Whenever I read science fiction I’m always torn between reading for the story and reading for the message. Granted, I don’t read much sci-fi, so maybe the problem is with me and not the way stories are presented. In the end, I don’t get much satisfaction out of them. So why do I keep trying? Because it’s a genre rich in variance and I love sci-fi on the big screen so I’m always hoping for a novel to catch me the same way.

Dust is my first science fiction proper written by a woman. What significance that would hold I wasn’t sure. An elevation of the feminine? A reduction in violence? Sly subterfuge? Man bashing? Well, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

In total it is a very complex story and a highly allegorical story, but to be frank, I had to pay attention to the story so much that a lot of it, no doubt, escaped me. I could tell the author was trying though, and maybe that is its problem. Constructs for the sake of constructs. As if Bear knew that sci-fi, to be proper and taken seriously, has to be fraught with meaning and import. No trivialities allowed. And in her writing she made us also aware of this rule.

So, there isn’t much in the way of breathing room or levity in this tale. Almost no one laughs. Granted, their situation is kind of dire, but the author doesn’t give the reader a reprieve or a chance to collect her thoughts about what’s happening. She just forces us on with the characters and it becomes plodding and tiresome. I lost a lot of interest in them along the way because they gave me nothing human to latch onto. Everything about them and their circumstances was alien; from the wings to the nanotechnology to the ambiguous gender assignments and the doomed ship. Each as a single I can deal with, but heaped one on the other they become oppressive. Connecting was impossible. Sympathy, yes, empathy, no.

And once again a highly evolved species with advanced technology is bound by antiquated and even agrarian rules. Even though there are no titles as such, there is an aristocracy, a king and other noble personages. Those outside this circle have no rights and no hope of gaining such. Ruler and ruled, peer and peasant. Sigh. Why can’t sci-fi authors, so rich in imagination, come up with some other form of government? Like maybe an anarcho-syndicalist commune or something.

Anyway, what did I like about this novel? Well the main characters were sort of boring and silly, but I did like the concept of the “angels” being fragmented bits of the ship’s governing artificial intelligence program. When the whole became corrupted it fragmented itself as a way to preserve its function, but those individual segments evolved on their own and became feudal lords over their own functional areas. Rivalry sets in and while the human population itself fragments and becomes so removed from their ship and their duties, the “angels” need to manipulate them to achieve their own ends. At this point they are the only ones who know of the ship’s proximity to two dying suns and the nearness of the end. Strangely though, the AI collective needs a human/symbiant host to actualize the mission. Why they can’t just fix the ship and move it on their own is not adequately explained and seemed weird to me. I liked the concept though.

Another concept that was sort of bludgeoned during the course of the novel is that of eating one’s rivals or enemies. Not a literal cannibalism of the flesh, but that of memory only. The “exalt” among this new form of human are ones that are married to nanotechnology and highly modified as a result. These symbiants not only change the form, but enhance the function. Disease is almost unknown. Memories are sharpened and enhanced. As a result even if the physical human part of the person dies, the symbiants many times can keep the body working without the personality present. Some of these drones are used as slaves. Some are consumed by their conquerors and their memories are transferred via the symbiants to the new host. Interesting. A weird kind of immortality that is scary and alluring at the same time.

Overall the book was weak in my opinion - the mythology that framed and upheld the story was unique and interesting, but the characters created to move the story ahead were boring and sort of breathily limp in places. Parts were highly predictable and maybe they were supposed to be, but I found it detracted from the tension the author tried to create. Maybe sci-fi just isn’t for me and I should give up trying. ( )

May09:
Characters: Really like some of them. Rein and Dust in particular are awesome. Really puts persona on AI that you like.
Plot: A whole 'reveal as you go' thing. Moderately great. Probably not worth a re-read.
Style: Okay Cyberpunk. A little over paced. ( )

OK, let me say at the outset that Dust is going to be a hard book to review without giving away spoilers, because so much of what's actually going on in the book needs to be worked out as you go through it.

I will say that it starts off feeling very much like a fantasy (princesses, swords and knights with Arthurian names), but quickly establishes itself as SF with the introduction of nanotech, and the awareness of all the characters that yes, their world is a ship (as well as the fairly obvious derivation of a lot of the names).

Perhaps copying the blurb from the back is my best bet at avoiding giving anything too critical away: "On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwelers have grown complacent with their aging metal world. But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change". That plus the frontcover blurb: "Can a fallen angel save a broken world?" - do kind of sum the plot up nicely... just not in the way you'd assume if you're used to thinking in terms of fantasy or paranormal plotlines.

The end result is a book that feels a little like Tad Williams' Otherland (which I remember liking quite a bit), albeit with a far smaller cast and far more tightly written. I liked the lead characters: Rien - the servant girl mentioned in the blurb above; and Perceval, the noblewoman. Not loved them, perhaps, but I liked them both. And the other human characters are interesting as well; but, as always with Ms Bear's SF, the non-human, non-organic characters are every bit as interesting (if not more so) that the human leads - and again, I can't really go into who and what they are without giving giant honking pieces of plot development away.

The one major criticism I have of my edition of Dust was that the editing repeatedly let it down. There were several minor typos that kept pulling me out of the story: for example "that" for "than"; "have" for "has"; and my favourite, one of the characters who was "Benedick" sometimes and "Benedict" others.

Aside from that, like all of the previous Elizabeth Bear books I've read, this one is thinky. Not, perhaps, quite so issue-centric as the last two (Undertow and Carnival), but still - there's a lot in here to muse upon, and I probably did it a disservice by simply reading it on a surface level as nothing more than a story. There were times where I hit passages that seemed - I don't know - not quite right, somehow, although I got the feeling that if I just put the effort into untangling them, they'd make perfect sense. But rather than doing that, I just shrugged, figured I'd go with it, and kept reading. Knowing Ms Bear's previous stories, it's possible (and indeed, likely) that I missed out on a whole load of layering and ideas and concepts because of that. Meh... I don't, at the moment, have the mental energy to do it justice - so be it - the book still stands as a simply-a-story in and of itself.

Also, on a personal level, there was one entire scene I deliberately *didn't* read and simply skipped altogether that involved the characters running alongside a radioactive river because it was the only way to get where they needed to go. There may or may not have been salient stuff that happened during that scene - I wouldn't know, because, like anything elseinvolving graphic radiation poisoning (hey, I couldn't even deal with Meridian at the end of s5 Stargate), Starfires value their sleep too much to do anything more than skim it so they can find the point it ends and start reading again.

Would I recommend Dust to other people? Yes, definitely to some of my flist: if you enjoy well-written (if, unfortunately, not well-edited) SF with really interesting concepts that you kind of have to figure out as you go along, I strongly suspect you'll like this one. If you're more in the mood for a something light that doesn't require too much mental investment? Elizabeth Bear's probably the wrong author for you generally, and while this isn't as demanding as some of her books, it's still an Elizabeth Bear story: Caveat Lector.

All up, I think I'm going to give the book a 7/10 - I liked it, but I've liked other books of hers better. ( )

Basic Reason for Beginning: Well, I've heard of Elizabeth Bear, of course, and wanted to try her novels, but didn't quite know where to start. (I first heard of her through her Promethean Age novels and haven't had the patience to figure out the reading order.) So I picked a novel that a) appealed in subject matter (wingy things!) and b) sounded like it stood alone.
Basic Reason for Finishing: I would say this is without a doubt the best book if the year, but the year is young. It will definitely be amongst the best, though. I loved this. My only regret is that I sped through the second half. There's something to be said for small doses.
Texture: At times dusty (yes, sorry, that may be the title association), at times soft, velvety fur, at times lined hard and cold like metal.

Full review here

Rereadability: Hell yes. There's so much in this that I'm bound to pick up more on a reread and I'd love it. This is maybe the second religious-themed story that doesn't put my hackles up too.
Recommendation: *low whistle* If you like your stories well-told, rich and treating you like an intelligent human being. If you're used to having writers hand you everything on a platter, you're in for a shock because Bear is perfectly content to let you flounder around on your own until there's a more natural spot for explanations to crop up.
If you're, like me, not very versed in the world of scifi, I think this would be a nice place to start. The story focuses more on the characters and what happens to them than hardcore details which I admit is still what I associate with scifi. ( )

Taking a chance on this one because 'Carnival' was less of a let down than 'Undertow'. I suspect if I'd read those in the other order, I'd have left this on the shelf...Hear me, Elizabeth? Last chance to win me over! ;-)NB: Not quite done with it yet, but unless the end turns out to be a massive disappointment, I must say I'm glad I stuck with this author. Love the world she created, the characters, and the story has been engrossing so far. Good job!NB2: Done, and the ending was good. Definitely a keeper. ( )