The
2015 Hugo Awards are upon us! The nominees for this year are listed here and
as the deadline for voting approaches I will be supplementing my usual reading
and reviewing to specifically review the 2015 Hugo nominees I have not yet
covered.
Eligibility:
Eligible for 2015 Hugo in the category of Novelette
Status:
Nominated
This
is the editorial voice review. The reader's voice review is forthcoming.
(for info on what this means, see here)
First thoughts
I
will confess I came to this slightly biased as I’ve seen some of Rajnar Vajra’s
space-operaesque work before and was looking forward to it. High expectations may have spoiled me for
this particular story. From the perspective
of basics, it was light fun with a dash of SF puzzle, which is usually a good
formula for a story - however, there are elements that grate and annoy, and
even on a first reading I can see a couple of ways in which a major rewrite
would significantly improve it. The universe created for background and the
basic elements of the plot are deeply reminiscent of classic pulp SF combined
with a healthy dash of hard SF's scientific speculation – definitely in a good
way. The ideas played with are intriguing, but problems with the plot, the
characters and even the writing overshadow them.
Ideas
The
author has clearly put a lot of work into thinking out how the universe in
which this story plays out works. The
tech speculation itself isn't particularly novel, but the way it's engaged is
interesting and in the hoary old tradition of hard SF world-builders like Niven
the tech and the science work together as parts of the puzzle the protagonist
is faced with. Likewise, the author
speculates as to how things would look in a future where both Venus and Mars
are colonized and interstellar exploration possible. How would we handle the
unimagined dangers of far worlds? What would an agency devoted just to
exploring the galaxy look like? How would human society develop under these
conditions? Sadly, while we are given enough snapshots to orient ourselves in
the author's universe we don't really get to see much of it. This isn't such a
big problem, since the story isn't about these questions, but exploring them
just a little further would have added versimitude to a setting that, as it
stands, feels rather like it lives in cartoon panels but has been robbed of the
accompanying illustration.
Writing
The
pacing is good, and the author works hard to provide a consistent tone from
start to finish. Sadly, in broader terms the story suffers from some serious
issues. First of all is the strictly
formulaic structure of the story - cadets of an elite squad have a run-in with
more mundane military types, and the resulting punishment presents them with a
puzzle they're uniquely suited to solve, which they do and in the process
vindicate themselves. While there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this plot,
to use it so bluntly and without really infusing it with anything new seems
lazy, and contributes to the sense of unreality - I always knew in general
terms what was going to happen next and more or less how it would turn out.
This is annoying in TV shows, and doubly so when you come across it reading. On
top of this, while the author clearly knows where he's going (how could he
/not/?) He sometimes seems to lose track and is forced to impose awkward (and
unbelievable) course corrections. The opening brawl? (Which was obviously
coming the minute "odd couple team of elite cadets looking for a bar"
came up) Fine. Dragged in front of the commandant for punishment? The author
goes to great lengths to tell us this is odd - this is already skirting the
edges of believability, how in the world does he expect us to believe the
punishment? And the shipboard arrangements once they get their
reward/punishment? Similar twists of fate or fortuitous details he had
forgotten to mention previously drag us kicking and screaming down a path that
simultaneously adheres to tried and true formula /and/ makes no sense. Make no
mistake: each phase of the story is well written and internally consistent, and
the way the necessary hints to solve the puzzle are dropped in each phase is a
pleasingly old-school style of SF mystery. But the transitions and contortions
needed to tie the phases together make for a very rickety structure indeed. The
author tries to shore things up with exposition, but the way events have been
ordered forces him to use an encyclopedic approach. Not necessarily a serious
problem in a story of this type, but it makes a whole section into a series of
entries that makes on think it might have been more efficient to just point us
to the wiki.
Characterization
To
be honest, in a SF mystery tale built on a formula and featuring elite cadets
on a reluctant mission I don't expect or really even need much in the way of
character development - such stories aren't really about the characters anyway,
so you can get away with a few cardboard cutouts of archetypes you think your
audience should be able to imagine as themselves - that's the point here, after
all, to present a story where the readers can inject themselves to take part in
the action. Nevertheless, the author makes an effort to decorate his cut-outs
with glitter and macaroni so as to make them a bit more interesting.
Unfortunately, most of this personality emerges as wacky banter that would
probably have been amusing in smaller doses, but at length is simply not clever
enough to entertain. Nearly every other paragraph I found myself thinking
"Yes, I get it: genius pranksters. Enough!". I don't at all mind comic
relief, and this sort of story practically demands it, but the author deploys
it with a heavy hand, and it gets tired very quickly. The final nail in the coffin is that having
established solid (if stereotyped) characters, they occasionally act in
strangely uncharacteristic ways. No doubt this is intended to give the
characters depth, a way of saying "look! They're not just cookie cutter
characters!" But unfortunately the way they're deployed is almost always
to provide a plot twist, and as such they come off as curveball deviations from
the script rather than additional character depth.
Verdict
I
actually like this type of story - I am an inveterate Niven fan, and I always
craved story collections with new work in them so that I could match wits with
Larry himself and try to figure out the puzzle before his protagonist did. It's
obvious that this story is trying to be a part of this tradition, with a
healthy dose of Space Patrol tossed in for spice, and as such it's actually a
fun read. I certainly found myself eager to read further to see how much I could figure out before it was revealed. The main issues - banter that would be so much better if diluted a bit, and despite
being a completely traditional formula structural issues make the plot seem
contrived - but the core idea - the puzzle of why the expedition has failed, and
how it can be saved - is a great foundation for this kind of story. While I
would like to see the comic elements toned down, even the relatively shallow
characters aren't a serious problem. It's just not the kind of story that demands deep philosophical exploration of humanity. No, the big crack running through this
whole piece is structure: the structure makes it impossible for us to really
live the intriguing alien world, the structure forces bizarre twists and turns,
the structure ironically makes the comic book character of the story into a
weakness rather than a strength. (on the other hand, although I rarely read
comics myself I think that this tale would translate well into graphic format,
largely unchanged). I would love to see this story rewritten in a different way
- keep the characters, the idea of the EE, the alien world (complete with its
bizarre and wonderfully imagined biology), but put it all together in something
tighter and better thought out to support the style of SF mystery that seems to
have been the goal.
Readability:
Pass
Hugo
quality: Fail
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