Scan barcode
A review by mburnamfink
Red Noise by John P. Murphy
4.0
Red Noise is a workman-like adaptation of the classics that could use a little more ambition. The Miner, our nameless antihero, is back from six months filling her ship with asteroid ore, and is arriving at Station 35 for fuel, food, and a dreaded confrontation with humanity.
It turns out Station 35 is more of a shithole than most places. The Company has almost entirely pulled out, and the only going concern is a war between two gangs, overseen by the corrupt and uncaring security staff. When she's nickeled and dimed into the red, the Miner has no choice but to clean up the station by killing them all. Fortunately she's an ex-special forces badass with cybernetic implants and a katana.
So, the basic plot is Yojimbo in space, livened up by the perspective of Screwball, a low level soldier in this war. The story unfolds in expository info dumps between stabbings, as we see how the criminal community of 35 descended into war. It's pretty good, but it lacks that ineffable quality to make it great. I'd like to have seen it lean more heavily into scifi weirdness, with a war between technofanactics from Schismatrix or Revelation Space rather than gangsters, or deeper into Coen Brothers style dark farce, with the dumb desires of the cast driving the action. But hey, it's a decent way to spend a few days.
It turns out Station 35 is more of a shithole than most places. The Company has almost entirely pulled out, and the only going concern is a war between two gangs, overseen by the corrupt and uncaring security staff. When she's nickeled and dimed into the red, the Miner has no choice but to clean up the station by killing them all. Fortunately she's an ex-special forces badass with cybernetic implants and a katana.
So, the basic plot is Yojimbo in space, livened up by the perspective of Screwball, a low level soldier in this war. The story unfolds in expository info dumps between stabbings, as we see how the criminal community of 35 descended into war. It's pretty good, but it lacks that ineffable quality to make it great. I'd like to have seen it lean more heavily into scifi weirdness, with a war between technofanactics from Schismatrix or Revelation Space rather than gangsters, or deeper into Coen Brothers style dark farce, with the dumb desires of the cast driving the action. But hey, it's a decent way to spend a few days.