2024 science fiction novella, first of a trilogy. Ada Lamarr is a
salvager, but there's a hole in the side of her ship and her suit air
supply is running low. Hope that rescuer responds soon…
I was annoyed by this book for a particular reason, which I
suspect may not annoy everyone. It's written in a first person present
tense narrative from Ada's point of view, which is fine. But as when
reading The Ivy Tree I found myself wondering: to whom is this
narrative addressed? Specifically, Ada drops hints from quite early
on that all is not as it appears and she's up to something nefarious,
which produces tension as the crew of the rescue ship comes to trust
and even like her, but why would she need to keep quiet about it in
her own thoughts to herself? Or in a report to someone else after all
the nefarious stuff has happened? And if it a report to someone who
isn't meant to know about the dodgy stuff, why even hint?
Also, maybe it's just my puzzle-solving mind, but I found the hints
about what she's up to pretty obvious, to the extent that I was
slightly thrown by the explicit explanation at the end of the main
narrative: yeah, I already knew you'd done that, you practically
told me you'd done that, why are you telling me again? It felt like
being led by the hand through the solution to a puzzle.
Ada is angry, which is not a trait I usually find appealing in a
protagonist. Because of the mystery (and presumably because Revis
wants to avoid infodumping) we don't get any details about why she's
angry except in the broadest strokes, which makes my sympathy harder
to get; though Revis' afterword makes it clear she was writing from a
place of anger herself, which helps. Ada's also playing the role
(which to some extent may be real) of an agent of chaos (a non-sexy
sort of manic pixie dream girl), which I think I was intended to enjoy
more than I did.
The blurb, which of course isn't Revis' fault, calls this a "high
octane sexy space heist", which I don't think it is. Ada finds one of
her rescuers attractive but (being at least a little bit grown-up)
mostly doesn't act on it, especially as she's clearly planning to do
something he'll disapprove of; as for high-octane, there's some
action, but mostly in the form of danger that has to be stayed away
from. All right, it is a heist, and it happens in space.
(Also don't be fooled by the occasional Sciency Words, this is very
soft SF.)
Overall I thought many things about the book were trying to appeal to
a sort of reader which does not include me. Which is a shame, because
behind that mildly-annoying surface flash there's some interesting
worldbuilding, and while most of the characters are pretty shallow Ada
at least shows some promise for the future when she's speaking in her
own voice rather than consciously not mentioning things she has no
reason not to mention.
One of the things I did like: I mentioned "the end of the main
narrative", because things conclude in a shower of appendices, taking
the form of official reports and communications on the incident, but
with footnotes as people try to work out just what Ada was up to and
whom she might have been working for.
- Posted by Chris at
10:39am on
27 June 2026
If it is a report of any kind, present tense is the wrong tense for it. Reports by their nature are retrospective, not current. And if it's not a report, where is the reader? Clearly not on the shonky spacecraft, so I (me, the reader) can't really be being talked to. It knocks me clear out of story into exasperated not wanting to be beguiled.
Most present-tense narrative loses me anyway because it emphasises that I am NOT there, it is not happening; I look up and I am not in a spacecraft, so why am I supposed to think that I am? It doesn't lose me quite as badly as present-tense second person, which simply causes me to resent being told about myself by someone who has never met me, at a very deep level of indignation probably going back to a furious five-year-old with Aunts who thought they knew me better than I did; but very close to that. It's tiring to read something saying "no, I'm not" and "no, I don't" to oneself with every sentence.
- Posted by RogerBW at
10:54am on
27 June 2026
It's written (apart from the afterword) as a direct account of experience: this happens, I think that, and so on. The "report" is merely one hypothesis I formed as to a possible audience. My major concern is that there is nobody to whom this specific narrative might plausibly be addressed.
By contrast I've just written a review for a Cold War thriller in which the major characters all know what a particular codename refers to, but to build up tension for the reader it is not explained on the page until later—but, because they do all know what it is, they wouldn't need to remind each other, so not describing it feels less forced.
- Posted by J Michael Cule at
11:54pm on
27 June 2026
I am sitting at my computer with my Late Night Hot Drink. I am catching up on my regular reading and working up the energy to go to bed. I will have a shower first before going to bed: it has been a hot day.
My cat has probably gone to bed or at least is perching on some platform somewhere that provides a relief from the heat. I anticipate that he will come and ask to be brushed and possibly picked up and scritched. I will do these small services for him If he asks. He usually does.
I wonder (but not very hard) why I find this present time first person narrative irritating in some works but not in others.
Idly, I worry about death and old age. They are persistent but separate worries.
I sip my hot drink. About four more sips to go.
- Posted by ashley pollard at
10:35am on
28 June 2026
Now I want to read the rest of Michael and his cat's life.
- Posted by John P at
10:36am on
28 June 2026
It's probably too much effort to do. But I guess in this age of ebooks what you could have is an "adaptive" book where you set options at the beginning for things like "first/third person", "level of detail" and so on, and then the passages you see in the text when you read it are the ones you selected. But yeah, probably too much effort for too little market share.
- Posted by RogerBW at
11:16am on
28 June 2026
John - the narrative mode contributes strongly to the feel of the book, so in effect you'd be writing multiple different books.
Michael - as far as I'm concerned you're not concealing anything important in that passage. If it turned out that you were doing this with the cooling corpse of your enemy in the next room*, that would be deceptive (without sinking to the depths of the truly unreliable narrator), and again if you put it in a book I might wonder to whom it was addressed.
* presumably in the bath, for reasons of practicality.
- Posted by J Parr at
11:43am on
28 June 2026
Maybe Mikes' enemy is a squirrel that has been eating all the fat balls from the bird feeder and the cooling corpse is of said squirrel that has been dragged in by the cat as a gift for Mike (we all know cats like to treat their staff).