RogerBW's Blog

Heights of Green, Lise MacTague 15 June 2021

2015 SF, second of a trilogy. Torrin has got her new love Jak back to Torrin's home world, but that isn't by any means going to be the end of their problems.

And this is a very different book from the trek across hostile country that made up much of the first volume. Back home, Torrin is not a lone smuggler but one of the partners in her homeworld's largest business enterprise, an offworld trading concern that somehow has to keep the existence of that homeworld entirely secret. (How's that again? There must be some really comprehensive faking of manifests going on. Not to mention that nobody ever thinks to point a telescope at this partly-terraformed "abandoned" world and look for signs of civilisation, like localised IR or city lights.)

But yeah, this universe is basically cinematic SF, the sort of environment where you can genuinely say that the asteroid field stops people from easily getting between the hyperspace entry point and the planet. Which would be frankly dull if this were a story about terraforming and spaceships and things, but they're background; much more than that it's a story about the people, Torrin making the transition back into her civilisation having been out on a long solo run, Jak being in a civilisation that sees women as people at all (in fact it's women-only), and both of them adapting to the idea of having a permanent partner (Torrin's been playing the field for years, while Jak's culture doesn't even admit that lesbians are a thing) and dealing with people's reactions to that. Both of them are trying to help the relationship to work without either the tools or the time to make it happen.

So all right there's a "This Isn't What It Looks Like" moment leading to a Big Misunderstanding, a thing I never really enjoy even if it's carefully set up to seem more or less plausible in this case, and an obvious evil person whose motives seem straightforward but might be something more. The narrative goes out of its way to keep Torrin and Jak from talking to each other, when that's clearly what they need to do. A resolution to just why Torrin was so badly briefed in the last book (being sent to negotiate an arms deal with a culture where women are property) is perhaps a little too pat, making the universe seem smaller. But there's also consideration of just what sort of job an expert sniper is fitted for in a military that's all about close-up shipboard engagements, and how the world will have to adapt to changing circumstances.

Middle volumes are traditionally lacklustre, but this one's an interesting change of pace while carrying on the themes from the first book. I'm impressed; I've read much worse from much bigger publishers and better-known authors.

(If you don't want to read the setup/teaser for book 3, skip the epilogue; this story is complete at that point.)

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Depths of Blue | Series: On Deception's Edge | Next in series: Vortex of Crimson

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2300ad 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech bayern beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1