I wanted to like this more than I did. I haven’t read KSR’s Mars series yet, and thought “why not, a new murder mystery in space from KSR, why not start there?”
I didn’t hate it, by far, but it was just too much of a socio-political diatribe for me. I get it. We all have agendas. And I know writers, especially SciFi writers, use their stories as warnings for humanity to get their s#%+ together. But it was just too much for me in the end.
Now, I really think KSR was after the small moments between the bigger actions. For instance, sitting around talking. Or going on about quantum encryption. It felt more like you were in the moment there, which was excellent writing in my opinion, but it just didn’t keep my interest. Ta Shu seems like he could have been much more of a focal point in this book, but ended up being there just to help save Qi and Fredricks, either in person or long-distance.
Not sure why I grasp this fact either...go through the effort of killing someone on a lunar base, only to try and kill two other people with missiles launched from earth a day prior? Really? Not send one or two people in space suits and a rover to simply hit their helmets with a hammer and let them die in the vacuum of space?
I finally understood that Fred is on the spectrum, which made me more intrigued in his character honestly. I know someone much like Fred, so it was kind of an “ah ha” moment for me when he said the had been labeled. And the deep dive into Fred’s thoughts during certain points made all that much more sense to me. It just wasn’t enough to save it unfortunately.
Overall, I would give this 3.5 stars. It was written really well, and I think the intended point sailed across, but it just wasn’t the kind of story I was really after. Not that it was bad, I think someone more interested in the whole social political balance between world powers will get much more from this as it isn’t as much of a sci-fi novel. I honestly expected something a little different from all I know about Kim Stanley Robinson.