I was looking forward to this because I figured that Hadfield, being an astronaut, would be great at dropping in very technical and accurate details about the mechanics and procedures of spaceflight, and in this I was not at all disappointed. (I love Hadfield, for the record; his nerdiness is infectious, as is his clear enthusiasm for public outreach. I still enjoy rewatching his videos from space.) I also figured that Hadfield’s forte was likely not character development or beautiful prose, and in this I was also correct. This is a Cold War what-if thriller, in which the Americans and Russians jockey for primacy with moon rovers, spy satellites, and competing space missions. Hadfield sprinkles in real people with his fictional characters, and although his characters have no real depth or growth, they serve the purpose of moving the plot along. I loved the very technical descriptions of everything, from helicopter mechanics to how a loose solder blob could cause severe damage (see, this is why you don’t skimp on shock testing) to how communications lags meant that you had to deliver and receive information at a remove; that palpable joy in the details made the overall awkwardness of the story easier to swallow.
Tag: genre-thriller
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, by Michael Lewis
Lewis is a solid writer; he writes nonfiction like a thriller. We lived through the pandemic so when he starts describing the initial events, the rumors of illness, the blithe dismissal of the politicians, we know things are going south… but he still patiently lays the foundation: public health officers on shoestring budgets, with power on paper but very little in practice; government plans for pandemics drafted and discarded; politics and caution prized over effectiveness and rapid response. Reading this was an intensely frustrating exercise, punctuated by only brief moments of relief, especially since, let’s be real, we’re still in the middle of a public heath crisis, and now we know even more about how very few people are able (or willing) to do anything to manage it.
The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey
Zombie story with a nice twist in perspective from the norm. I liked the character of the titular girl; child geniuses in stories often come across as super-unbelievable tiny versions of adults, but I thought her characterization was really well done, both when she was the POV character and when she was seen through the eyes of the other characters. I also like what Carey did with the characters of the tough soldier and the empathic teacher, who each began as flat stereotypes and who were slowly and smoothly developed into sympathetic wholes. Also, mild spoiler, but I’m a sucker for any universe that involves mycorrhizal spores.
Razorblade Tears, by S.A. Cosby
Oh man I am not sure what to make of this. On one level it’s a super fun ride, with two old dads, one white and one black, who go on a violent mission to avenge their two murdered sons; the writing is slick and enjoyable, there’s some great social commentary, and the character building is solid. On the other hand, I really don’t like that all the dads’ best character growth comes about because their gay sons were murdered. (This is not a spoiler, it is literally the first chapter.) Can we please not go around casually murdering the gay kids for character growth, it makes me sad.
Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer
To be honest, I skimmed this pretty hard. The narrative voice, that of a person dreamily narrating past events that led to as yet-unspecified disaster, got old really quickly; plus it felt like the character’s super questionable decisions were based more on plot pressure than any kind of logic or rational thought. Cybersecurity analyst Jane, ripe for midlife crisis, is drawn to the taxidermied body of an endangered (extinct?) hummingbird, traces its ownership to a dead ecoterrorist, and abandons work and family to fall down a rabbit hole of threats and shadowy corporate wrongdoing in a near-future world of vaguely-hinted-at environmental gloom. The book never quite felt believable enough for me to buy into the urgency of the plot at any point, and the main character was too much in her own head to tell me much about the world around her. This is supposed to be a “thriller” but I’m not thrilled about marking it as such… I was not thrilled.
Declare, by Tim Powers
This book peers into the corners and shadows of established history and unfolds into an absolutely stunning and fantastical premise. It’s not the first time I’ve read a book about shadow intelligence agencies focused on the supernatural, but this is by far the most ambitious and dare I say successful insertion of magical weird (in this case, djinn with almost alien psychologies) into actual history. The characters, both real and imagined, are established beautifully; their interactions are layered and tense; the descriptive writing is gorgeous. I did find the plot development to be a bit confusing and the pacing uneven; for a while the book didn’t seem like it didn’t know where it was going (or didn’t bother to tell you) and basically let you flounder around for a while. The last quarter or so was the best though and it absolutely stuck the landing. Fantastically good finish.
Vengeful, by V. E. Schwab
Sequel to Vicious and just as well-paced and violent, this novel continues to really dig into the gray areas between good and evil. No one gets to escape; characters who had previously been certain of their moral standing find themselves forced to make compromises.