A Fun SF Thriller
Reviews: Absent Stars by Christopher Charlton and Disavowed by John E. Stith
Review: Absent Stars by Christopher Charlton
CW: Sexual assault
Earth is dying. Charlton’s disaster is that we got stellar physics all wrong and the sun starts to turn into a red giant in the 22nd century. By the way, this won’t happen.
The Earth Coalition has put the most valuable humans on a space station with an ambitious plan to find a new planet and then fly the space station there, shuttling people to and fro until they can’t save any more. But some of those left on the dying, baked Earth think that they’ve been abandoned.
On the face of it this should be a straightforward SF thriller. Terrorist saboteurs versus…except it veers into horror and then into utter confusing weirdness.
I was left at the end trying to work out what had happened and what hadn’t. A chunk of the book appears to be delusions experienced by one of the terrorists. (I hate that trope). Or is it? Is the ending a flashback?
Forget it. I’m lost and I don’t care enough to be found. It’s a shame, because the book starts strong. I just can’t with the ending. At all.
Sorry, Charlton, this one didn’t work for me.
Review: Disavowed by John E. Stith
This is pretty old school science fiction…no surprise it’s in Amazing Selects. It’s got a lot of traits of mil SF, but it isn’t hardcore. I enjoyed it.
A patrol ship is sent to teach a recalcitrant system a lesson. Thanks to a typo, they attack an independent world with more than enough capability to destroy the ship.
(Unfortunately, Stith lets the original mission stand. If you have to ask if you’re the bad guys).
Our protagonist, Nick, ends up working with a couple of the dog-like locals (who are uplifted dog analogues who survived the destruction of their former masters. They’re cute).
He has to survive, get home, and then deal with a coverup. In other words, it’s pretty much a classic SF thriller. The uplift thing would be a spoiler if it wasn’t obvious to everyone except the Reffens.
There’s a lot of Heinlein in Stith’s work in general, and this is no exception. The ending sets up for more adventures of Nick Sparrow while being satisfying.
Recommended for people who like an old school SF thriller.