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A review by anatoli
Body Suit by Suzanne Hagelin
2.0
I had high expectations starting this book. These hopes were dashed within the first quarter of the story. My key complaint is that not enough work went into the planning and execution. The idea for the story is good, but focus is lost almost immediately. I found that it seemed to be a series of little vignettes that were barely held together because they happened in the same place of to the couple of main characters.
Characters seemed to come out of nowhere, have a few actions or lines in a chapter, then disappear. There were few descriptions of these characters, but nothing that made me care much for them. At the end of the story I knew next to nothing about the main characters. The antagonists all turned out to be generically physically ugly and easy to figure out that they were up to no good. Even the AI lacked any clear, consistent motivation. We needed more backstory or context to cheer for the heroes and hate the villains.
The science wasn’t too bad. There were a few good ideas, but in many cases, these tended to be lost because they lacked any link to the story, other than they were an event that happened. The suit itself, sort of the sidekick character, was perhaps too powerful. It’s AI would figure something out, or some feature would save the protagonist, but the opportunity to follow it up, or make it mean something to the story was often missed. Even the cataclysmic events just sort of happened, no reason given, and no follow up explanations.
On the positive side, a lot of imagination and ideas when into the book. My hope is that, in the future, the author will improve the organization and characters in her stories. Two of five on Goodreads.
Characters seemed to come out of nowhere, have a few actions or lines in a chapter, then disappear. There were few descriptions of these characters, but nothing that made me care much for them. At the end of the story I knew next to nothing about the main characters. The antagonists all turned out to be generically physically ugly and easy to figure out that they were up to no good. Even the AI lacked any clear, consistent motivation. We needed more backstory or context to cheer for the heroes and hate the villains.
The science wasn’t too bad. There were a few good ideas, but in many cases, these tended to be lost because they lacked any link to the story, other than they were an event that happened. The suit itself, sort of the sidekick character, was perhaps too powerful. It’s AI would figure something out, or some feature would save the protagonist, but the opportunity to follow it up, or make it mean something to the story was often missed. Even the cataclysmic events just sort of happened, no reason given, and no follow up explanations.
On the positive side, a lot of imagination and ideas when into the book. My hope is that, in the future, the author will improve the organization and characters in her stories. Two of five on Goodreads.