Author: Sergei Lukyanenko / Sergey Lukianenko / Сергей Лукьяненко
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often reward aplenty!
Erratum:
p77 "synoptic" should by "synaptic"
This is a novel written by Sergei Vasilievich Lukyanenko, the author of the Night Watch pentalogy, at least two of which have been made into English language movies. I had some issues with this novel even as I grew to like it as I began reading it - but then which novel don't I have issues with?! In this case, it began with the author's dedication, which is interesting in that it seems like an apology for a book which the author thinks some might deem to be "cynical and immoral". This struck me as odd. Authors can write whatever they want, so why apologize for it in advance?
I ask this because I also found myself asking: is it cynical or immoral to consistently describe women as "girls" as this author does? Is it cynical or immoral to write sentences like "If only she would change the hair, visit a cosmetologist, and replace her work overalls with a dress..." (page 37)? Or to write "Had Janet been a feminist, no one could have gotten her into a kitchen..." (page 98).
Those sentences struck me as genderist and abusive - like women don't have a place unless they're pretty and wearing make up and skirts? Like no feminist ever goes into a kitchen? What? There's also this one from page 163: "...or perhaps she did it simply out of every woman's ineradicable need to look as seductive as possible." SERIOUSLY? In the end, and especially given how poorly this novel ends, it was comments like this - not part of some lowlife character's's speech, but integral to the very fabric of the novel itself, which tipped the balance and made me rate this negatively.
I would have done so even had the story been really good otherwise, because the problem was that this kind of thing ran through the whole novel. Like when main characters Alex and Kim inevitably have sex, we read, "Alex took her four times in a row." They don't 'make love' - he takes her. That makes it sound like rape, even though at that point she's coming on to him and they're technically married. It's intended to read like he's the masterful stud and she's his toy, or his possession or sex slave. The character himself confirms this by repeatedly referring to her as "baby".
It's one thing to write a first person novel where your main character thinks like this, or having a third person novel where a specific character espouses attitudes of this nature. There are people like that in real life and it's foolish and unrealistic to pretend that there are not, but it's another thing entirely to create something which has this attitude woven into the very fabric of the novel itself I did not like that at all, and it made the novel hard to read at times.
This wasn't the only such irritation. It seemed even more weird at one point when he wrote "The black woman" (page 67) and "The black woman smiled" (page 101). We already knew that Janet was black at that point, so why raise it again when it serves no purpose? These things struck me as weird, and they interfered with my enjoyment of what was, for the most part quite an engrossing and entertaining novel. Maybe other people don't find these things odd or distracting, but I did and it spoiled the story for me.
These were not the only writing quirks. At one point, the main character uses "whom" in speech (page 65). Almost no one talks like that any more, and the main character wasn't presented as someone who did. I know it's grammatically correct in specific instances to employ 'whom', but these days it seems pretentious. It's even more pretentious to depict a character actually saying it. In some cases, it would be appropriate - for example, if the character himself was pretentious, but in this case he isn't. He's just a regular guy (with some exceptions!), and unlikely to use that form of speech, it seemed to me. I know it's hard to break what are seen as rules, but as writers we need to present our stories realistically, not write by rote.
In other news, on page 77, we once again encounter the "one gene equals one physical trait" fallacy. Yes, sometimes a single gene can influence a single trait, but more often, it's a group or network of genes which make us who we are with the specific traits that we have. This business of (in this case, for example) having a gene for speed, is nonsensical.
That rather kicked me out of suspension of disbelief for the sci-fi part of this novel, and it's really sad, because to begin with, I started liking this story almost at once, and it grew on me as I read it. In general terms it was well-written in that it drew me in, offered interesting situations and characters, and was inventive. It also had an intriguing and kick-ass female character which I always appreciate. By 'kick-ass' I don't necessarily mean literally capable of kicking-ass, but in this case she actually was, but all of this was undermined by the issues I already mentioned.
The story begins with Alexander Romanov getting out of hospital after what was apparently a near-fatal crash of the spacecraft he was piloting. Now five months on, he's been rebuilt and has recovered, and is now looking to find work. On his way from the hospital into the city, he encounters Kim O'Hara, a fourteen-year-old girl who is a "spesh" just like Alex is; they just have different specialties.
In this world, children can be genetically programmed at an early age, to specialize for a future career. How exactly this works isn't specified, but it involves the child going through a metamorphosis in their early teens, rather like a caterpillar changes into a moth or a butterfly. Kim has not been through hers yet. She's very late which means possible trouble. She finally does so after she hooks up with Alex when he encounters her on a monorail as he leaves the hospital.
Having been through his own metamorphosis, he helps Kim through hers successfully. Without his help she might have died. Whereas Alex's specialty was a ship pilot, Kim's is evidently a fighter, but after her transformation, she looks like a mature woman - which is not exactly how fighter specialists should look. They can be male or female of course, but they look like brutes, since part of their specialization is intimidation. Kim doesn't look like that, but she is without question a fighter specialist. Alex concludes that she has some other specialties built-in as well, and he's right.
Meanwhile, Alex has been job hunting and has found what seems to be a too-good-to-be-true job piloting a slick and souped-up craft. The anonymous owner requests that he has a full compliment of crew, which for this ship is six people, including a fighter and a doctor. Alex is given free reign to pick his crew - so there are oddities continuously cropping up in everything that's going on here, yet Alex, Mary Sue that he is, never seriously starts to worry that he's being set up for something. Yes, he's a bit suspicious from time to time, and he has a question or two about events, but it would seem obvious that there's something seriously adrift here, and he never really seems to get that. That was annoying.
Part of Alex's 'spesh' in being a pilot is that he is incapable of loving someone. We're given no explanation for this, and it makes no sense, because when he takes over his new craft, he emotionally bonds with it and it's all about love and appreciation. If he's incapable of love, then he can't love his ship and form that bond. If he can do that after all - and we see that he can when he first boards his craft - then he's capable of love, period. Whether there is something about the spacecraft and his specialty that brings out love which is unavailable anywhere else isn't specified in this novel, but to simply say he can't love and then have him and his ship "fall in love" makes no sense.
This novel was entertaining, but I kept tripping up over it for reasons already mentioned. What pushed this story further into the crapper for me was the ending. There is cloning in this world, and when there's a murder on the ship, a character named Sherlock Holmes comes aboard with Jenny Watson. Holmes is a clone of a man who was a detective "spesh" who modeled himself on Arthur Doyle's famous character. At this point we leave sci-fi and move to a simple murder mystery which read like the ending to an Agatha Christie novel - with all the suspects gathered into a room and the detective rambling on pretentiously eliminating all the suspects until he arrives at the killer. It was incredibly boring, and a sad end to what had otherwise (apart from the crass genderism) been a decent read.
I can't rate this as a worthy read after all that!
