Rosenblum, Mary: Horizons
Horizons
Writer: Mary Rosenblum
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 324
I don't even remember how I found this book originally, but I suspect it was one of those Amazon.com accidents, and not only did the cover catch my eye (obviously being the same artist who does Scalzi's Old Man's War series), but the fact that yes: it's a woman writing SF. Bring it on.
The premise: What starts out as a simple act of vengeance for her her brother's murder turns into a dangerously political game for Ahni Huang. She might be a class 9 empath and have advance biogenetic augmentations that help her control her mind and body, but she's going to need every ounce of her talent, abilities and money to figure out the deceptions behind the deceptions that are occurring in the Platform of New York Up. There's a mystery there, a hint to the future of the entire human race, and some people would do anything to destroy it.
Spoilers ahead.
It's funny. You know how I said I was really tired of rich, aristocratic characters out of touch with reality? Well, we've got another rich girl as the heroine, but fortunately, Ahni isn't all that out of touch with reality. Yes, she gets jerked around, especially at the start of the story, and her family seems intent on choosing her path for her, but Ahni is a solidly crafted character with her own goals and desires. She's intelligent, but not ridiculously so. The book is told from more than simply Ahni's POV, but Ahni is the one who is able to piece together the seemingly unrelated pieces of the story and bring it to a conclusion. And to that I say, WELL DONE. I like Ahni better than Mira Fedor of Marianne de Pierres's Dark Space, and I like her better than Kylara Vatta of Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger.
This book, though, has a rather interesting pace and an odd unraveling of plot. It opens with Ahni seeking out her brother's murderer, only to get attacked herself and driven to the very tops of the NYUp where she meets Koi, a creature who looks as though he's been genetically tampered with, but in truth was merely born the way he is: he and his family are quite possibly the next stage of human evolution, and they're the Platform's best-kept secret. Bio-engineer Dane Nilsson intends to keep it that way, but slowly begins to trust Ahni, especially when she rescues Koi from a kidnapping by the very man she thought murdered: her brother.
And here's where it gets a wee bit hard to follow: I think Xai is simply meant to be one-dimensional, despite all his double and triple crossings. He tries to have Ahni killed before she discovers him, and after she does and turns down his offer, tries again, but once she reaches home on Earth, the assassination attempts just magically stop. Maybe Li Zhen also had something to do with the attempted assassination, I don't know, but I do know that that particular plot device felt a wee bit contrived for action alone (and a reason to get Ahni into the very tip-top of NYUp), as evidenced by the fact it's dropped so easily.
And here's something else that's interesting about the book: once the assassination attempts are over, the plot seems to lack a specific direction, it lacks forward motion. Yet, the pages magically fly, and I'm not sure how Rosenblum accomplishes this. Yes, I was invested in the characters and the situation of Dane and the inhabitants of the Platform, but was that really enough to make those pages fly, especially when I was having such trouble connecting the dots even though Ahni was certain the dots were related?
I don't know. To me, it feels like a weakness in the book, but again, I can't put my finger on why. By the end, all the pieces of the puzzle are in place: Rosenblum wraps up the story and the threads of the plot quite nicely. And while I never particularly felt manipulated or held back from information, there was often times I was reading a scene and not sure what I was getting or why. Rosenblum took her time with this story and setting up the stage for the plot, and yet, the pages flew. How the hell did she do that?
It's not that I didn't enjoy the book. Far from. It's just that this THING I keep referring to is, in my mind, why it's a B+ book instead of A+, why it's four stars instead of five. Odd, isn't it? She has such fantastic detail in her world-building and her politics and even her characters that really, it should be no surprise that the pages are easy to get through, but yet if I had to pinpoint a weakness, it's Rosenblum's ability to take an increasingly complex plot and complex themes and squeeze them into a narrow story. It works--trust me, it works and I wasn't left wanting more. But still...it lacked that certain push forward, and I don't know any other way to describe it.
Another oddity of this book was the suddenness of Ahni and Dane's relationship. I've read lust at first sight (thanks to tezmilleroz for that fantastic phrase), but this just beats all. Yes, Ahni and Dane have a connection when they first meet, but when she returns, he's all over her and she's more than happy to comply. The suddenness of the sex scene shocked me, because there was no real build-up of the lust or the potential for the relationship. It was just suddenly THERE. Very odd. It took me a week to recover from that bit of whiplash, but fortunately, I didn't doubt their connection. Ahni does fall in love with NYUp and the inhabitants there (particularly Koi and his family) and will do anything to protect it, and Dane is part of that deal in a roundabout way. It makes sense she'd fall for him once she's made the decision to protect the evolved inhabitants of NYUp, but again, it was just very, very sudden.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: it's a very solid, stand-alone SF story that has interesting similarities to one of the main conflicts of Adam Roberts' Gradisil: what does it take for a satellite community above Earth to gain it's independence? Rosenblum's further exploration of the evolution of humanity in zero-gravity and the fear of the Other makes for a jam-packed read, and before I forget to mention it, I was particularly fond of how the Oriental culture provided the basis for most of her main characters. That was a nice touch. I'll look forward to reading more of Rosenblum as the opportunity allows, and if you're a fan of near-future SF, you should definitely give this one a go.
Next up:
The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld