Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Road to Neverwinter
The Dungeons and Dragons series
Jaleigh Johnson
Random House Worlds
Fiction, Adventure/Fantasy/Media Tie-In
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Edgin Davis was once a dedicated Harper, his lute and his easy, smiling banter a cover for his work ferreting out evil and danger across the land... until enemies made on the job followed him home. When his wife was murdered, all he has left is his infant daughter Kira and a deep chasm of bitter regret and self-recrimination that no amount of alcohol can fill, hard as he tries. It's not until an encounter with the barbarian woman of few words Holga that he begins to scrape himself off the tavern floor... and it's not until desperation leads him to his first theft, raiding the shop of the local corrupt pawnbroker, that he finds a new calling. Thus the years pass, with a growing Kira joining them on heists (protected somewhat by an invisibility amulet), but it's only after a chance encounter with card sharp and con man Forge Fitzwilliam that their little team begins to aim higher - and later, when they happen across an amateur sorcerer with a hot tip on a big score, their reputation may be truly made... assuming they survive.
This story is a prequel to the 2023 movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, based upon the popular fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.
REVIEW: I watched and thoroughly enjoyed the 2023 movie Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which was the kind of fun, adventurous romp of a film you don't really see much of anymore. This is one of the prequel novels written to tie in with the budding presumed-franchise, filling in backstory on the Harper-turned-thief Edgin (played by Chris Pine in the film) and the origins of the adventuring band whose reunion forms the core of the movie plot. Sometimes tie-ins like this add interesting twists and can even stand on their own. Unfortunately, this is not one of those tie-ins.
After a prologue, the book starts with exhausted and heartbroken young widower/father Edgin, an inconsolable infant Kira, and a fateful trip to the tavern of their small town where the Davis family's lives will be forever changed by the irascible, potato-obsessed Holga. This is a scenario the movie already covered, a scene that really doesn't need this print expansion to get the point across. Much of the book, actually, feels like it rehashes similar notes that the movie effectively covered, either in the backstory montage Edgin relates during his parole hearing early in the film or in the overall spirit of the movie itself, with characters growing up and coming through for the sake of their found family bond and Edgin crawling out of the pit of self-pity that grief had dropped him into to reclaim some of his former Harper integrity and honor. There is foreshadowing of later events, but that sometimes feels a touch clunky. Kira also comes across as far too much of a plot device, the precocious little scamp who wins over even the most jaded of hearts and seems incapable of comprehending how maybe her putting herself in danger also puts people she loves in danger, that her actions can have tangible and potentially negative consequences. I almost wondered if the story had been intended to be from her point of view as a middle-grade novel, as much of her arc (which isn't really much of an arc, as she doesn't really learn lessons or grow, save in the physical sense of no longer being an infant by the end) reads like wish fulfillment adventure where she gets to show up the adults who underestimate her while experiencing just enough potential peril to make things a little interesting. Edgin, at least, does do some growing and healing through the story, even if he, like more than one other character, has to be whacked by the in-world equivalent of a two-by-four to get some lessons through his skull and the clouded lenses of his grief and self-absorpion.
Things do happen, at least, almost from the first page. Like any good role-playing game campaign, there are plenty of adventurous encounters and improvised escapes (and some decent looting opportunities) and a colorful collection of characters and locales to visit, with some decent little adventure puzzles to tease out. Sometimes the metaphoric dice just aren't the players' friends and things go sideways, but between them they usually manage to get by. Nobody is especially deep and there's a general feeling of emotional immaturity about them, or at least a lack of overall complexity; they ultimately have just enough backstory and personality to them to make for an exciting and adventurous team and campaign, which does indeed occur. This is not unlike the movie that the book ties in to, of course, and on that level I could enjoy it for some stretches, but for some reason what was easily rolled with and enjoyed on screen just doesn't quite play out the same in print. Maybe I'm just conditioned to expect a little more of a book, in a way that ultimately cost it that full fourth star in the ratings. While I can't say I was never entertained or that nothing happened, I just plain enjoyed the movie better, and this book felt too much like a pale shadow retreading emotional beats and character territory that the film covered, making this prequel feel unnecessary.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Kings of the Wyld (Nicholas Eames) - My Review
Caverns of Socrates (Dennis L. McKiernan) - My Review
The Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman) - My Review
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Friday, November 17, 2023
The Lady from the Black Lagoon (Mallory O'Meara)
The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
Mallory O'Meara
Hanover Square Press
Nonfiction, Biography/History/Media Reference
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When she was a little kid, sitting in front of the TV at her grandparents' house, Mallory was entranced by the demon lord Chernabog in Disney's iconic animated feature Fantasia. Thus began a lifelong love affair with movies in general and horror in particular. The Universal classic monster pantheon held a special place in her heart, particularly the iconic Creature from the Black Lagoon. The costume, a stunning melding of man and fish, was officially credited to makeup master Bud Westmore, but it was not until the advent of the internet that most modern fans learned who really designed it: a woman named Milicent Patrick, whose identity and legacy others tried to erase. To rectify this injustice, O'Meara sets out to uncover the truth about Patrick, an enigmatic woman whose life and struggles in Tinsel Town seemed at times to parallel her own journey.
REVIEW: The story of Milicent Patrick is a story that should be relegated to the history books: a woman struggles to break in to an industry where her talent shines through, but instead of a brilliant future finds herself shut out by men who cannot stand a girl in their clubhouse or "stealing" the limelight they think should be theirs alone, where legacy names and money and soothing a tyrant's ego matter more than justice and truth. Unfortunately, it's a story that has played out numerous times before and since, up through today. O'Meara does not paint her subject as a superheroine or flawless icon, or as a relentless fighter who pushed back against the patriarchy at every turn, but as a human whose only extraordinary gift was staying true to herself no matter what happened. From a childhood under an iron-fisted father (an architect and structural engineer whose work kept the family traveling for years, eventually contributing to Hearst's massive California estate) and conservative mother, Milicent grew up to study art and land a job with Disney's animation studio - then one of the best places for a woman artist to be, for all that Disney was no saint or savior himself - while also pursuing acting work to capitalize on her striking looks, though she never moved much beyond bit parts. Eventually, her on-set sketches caught the attention of Bud Westmore, but the man's notorious cruelty, petty jealousy, and fragile ego would eventually cut her down just when she stood on the threshold of movie immortality. Even at the time, many people knew just how wrong it was, but not a one managed to stop it from happening, nor did they do anything to mitigate the aftereffects.
O'Meara intercuts the story of Milicent Patrick with her own efforts to research a woman who proved remarkably hard to track; she had a habit of changing her name and reinventing her own backstory over the years, making it that much harder to figure out her movements. She was also estranged from her family from an early age, which further limited the potential pool of resources. Add to that the way that women are still generally overlooked and undervalued in the entertainment industry, their contributions conveniently swept into the corner and forgotten, and the task became that much harder. Still, even though she's primarily a film producer and not a researcher, O'Meara pushed onward, finding more reasons to admire Milicent Patrick even as she acknowledges the woman's faults... and more reasons to be incensed that, since Patrick's day, the needle on industry misogyny and under-representation of women and nonwhites and other minorities has still not moved much, despite moments like the #MeToo movement shining spotlights on the ugly secrets of Hollywood. There are several incidents in Patrick's life that directly resonate with O'Meara's, and doubtless others who push their way into spaces and industries that have traditionally been dominated by white cishet males. The way in which someone who created such an important movie icon can be nearly forgotten - when she was the subject of numerous public interviews and served as a major face of Universal's promotion of The Creature from the Black Lagoon - all because one monster of a man couldn't stand seeing a woman outshine him and a studio decided appeasing him was more important than cultivating the talent so obviously visible in her is unsettling. One is left wondering how many other people have been erased through the decades, and are being erased right now, because the same dynamics that led to Milicent Patrick's removal from movie history are still very much evident. (And that's not counting the ones who are cut down long before they got in the door in the first place.) Will anything ever change? Can anything ever change? I honestly don't know, but that's why we need more Milicent Patricks... and more Mallory O'Mearas to make sure the Milicent Patricks aren't left on history's cutting room floor.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Never Say You Can't Survive (Charlie Jane Anders) - My Review
AVIATRIX: First Woman Pilot for Hughes Airwest (Mary Bush Shipko) - My Review
Mallory O'Meara
Hanover Square Press
Nonfiction, Biography/History/Media Reference
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: When she was a little kid, sitting in front of the TV at her grandparents' house, Mallory was entranced by the demon lord Chernabog in Disney's iconic animated feature Fantasia. Thus began a lifelong love affair with movies in general and horror in particular. The Universal classic monster pantheon held a special place in her heart, particularly the iconic Creature from the Black Lagoon. The costume, a stunning melding of man and fish, was officially credited to makeup master Bud Westmore, but it was not until the advent of the internet that most modern fans learned who really designed it: a woman named Milicent Patrick, whose identity and legacy others tried to erase. To rectify this injustice, O'Meara sets out to uncover the truth about Patrick, an enigmatic woman whose life and struggles in Tinsel Town seemed at times to parallel her own journey.
REVIEW: The story of Milicent Patrick is a story that should be relegated to the history books: a woman struggles to break in to an industry where her talent shines through, but instead of a brilliant future finds herself shut out by men who cannot stand a girl in their clubhouse or "stealing" the limelight they think should be theirs alone, where legacy names and money and soothing a tyrant's ego matter more than justice and truth. Unfortunately, it's a story that has played out numerous times before and since, up through today. O'Meara does not paint her subject as a superheroine or flawless icon, or as a relentless fighter who pushed back against the patriarchy at every turn, but as a human whose only extraordinary gift was staying true to herself no matter what happened. From a childhood under an iron-fisted father (an architect and structural engineer whose work kept the family traveling for years, eventually contributing to Hearst's massive California estate) and conservative mother, Milicent grew up to study art and land a job with Disney's animation studio - then one of the best places for a woman artist to be, for all that Disney was no saint or savior himself - while also pursuing acting work to capitalize on her striking looks, though she never moved much beyond bit parts. Eventually, her on-set sketches caught the attention of Bud Westmore, but the man's notorious cruelty, petty jealousy, and fragile ego would eventually cut her down just when she stood on the threshold of movie immortality. Even at the time, many people knew just how wrong it was, but not a one managed to stop it from happening, nor did they do anything to mitigate the aftereffects.
O'Meara intercuts the story of Milicent Patrick with her own efforts to research a woman who proved remarkably hard to track; she had a habit of changing her name and reinventing her own backstory over the years, making it that much harder to figure out her movements. She was also estranged from her family from an early age, which further limited the potential pool of resources. Add to that the way that women are still generally overlooked and undervalued in the entertainment industry, their contributions conveniently swept into the corner and forgotten, and the task became that much harder. Still, even though she's primarily a film producer and not a researcher, O'Meara pushed onward, finding more reasons to admire Milicent Patrick even as she acknowledges the woman's faults... and more reasons to be incensed that, since Patrick's day, the needle on industry misogyny and under-representation of women and nonwhites and other minorities has still not moved much, despite moments like the #MeToo movement shining spotlights on the ugly secrets of Hollywood. There are several incidents in Patrick's life that directly resonate with O'Meara's, and doubtless others who push their way into spaces and industries that have traditionally been dominated by white cishet males. The way in which someone who created such an important movie icon can be nearly forgotten - when she was the subject of numerous public interviews and served as a major face of Universal's promotion of The Creature from the Black Lagoon - all because one monster of a man couldn't stand seeing a woman outshine him and a studio decided appeasing him was more important than cultivating the talent so obviously visible in her is unsettling. One is left wondering how many other people have been erased through the decades, and are being erased right now, because the same dynamics that led to Milicent Patrick's removal from movie history are still very much evident. (And that's not counting the ones who are cut down long before they got in the door in the first place.) Will anything ever change? Can anything ever change? I honestly don't know, but that's why we need more Milicent Patricks... and more Mallory O'Mearas to make sure the Milicent Patricks aren't left on history's cutting room floor.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Never Say You Can't Survive (Charlie Jane Anders) - My Review
AVIATRIX: First Woman Pilot for Hughes Airwest (Mary Bush Shipko) - My Review
Thursday, November 16, 2023
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (Seanan McGuire)
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day
Seanan McGuire
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It was 1972 when teenager Jenna's older sister Patty, who had left small town Mill Hollow, Kentucky to chase big city dreams in New York City, returned home in a wooden box, having ended her own life. Ravaged by grief and guilt, Jenna ran out into the stormy night - and over the edge of a ravine, leaving a broken body to wash downriver.
But death was not the end of Jenna.
In 2015, Jenna has settled into existence in Manhattan, one of numerous ghosts who dwell in the vast city. Like other ghosts, she barters in time - time borrowed from mortals and time paid back. Once she has repaid her debt to the cosmos, the difference between when she actually died and when she was destined to die, she can pass on to whatever comes after this world, a place where Patty must be waiting for her kid sister. Able to take on corporeal form for a limited time each day, she has a job at a coffee shop and volunteers at a suicide prevention hot line (where every life saved earns her some credit), and has an apartment where she looks after aging cats: the sort of life Patty might once have aspired to if her depression hadn't driven her to suicide. Jenna had hoped to go on like this for as long as it takes to balance the spiritual books and earn her release... until the other ghosts in the city start disappearing. Something seems to be hunting them down - and Jenna, who earned her place in the afterlife by running away, might not be able to outrun this danger.
REVIEW: Though it feels tangentially connected to other works by McGuire (such as her Ghost Roads trilogy), this novella works well enough as a standalone, creating a mythos of ghosts and witches, where the afterlife is part of a greater ecosystem of time whose collapse would have terrible consequences in the mortal world and beyond. Jenna herself barely understands it, for all that she's been a ghost for forty-odd years; this is not a world of rigidly defined rules and magical systems, but something far more complicated and esoteric and beyond the grasp of humans, where even experts like witches are often groping in the dark about their own powers and limitations. What rules there are, though, provide some framework for what the characters can or cannot do in any given situation, enough to keep the plot from being utterly random (and enough to demonstrate the stakes). Jenna often feels lost and over her head trying to parse it all, especially when the danger strikes very close to home, but she's not the same scared runaway girl she was when she died. The story takes a while to get itself off the runway, and when it gets to the final act some elements and at least one character motivation felt a bit underdeveloped. Despite that, it has the sort of atmospheric writing I've come to expect from McGuire, and evokes some real emotions.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Seanan McGuire
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It was 1972 when teenager Jenna's older sister Patty, who had left small town Mill Hollow, Kentucky to chase big city dreams in New York City, returned home in a wooden box, having ended her own life. Ravaged by grief and guilt, Jenna ran out into the stormy night - and over the edge of a ravine, leaving a broken body to wash downriver.
But death was not the end of Jenna.
In 2015, Jenna has settled into existence in Manhattan, one of numerous ghosts who dwell in the vast city. Like other ghosts, she barters in time - time borrowed from mortals and time paid back. Once she has repaid her debt to the cosmos, the difference between when she actually died and when she was destined to die, she can pass on to whatever comes after this world, a place where Patty must be waiting for her kid sister. Able to take on corporeal form for a limited time each day, she has a job at a coffee shop and volunteers at a suicide prevention hot line (where every life saved earns her some credit), and has an apartment where she looks after aging cats: the sort of life Patty might once have aspired to if her depression hadn't driven her to suicide. Jenna had hoped to go on like this for as long as it takes to balance the spiritual books and earn her release... until the other ghosts in the city start disappearing. Something seems to be hunting them down - and Jenna, who earned her place in the afterlife by running away, might not be able to outrun this danger.
REVIEW: Though it feels tangentially connected to other works by McGuire (such as her Ghost Roads trilogy), this novella works well enough as a standalone, creating a mythos of ghosts and witches, where the afterlife is part of a greater ecosystem of time whose collapse would have terrible consequences in the mortal world and beyond. Jenna herself barely understands it, for all that she's been a ghost for forty-odd years; this is not a world of rigidly defined rules and magical systems, but something far more complicated and esoteric and beyond the grasp of humans, where even experts like witches are often groping in the dark about their own powers and limitations. What rules there are, though, provide some framework for what the characters can or cannot do in any given situation, enough to keep the plot from being utterly random (and enough to demonstrate the stakes). Jenna often feels lost and over her head trying to parse it all, especially when the danger strikes very close to home, but she's not the same scared runaway girl she was when she died. The story takes a while to get itself off the runway, and when it gets to the final act some elements and at least one character motivation felt a bit underdeveloped. Despite that, it has the sort of atmospheric writing I've come to expect from McGuire, and evokes some real emotions.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Under the Whispering Door (TJ Klune) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
Odd and the Frost Giants (Neil Gaiman)
Odd and the Frost Giants
Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins
Fiction, CH Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Odd was a small boy even before his leg was crippled. Now, he's that much less of a proper Viking, that much more of an embarrassment to his oafish stepfather and stepbrothers (for all that his mother still loves him, and his late father always adored him). One March, when the long winter refuses to break into proper spring and the bullying becomes too much, Odd heads out to an old cabin in the woods, determined never to return... only for a strange fox to lead him into a most magnificent adventure, far away from his little Viking village and into the realm of the gods.
REVIEW: This is a fun little story drawing on Norse mythology (if somewhat toned down for the audience, though there are references to the wilder, darker original tales around the edges), with a decently brave little hero in Odd. He only wanted to be a good son and a woodsman like his true father, and make his mother proud, until the accident shattered his leg and left him with essentially no prospects in his town, where a man who can't man a ship or go on raids or carry his weight is hardly a man at all. Fate has other plans for him, though, when he encounters a fox, a bear, and an eagle who are more than they seem, and learns that a cruel frost giant has tricked the gods of Asgard out of their proper forms and proper home. But what can one scrawny, limping mortal boy hope to do, when Odin, Thor, Loki, and the entire Norse pantheon can't free themselves? Odd isn't sure himself, but darned if he isn't going to try, even when the gods are ready to give in. The tale moves fast, with several amusing moments and some great images, coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Train Your Dragon (Cressida Cowell) - My Review
Fortunately, the Milk (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Northwind (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins
Fiction, CH Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Odd was a small boy even before his leg was crippled. Now, he's that much less of a proper Viking, that much more of an embarrassment to his oafish stepfather and stepbrothers (for all that his mother still loves him, and his late father always adored him). One March, when the long winter refuses to break into proper spring and the bullying becomes too much, Odd heads out to an old cabin in the woods, determined never to return... only for a strange fox to lead him into a most magnificent adventure, far away from his little Viking village and into the realm of the gods.
REVIEW: This is a fun little story drawing on Norse mythology (if somewhat toned down for the audience, though there are references to the wilder, darker original tales around the edges), with a decently brave little hero in Odd. He only wanted to be a good son and a woodsman like his true father, and make his mother proud, until the accident shattered his leg and left him with essentially no prospects in his town, where a man who can't man a ship or go on raids or carry his weight is hardly a man at all. Fate has other plans for him, though, when he encounters a fox, a bear, and an eagle who are more than they seem, and learns that a cruel frost giant has tricked the gods of Asgard out of their proper forms and proper home. But what can one scrawny, limping mortal boy hope to do, when Odin, Thor, Loki, and the entire Norse pantheon can't free themselves? Odd isn't sure himself, but darned if he isn't going to try, even when the gods are ready to give in. The tale moves fast, with several amusing moments and some great images, coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How to Train Your Dragon (Cressida Cowell) - My Review
Fortunately, the Milk (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Northwind (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Vessel (Lisa A. Nichols)
Vessel
Lisa A. Nichols
Atria
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the wormhole appeared beyond Mars, NASA sent a ship investigate... and discovered a shortcut to the Trappist star system. Thus, the Sagittarius was launched with a six-person crew, destined to be the first humans to set foot on an alien world. But shortly after reporting the discovery of microscopic life, all signals vanished. Back home, their loved ones mourned the losses and slowly got on with their lives, even as NASA began working on the next mission. Then the impossible happens: the Sagittarius returns. But while it left Earth with six astronauts, it returns with only one.
Commander Catherine Wells does not know what happened on the alien world. She does not remember what happened to her companions and friends, or how she came to be the last survivor piloting the ship home. There are disturbing holes in the ship logs, as well, and signs of a catastrophe of some sort on board, but she has no clue what happened, or why. She struggles to reconnect with the husband she left behind and the daughter who went from being a little girl to a college-bound teen in seemingly the blink of an eye, trying to put the trauma behind her, until the blackouts start - moments where she'll blink and be somewhere else, hours missing from her memory. Then there are the intrusive, violent thoughts, where even her closest friends seem like strangers. Maybe it's just post-traumatic stress, or the physiological strain of her prolonged isolation or years spent in deep space; after all, the first astronaut to investigate the wormhole wound up cracking. But Catherine can't shake the feeling that there's more to it than mere stress, that something very important and very terrible happened in the Trappist system - and that many more lives may be in danger if she can't remember just what that something is.
REVIEW: Vessel starts with a compelling mystery and a traumatized, amnesiac woman, but sometimes doesn't quite seem sure what to do with either. Catherine sets out to be a strong, self-sufficient commander, but for at least the first half she feels more like a passive victim of her circumstances, refusing to heed the little voice in her head that keeps telling her something is not right, not with her or with the NASA party line she's expected to follow. And, in her defense, she does have some pressing problems Earthside to keep her occupied: her husband David, assuming she had died, moved on, bringing a new woman (an old friend) into his life and a new mom into her daugher Aimee's. It doesn't help that parts of the mission that she does remember cast doubt on the stability of her relationship... parts that she tries to hide from her superiors and therapist. She feels almost like a stranger in her own life, now, having missed so much. But dealing with a marriage on the rocks and a daughter who has grown into a veritable stranger (and a mother whose dementia diagnosis further alienates her) can't keep her from thinking about the mission she can't remember, or noticing the blackouts and "sleepwalking" incidents, and no matter what the NASA commanders and staff therapist insist, she just knows in her gut that this is no passing psychological issue but something bigger.
The only one who seems to share Catherine's suspicions is a stranger: Cal Morganson, part of the ground crew for the impending Sagittarius II mission - a misson that started after contact with Catherine's crew was lost, to follow up in the reports of alien life. He hasn't even left Earth and never trained for space missions, but he's the one who grows suspicious about Catherine's answers and the party line. He's the one who pushes and digs and investigates, while Catherine flails and frets and struggles to hide her dangerous blackouts and other symptoms, eventually resorts to anesthetizing her troubles with alcohol, before finally - finally - reaching out for help... and even then, she sometimes feels like a passenger on Cal's quest for the truth, rather than the one with the most skin in the game.
It goes without saying that there is, indeed, more going on than mere stress (and anyone who has read or watched tales with even vaguely similar setups can probably guess the jist of it), though there are some logic holes with that aspect... as well as why NASA keeps throwing live astronauts at problems that robotic probes might be better suited for, at least until answers are forthcoming as to why things keep going so disastrously wrong when humans poke their noses through the wormhole. (Catherine is not the first to come back altered by the journey, and NASA's ostracization of the previous astronaut to report odd side-effects really should've been a bigger red flag much earlier than it was for everyone involved.) Despite the logic holes, and the way characters start feeling like picks from the stock bin rather than their own people, things do pick up and start moving well in the back half of the book, though the conclusion feels too neat, even as it shows hints that it wants a sequel.
Vessel isn't a bad little science fiction thriller, but a few too many quibbles held it back from a solid fourth star.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) - My Review
Saturn Run (John Sanford and Ctien) - My Review
Lisa A. Nichols
Atria
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the wormhole appeared beyond Mars, NASA sent a ship investigate... and discovered a shortcut to the Trappist star system. Thus, the Sagittarius was launched with a six-person crew, destined to be the first humans to set foot on an alien world. But shortly after reporting the discovery of microscopic life, all signals vanished. Back home, their loved ones mourned the losses and slowly got on with their lives, even as NASA began working on the next mission. Then the impossible happens: the Sagittarius returns. But while it left Earth with six astronauts, it returns with only one.
Commander Catherine Wells does not know what happened on the alien world. She does not remember what happened to her companions and friends, or how she came to be the last survivor piloting the ship home. There are disturbing holes in the ship logs, as well, and signs of a catastrophe of some sort on board, but she has no clue what happened, or why. She struggles to reconnect with the husband she left behind and the daughter who went from being a little girl to a college-bound teen in seemingly the blink of an eye, trying to put the trauma behind her, until the blackouts start - moments where she'll blink and be somewhere else, hours missing from her memory. Then there are the intrusive, violent thoughts, where even her closest friends seem like strangers. Maybe it's just post-traumatic stress, or the physiological strain of her prolonged isolation or years spent in deep space; after all, the first astronaut to investigate the wormhole wound up cracking. But Catherine can't shake the feeling that there's more to it than mere stress, that something very important and very terrible happened in the Trappist system - and that many more lives may be in danger if she can't remember just what that something is.
REVIEW: Vessel starts with a compelling mystery and a traumatized, amnesiac woman, but sometimes doesn't quite seem sure what to do with either. Catherine sets out to be a strong, self-sufficient commander, but for at least the first half she feels more like a passive victim of her circumstances, refusing to heed the little voice in her head that keeps telling her something is not right, not with her or with the NASA party line she's expected to follow. And, in her defense, she does have some pressing problems Earthside to keep her occupied: her husband David, assuming she had died, moved on, bringing a new woman (an old friend) into his life and a new mom into her daugher Aimee's. It doesn't help that parts of the mission that she does remember cast doubt on the stability of her relationship... parts that she tries to hide from her superiors and therapist. She feels almost like a stranger in her own life, now, having missed so much. But dealing with a marriage on the rocks and a daughter who has grown into a veritable stranger (and a mother whose dementia diagnosis further alienates her) can't keep her from thinking about the mission she can't remember, or noticing the blackouts and "sleepwalking" incidents, and no matter what the NASA commanders and staff therapist insist, she just knows in her gut that this is no passing psychological issue but something bigger.
The only one who seems to share Catherine's suspicions is a stranger: Cal Morganson, part of the ground crew for the impending Sagittarius II mission - a misson that started after contact with Catherine's crew was lost, to follow up in the reports of alien life. He hasn't even left Earth and never trained for space missions, but he's the one who grows suspicious about Catherine's answers and the party line. He's the one who pushes and digs and investigates, while Catherine flails and frets and struggles to hide her dangerous blackouts and other symptoms, eventually resorts to anesthetizing her troubles with alcohol, before finally - finally - reaching out for help... and even then, she sometimes feels like a passenger on Cal's quest for the truth, rather than the one with the most skin in the game.
It goes without saying that there is, indeed, more going on than mere stress (and anyone who has read or watched tales with even vaguely similar setups can probably guess the jist of it), though there are some logic holes with that aspect... as well as why NASA keeps throwing live astronauts at problems that robotic probes might be better suited for, at least until answers are forthcoming as to why things keep going so disastrously wrong when humans poke their noses through the wormhole. (Catherine is not the first to come back altered by the journey, and NASA's ostracization of the previous astronaut to report odd side-effects really should've been a bigger red flag much earlier than it was for everyone involved.) Despite the logic holes, and the way characters start feeling like picks from the stock bin rather than their own people, things do pick up and start moving well in the back half of the book, though the conclusion feels too neat, even as it shows hints that it wants a sequel.
Vessel isn't a bad little science fiction thriller, but a few too many quibbles held it back from a solid fourth star.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) - My Review
Saturn Run (John Sanford and Ctien) - My Review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)