waves away the speed-of-light limitation, was a big miss. It essentially boils down to “hey, you can go faster than the speed of light if you just increase the value of c!” Not exactly that, but close enough. People familiar with the basic physics might be bothered by it.
The story’s pacing is uneven and the exposition is clumsy. The beginning and end of the book are exciting, but the middle drags. The reader is continually hit over the head with chunks of text explaining insignificant parts of the universe (Asaro seems to particularly enjoy envisioning user interfaces and holograms and generic computer programs). Emotions of major characters are explained at length, which comes across as amateurish in the writing. The ending is something that readers will see coming and leaves the more interesting threads of the plot unaddressed.
That last paragraph may be a bit hard on the book. Parts of it were exciting and like I said, the premise is interesting. People with less stringent standards on the science in their sci-fi and who appreciate an easy read with a little mindless action and romance might enjoy the book more than I did.
The story’s pacing is uneven and the exposition is clumsy. The beginning and end of the book are exciting, but the middle drags. The reader is continually hit over the head with chunks of text explaining insignificant parts of the universe (Asaro seems to particularly enjoy envisioning user interfaces and holograms and generic computer programs). Emotions of major characters are explained at length, which comes across as amateurish in the writing. The ending is something that readers will see coming and leaves the more interesting threads of the plot unaddressed.
That last paragraph may be a bit hard on the book. Parts of it were exciting and like I said, the premise is interesting. People with less stringent standards on the science in their sci-fi and who appreciate an easy read with a little mindless action and romance might enjoy the book more than I did.