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A review by qalminator
Point of Hopes by Lisa A. Barnett, Melissa Scott
4.0
Enjoyable characters and story, with a few issues.
It could have been shortened some, as there was a lot of repetition, and places where it felt like there was an unnecessary amount of detail. This is an odd thing for me to complain about, as generally I enjoy extra world-details, but this was enough that even I thought it should have been cut down.
There was something at the end that bugged me as well.
As an aside, I find it amusing to have read this right after Ninefox Gambit. Ninefox Gambit was trying to do something very similar to astrological magic, but justify it with some sort of mathematical spacetime manipulation. The astrological magic in Point of Hopes appears to work in much the same way, but it makes a lot more sense a magic than as SF.
It could have been shortened some, as there was a lot of repetition, and places where it felt like there was an unnecessary amount of detail. This is an odd thing for me to complain about, as generally I enjoy extra world-details, but this was enough that even I thought it should have been cut down.
There was something at the end that bugged me as well.
Spoiler
Timenard reveals his orrery, knowing full well that any contamination will ruin it, and doesn't have any sort of protection on it? Really? So, I can believe that it had to be revealed to use it. I can't believe that Timenard was foolish enough not to have some means of protecting it, particularly in a world with working guns. All the scene really needed was a failed shot, due to a mystic barrier or some such, then the teams' magists finding away around it or to bring it down, and then the shot to destroy it. So I'm going to pretend that's what happened, as my suspension of disbelief can't deal with it as-written.As an aside, I find it amusing to have read this right after Ninefox Gambit. Ninefox Gambit was trying to do something very similar to astrological magic, but justify it with some sort of mathematical spacetime manipulation. The astrological magic in Point of Hopes appears to work in much the same way, but it makes a lot more sense a magic than as SF.