Second reading, and it's just confirming my first impressions that this is a beautifully contrived and beautifully written novel that resonates much more deeply than its space opera subject matter and its jaunty tone might suggest.
Flynn cleverly strips away the artifice, and still manages to create almost unbearable suspense. He tells you exactly what's going to happen. Much of the time, he tells you exactly what's going on in the minds of each character, and exactly how they are fatally misreading what going on in the minds of any other given character. He creates a premise that requires massive infodumps â technical, historical, personal â to work. And IMHO, not only does it work, but it's a delight. And not only is it a delight, it has fascinating depths and insights â insights into human nature, insights into how endeavours (personal, professional, perhaps even societal) work, or more crucially, don't work. Insights into how one person can make a crazy, complicated system (again personal, professional, perhaps even societal) work, and how taking him/her away can result in the whole dam' pack of card collapsing.
I love Flynn's style, and the worldbuilding is fabulous. Flynn constructs a history. There is technology, there are societies, each with every different, and very plausible, norms and outlooks. There is biology, and prejudice. There are recipes, and sea chanties. There are great names, names that are so almost not weird, but still very SF â¦
I also love the way that Flynn plays with the tropes of other genres â this is a ghost story. It's also SF's answer to Patrick O'Brien and Horatio Hornblower.
I love this novel.
Flynn cleverly strips away the artifice, and still manages to create almost unbearable suspense. He tells you exactly what's going to happen. Much of the time, he tells you exactly what's going on in the minds of each character, and exactly how they are fatally misreading what going on in the minds of any other given character. He creates a premise that requires massive infodumps â technical, historical, personal â to work. And IMHO, not only does it work, but it's a delight. And not only is it a delight, it has fascinating depths and insights â insights into human nature, insights into how endeavours (personal, professional, perhaps even societal) work, or more crucially, don't work. Insights into how one person can make a crazy, complicated system (again personal, professional, perhaps even societal) work, and how taking him/her away can result in the whole dam' pack of card collapsing.
I love Flynn's style, and the worldbuilding is fabulous. Flynn constructs a history. There is technology, there are societies, each with every different, and very plausible, norms and outlooks. There is biology, and prejudice. There are recipes, and sea chanties. There are great names, names that are so almost not weird, but still very SF â¦
I also love the way that Flynn plays with the tropes of other genres â this is a ghost story. It's also SF's answer to Patrick O'Brien and Horatio Hornblower.
I love this novel.
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