A disappointing offering from two of my favorite working SFF authors. The world building and writing are as strong as ever, but the characters lack the vitality of The Expanse, and the themes are utterly rancid in the face of the ongoing genocide and ascendant fascism of today... - ThreadSky

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jerkus.bsky.social • 29 days ago

A disappointing offering from two of my favorite working SFF authors. The world building and writing are as strong as ever, but the characters lack the vitality of The Expanse, and the themes are utterly rancid in the face of the ongoing genocide and ascendant fascism of today...

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gothra.bsky.social•29 days ago

That's disappointing

jerkus.bsky.social•29 days ago

At best it's a story of naive liberalism and "working within the system" as the only viable answer to colonial violence. But my less-charitable reading sees this as a celebration of the collaborator and Great Man Individualism, and an appeal against revolutionary direct action

jerkus.bsky.social•29 days ago

Not to mention a heaping helping of technocratic elitism. Utterly baffling that the same guys who wrote the Expanse could produce something like this. I'm actually angry about it.

stevemanning1.bsky.social•28 days ago

I didn't read it that way. It's the first book in the series and they're trying to survive while figuring out how to resist a superior force. Can't do that if you're dead. Still, it doesn't have the same sophistication of the Expanse. Fewer characters, simpler plot. Hope the next one ups the ante.

jerkus.bsky.social•26 days ago

On one level, yeah, but it's telling that the "correct" approach to survival was capitulation to the colonists by naming names.

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