Marina J. Lostetter

This had lots of positive blurbs from well-known sf authors and, more importantly, it was 99p for the ebook, so I decided to take a chance on it. What a mistake. I’ve not read a good science fiction debut by a US author for several years but this one failed to make even that low bar. It is 2088 and an astronomer has discovered an unusual variable star. The world is putting together twelve missions to travel into interstellar space, using a “subdimension drive”, which, despite being show more FTL, will still mean several generations will pass before their destinations are reached. The variable star is chosen as the target of one such convoy. Which comprises seven ships and several hundred thousand clones of the scientists and engineers who put the convoy together. Lostetter uses this somewhat tired set-up to explore a number of banal situations. A young boy doesn’t want a sister. Slavery is bad. AIs can have feelings too. When the convoy reaches its destination, it discovers an enormous alien artefact but does not learn what it is or what it’s for. The author also clearly has a problem with orders of magnitude, as she states Jupiter is one AU wide. And her dimensions of the alien artefact make no sense. She also seems to think sonar works in space (and that subsonic waves can be detected in a vacuum). When two US characters, in the first chapter, enter a traditional pub in Oxford, UK, and a waitress brings beer to their table, I was afraid this was going to be one of those sf novels where the author had done little or no research. That particular faux pas proved to be the least of the book’s problems. Later, two characters watch an episode of Star Trek – yes, this one of those novels set in the future where all the cultural references have relevance only to the author’s generation. The prose is so bland it is entirely forgettable. The science fiction is just complete rubbish from start to finish. The science is made-up. And the whole is in service to a plot which has no end – this is the first book in a trilogy – and whose only quality appears to be triteness. Avoid. In fact, I will go a step further: from this point, I will not read any debuts by US sf authors, say, post-2016. I don’t know what’s happened to US sf publishing, but the books they’ve been pushing over the past couple of years by debut authors have been fucking appalling. As someone or other once said, won’t get fooled again. The same applies to fantasy as well, of course. However, I’m not going to boycott debut sf novels from other nations. I mean, I’m not saying UK sf debuts are better, but UK genre publishing has been pushing fantasy – and YA – debuts for the past few years, and they’re not my thing. Given that more books than ever before are currently being published, when debut novels are nominated for major awards… there is definitely something wrong with genre publishing…. show less

Noumenon is an ambitious book, even by science fiction standards. To investigate a curious far-distant phenomena, Earth conceives an idea to send a fleet of generation ships. Rather than using cryogenics or relying on the whims of breeding, they staff the ships by finding the best scientists in the world to fit specific duties, and they clone them. Generation after generation. This allows nature versus nurture to play out in surprising ways.

This sounds like it might get confusing. It's not. show more The novel progresses through a series of long short stories or novelettes; some feature complete arcs and can stand on their own (one chapter is published in a new Baen Memorial Award anthology), but overall, they flow together to create a comprehensive novel that skips decades and even centuries.

Honestly, I'm usually turned off by books or series that span generations. It disturbs me to become fond of young characters and then watch them die of old age. For some reason, that wasn't an issue here--perhaps because of the nature of clones? I did become attached to the character of Jamal, which just about broke my heart at a few points, but I like how Lostetter developed his line through the end and how the ship's sentient AI played a role.

In all, this is a very different kind of sci-fi novel because it twists around so many familiar tropes in inventive new ways. show less

When a book (or a movie, for that matter) is announced as “like xxx” I’m always wary, because rarely the comparison stands up to scrutiny and - from my point of view - it also shows a lack of imagination from the people writing the blurb. Activation Degradation is a case in point, its main character presented as similar to Martha Wells’ Murderbot: in truth, the only point of contact between the two comes from the fact that both Murderbot and Marina Lostetter’s Unit 4 are cyborgs, show more while the story, the overall mood and the characterization are totally different from the Diaries.

As the novel starts, Unit 4 is hurriedly called on-line to face an attack against the mine orbiting Jupiter where it and its brethren service the installation, dedicated to producing clean energy for Earth: the unit’s remote handler informs it that alien marauders are inflicting damage to the station and that Four must help, even though its activation protocols are incomplete - given the situation, time is of the essence. In the first, frantic moments since its awakening Four finds itself alternately frightened and riddled with doubt, the latter due to the incomplete download of files necessary to its correct functioning and to the often baffling orders received from the handler: as the situation becomes increasingly critical and Four rushes to fulfill its mission - which includes a cat-and-mouse prolonged space chase against the intruders - we learn something about the installation and the bio-mechanical constructs working there, and what we learn raises a lot of questions about the station and its managers. And even concerning the nature of the Units…

Yes, because despite the terms Four uses to describe itself or its environment, there is a definite organic quality to the background and the Units themselves: while it talks about “CPU unit”, “grasping pads” or “fuel intake” it becomes increasingly difficult to envision Four and its mates as mere robots (there is a scene in which it must “terminate” a fatally compromised unit that goes a long way in that direction), and when it boards a space-worthy pod to chase the invaders, the details of the pod’s insides come across as fleshy and biological rather than mechanic. Moreover, we learn that these Units are vat-grown and recycled from the material of previous constructs once they have reached their termination period of 90 days - the radiation of the environment and the harsh conditions don’t allow for more.

The real defining point in the story, and in Unit 4’s journey of discovery, comes from its capture by the group of “aliens”, who turn out to be strikingly similar to human beings as depicted in the files stored in its memory. The information these people provide conflicts at first with everything Four knows about these “invaders”, and is therefore viewed with suspicion and scorn, but as time goes on it becomes easier and easier to question what used to be unequivocal truth, and what its role in all this could and should be.

The most compelling feature in Activation Degradation is indeed the long road Unit Four - later on called Aimsley - has to travel as it peels away the layers of untruths that have been keeping it and its brethren in the dark about their true nature and the real situation on planet Earth. And if it’s not difficult for the readers to figure out many of the answers, following Four/Aimsley through this journey is what keeps them turning the pages, in the eagerness to see how all these revelations will affect the character: what this novel offers in that respect is a spellbinding and often poignant tale of awakening, of breaking the bonds of conditioning that have kept Aimsley and its fellow units in actual slavery to a perverted system.

The other intriguing aspect of the story comes from the understanding that the two factions at war are not so easily recognizable as “bad” and “good” guys, because both of them are responsible for the present situation in equal measure, although the novel poses some thought-provoking questions about paying off the debts of our forefathers - and for how long that “punishment” must go on - on one side, and on the other about an excess of protectiveness toward something that’s been left in one’s care, and how far that attitude can be taken.

This latter issue is not resolved at the end of the book, and although Activation Degradation looks like a standalone so far, there are some open-ended narrative threads that just beg for some further exploration: while the novel does reach a satisfactory ending, and does so through some quite unexpected twists and turns, there are more than enough elements to turn it into a very enjoyable series, one whose continuation I would certainly welcome. show less

The Helm of Midnight was a unique reading experience. I'd never thought to read a serial killer police procedural set in a richly imaginative steampunk fantasy world, but that's what this book delivered. The world-building here was stunning in both its depth and intricacy. Both the society and the magic on which it's built are incredibly complex. At times, the story dragged a bit, and I suspect that it ran about 20% long, though I don't know what could be cut, as the plot. characters, and show more setting are so expertly interconnected. This is a dark story, and the atmosphere becomes at times quite oppressive, but there are glimpses of light. I am in awe of the author's creativity. The co-dependency of the humans, their gods, and the world they created reminds me very much of [a:Robert Jackson Bennett|2916869|Robert Jackson Bennett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1328633063p2/2916869.jpg]'s Divine Cities trilogy, which like this series, begins with a murder mystery of sorts. I'm anxious to see where this trilogy leads. show less