Linda Nagata

Short version: a nail-biting action thriller. Read it if you want thriller, but not to experience anything new in female characterization or military sci-fi.

"If Daniel could offer her comfort, if there was something he could say that would ease the horror of what was done and smooth the scars that mark her life, True would refuse to hear it. For eight years she's rejected all such words. She does not need comfort. She needs her scars. But she keeps these thoughts to herself."

Sidebar
A lesson in feminism: First wave: women recognizing equal rights, working to legalize equality and recognizing issues around homosexuality. Second wave: the consciousness-raising wave, particularly applied to sexuality and reproductive rights. Third wave: feminism that is more inclusive, that recognizes issues of people of color, ability issues and issues of gender identity.
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Unfortunately for me, The Last Good Man is planted firmly in the second wave with it's 'big idea' being a middle-aged woman in a genre male role. I read thriller/military dramas here and there, but haven't been in the genre mood for a bit. I picked this one up on the strength of Nagata's discussion of the book on Scalzi's The Big Idea (here) and the 4.33 rating among friends. I'm not immune to the power of a good action-military movie, so I was intrigued by the idea of bringing an older woman into the setting.

Alas, though extremely readable, for me it did not push any conceptual boundaries. There's really only one woman in the action part of the team, True Brighton (naming done with tongue-in-cheek? Not sure) and once the leading mission is completed, the main plot centers on her identity as a mother. I find myself curious what the story would have been like with a male lead obsessed with his dead son. In the course of the story, True's identity as a mother is involved in making connections and justification for her actions. The two other important women are technical geniuses, the old 'women-in-the-lab,' ala NCIS and Criminal Minds. Gender identity, when discussed, is made clear that it falls along normative lines only (Nagata mentions one woman on the team as sleeping with a male team member in the past. No other male team members' sexual relationships are mentioned). Only two relationships are discussed, True's and the leader, Lincoln (!). We get a brief mention of Lincoln realizing he's the one-woman type and trying to restore his relationship with his estranged wife. True's is slightly less traditional, with her husband, Alex, is ex-military and currently a paramedic, following her around the country for her job, and him waiting at home for her return. That's about as boundary-pushing as it gets.

There's also some talk about whether the human element is going to be phased out of conflict and replaced with smart drones with rapidly programmable algorithms and the like. Again, not a revolutionary concept; every technical advance has had similar questions as we increase the physical distance between the people fighting.

Despite a nominal lead who is forty-nine and female, it failed to demonstrate any conceptual innovation for me. Nagata reports New York publishers didn't know what to make of it. Her interpretation was that part of that was due to the atypical heroine. Perhaps. Maybe the other part of it is that it isn't enough of any particular thing to strongly _target genre. Likely too military traditional to appeal to sci-fi fans, such as those of [a:Kameron Hurley|4369922|Kameron Hurley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1446651591p2/4369922.jpg]'s Bel Dame series, and perhaps the mildly futuristic sci-fi angle too challenging for those that like their military thrillers grounded in the current time. I could understand the marketing challenge.

Still, it's gripping with above average writing for the genre. Read it for the military-type thriller and not for the gender challenges.

Three-and-a-half-military-stars… (more)

If you're missing the glory days of the then "New" Space Opera of the late 1980s to the turn of the millennium, you could do yourself a favor by checking out this quartet by Ms. Nagata, which was completed this calendar year. A loser in the death of mid-list publishing, Nagata has successfully resuscitated her writing career by embracing independent publishing, and is still producing big-idea space adventure; when she's not writing near-future thrillers. I've been waiting until the set was completed and am quite happy with the first book.… (more)

‘Vast’ is that rare thing, a character-driven hard sci-fi novel. I would describe much hard sci-fi as plot and/or technology driven, which is by no means a bad thing but lends itself to a certain kind of narrative. ‘Vast’ combines the huge scope of interstellar space with the small world of a few people living together on a spaceship. Events are pushed forward by decisions made by the characters, almost always by consensus. I appreciate this form of narrative propulsion. ‘Vast’ is also convincingly strange. The inhabitants of the Null Boundary (as their spaceship is called) are being pursued by a mysterious, implacable, apparently very hostile alien ship. They assume other human colonies are out there but don’t know of any specifically, while knowing for certain that Earth and the solar system have been destroyed. The alien Chenzeme make a fascinating antagonist as the characters know so little about them at the start and are forced to keep adjusting their hypotheses throughout. Their journey towards greater knowledge and their literal journey across the vastness of space are very well told. The biotech weirdness was also memorable, notably philosopher cells, kisheers, the cult virus, and spaceship communication by means of dust. I have many questions about how the characters ended up in a spaceship together, which I assume are answered in previous books in the series. This one stands alone, though. It built a unique, interesting world and peopled it with a small cast of appealing, enigmatic characters. I especially liked the central three, Lot, Urban, and Clemantine.

Finally, if you’ve read this novel, I’d be interested to know how you interpreted Lot’s ‘sensory tears’. Until about halfway through the book I assumed they were tears in the sense of salty water that leaks from your eyes. Thus I visualised Lot with a pierrot-style eye motif. Then I realised that tears could also mean apertures torn into his face, something like gills. I think you could argue for either interpretation. Which did you think it was?… (more)