Seth Dickinson

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: “Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. it’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now. It wouldn’t be narratively complete.”

Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A species (!) of hard sci fi from a writer previously celebrated in the fantasy field for The Traitor Baru Cormorant, here blending queer representation with cosmic horror via military sci-fi in the paranoid Cold-War mode, heavily Cthulhu-ized.

That sounds like something I'd hate. Why didn't I?

Seth Dickinson. He has a deft touch with humor to lighten the darkness, irony to show the urgency of perspective, and unflinching realism to get the reader's investment in the stakes. Which are, I know this will surprise you, existential for Humanity.

On the nose, in our present political and environmental climate? I thought so going in. I think so now. However, there's a reason I recommend this story for your immersion and entertainment anyway. It is about the ways and means used to accomplish political goals while using people's fears and anxieties to motivate them into actions that are genuinely necessary. It takes us into the labyrinth of tech-dominated institutions of force apllication, and shows us the internal conflicts that impact everything done or not done in these institutions. The stakes are often secondary to the purposes of the instituion's inmates.

Yet...in the end, after much troubling back-and-forth...the people are clearly all working for something they see as Right and Good. No matter what outcome eventuates, someone's plans will fail, and someone else's will sorta-kinda work. Will anyone be fully happy? No. The way the book's structured, the changing PoVs are the way to keep this story from devolving into Us-v-Them predictability. Whose ideas and goals you empathize with really isn't the point. It's recognizing the goals and ideas matter TO THEM, and using that knowledge to get what *you* want.

A hard leap to make, as witness the fact that so few ever make it. Author Seth shows the reader the idea of it with startling clarity and not a little dark humor. The results...you'll discover the specifics...are exactly and precisely what the actions of all the characters add up to. There is no deus ex machina here. There is, in the second half, a lot of science to go with your fiction, mostly physics.

I typed that sentence with a sinking heart. I know some significant fraction of my readers just went *click* into the off position. It is, of course, entirely y'all's privilege...but please hear me out. Your prior knowledge of physics would enrich the uses of it. Your entire ignorance of it will not in any way diminish the force of its uses in the story. You read about magic without understanding how it works, this is essentially the same thing. The scientists are casting spells on ushabtis, not writing code to make drones work in concert...it's all a matter of looking at the technology talk in the proper storytelling spirit.

Appeal made. You decide. What you'll miss, if you ignore my recommendation of this read, is a cracking good story about how people, real people with needs and wants and ideals, get together to accomplish goals in the real world. That story will, I wager, appeal to readers of technothrillers, geopolitical spy stories, and SF gulpers as we head into the season where a big, immersive read will keep you from needing to pay attention to Aunt Lurlene's stories about her neighbors you've never met and couldn't care less about, or your nephew's reprehensible politics.… (more)

An audiobook review, this "From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back was not as entertaining for me as the New Hope volume. Read by a contingent of readers that fans of Star Wars audiobooks would recognize, they read the 40 stories this volume contains.
This was a mix of hit and miss for me. "The man who built Cloud City" and "This is no cave" were personal favorites, but for the most part they stories were lackluster, non-emotional and seemed to be agenda pushing. I am 110% behind gay marriage and relationships, but to make their sexual conquests the focal point of stories is not what I call interesting or a must read and quite frankly insulting to me as a reader as the writer could easily weave the protagonists story into the background instead of making it the main point and still have the exact same outcome with more adventure, more excitement, more subtlety, just more betterness... there were others similar to this but you get the point. Upon more examination I came up with the notion that this was rushed out which didn't give the authors the time they needed to flesh out their stories and give us, the readers, a more complete and fully realized story.
I don't know if I would recommended this title. The poor choices the writers and editors made have led me to doubt whether I want to continue on to the next volume, the Return of the Jedi". The readers were just fine as always, but its tough to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...
I give this a 2 1/2 stars.… (more)