In the future, the world is run by giant corporations. Everyone lives and works for one of “The Big Five.” It used to be “the Big Seven,” but a couple of wars took care of that. There are Residents and Citizens with a few more rights and opportunities, and then there are the “ghouls” who have to starve and scrape by in the streets. Years ago, a group of scientists and terraformers settled on Mars, and now they’re back and attacking Earth. New soldiers are needed, and ghoul Dietz signs up.
Faster than light travel has been developed, but not applied to ships: the Big Five send their soldiers to battle by breaking them down into atoms and beaming them to where they need to go. Dietz is trained for these drops, but things start to go wrong right away. Can Dietz survive the war while uncovering the secrets the corporations don’t want people to know? Can Dietz survive the light-speed drops, when each one brings danger?
This was a fun trippy sci-fi book in general, but it’s also written really interestingly. It’s told in first person, and Dietz gets no first name, description, or pronouns until 140 pages in. I started out picturing a male Dietz, because that’s usually what science fiction would default to for a grunt soldier fighting Martians. But when it became obvious that this was being done very deliberately, I started instead trying to picture Lydia Dietz from Beetlejuice as the main character. I will admit, it was tough! But I felt validated when another character says “she” on page 140. The author blurb at the back of the book is also written very carefully, with no pronouns at all. Pushing boundaries and expectations – love it! Plus, it’s just generally a great book that I don’t want to say too much about – the twists and turns are really well done and I don’t want to spoil anything. This was chosen as a science fiction book club book, so I knew absolutely nothing about it going in, which was fun. Recommended!
Sounds interesting. Think I’ll add it to my TBR list.
I really enjoyed this one as well, and you’re right, the very careful use of pronouns was very suspicious.
I also thought the author was using the book to take a jab at Heinlein. That was even less cryptic to me than the pronoun use!
Yes, I’m expecting some Heinlein discussion at next week’s library book club discussion when we talk about this one!
I’ve been passing on this as it pops up in my GR recommendations, but now that I see that YOU recommend it I will DEFINITLEY be checking it out!
Awww, thanks! Now you better like it or I’ll feel bad. 😛
LOL you have yet to lead me astray!
As someone who sometimes struggles with keeping track of complicated scifi plots (esp when they include time travel!) I also appreciated that Hurley also has a guide to the timelines on her blog (or maybe it was in an interview). Makes me feel less dumb as a reader
Oh cool, I didn’t know about that! I’ll have to take a look.
I have been meaning to check out a Kameron Hurley book (I used to work with her husband but didn’t know until I didn’t work there anymore)…I might start with this one, great review!