2015 science fiction, first of a trilogy. After the AI catastrophe,
there are two sorts of colony world: the ones where computers are
strictly regulated and monitored, and the ones where they aren't
allowed at all. The "analog ship" Fives Full is navigated by
slide-rule and sextant.
OK, the Heinleinian inspiration is fairly obvious here, and one
feels that Gallagher got the idea of a ship without electronics first
and set up the world round it. It does get a bit more interesting than
that, but this is definitely a story where the rivets show, and the
author can tell you just why each one was put where it is.
The characters are less convincing. Michigan Long (cough), the primary
viewpoint, is revealed in the first chapter to be some sort of covert
operative… but then spends most of the rest of the book lying about
it, and since there's little or no internal monologue any character
development we get could just as easily be part of her cover persona
as anything real. Everyone else is much more of a background
character, and gets one personality trait at most.
The plot is very bitty and repetitive: here's a job for the ship, they
take it on, something goes wrong, they sort it out, repeat several
more times. There are some hints at bigger things going on
(particularly with occasional brief narrative cuts to a second
viewpoint character), but this book taken individually doesn't end as
much as it fades out.
It's OK, and I'll read the next one, but the author's heart is clearly
very much in the technicalities and everything else suffers a bit as a
result. Followed by Torchship Pilot.
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