Another one of those books where the blurb made it seem like something I'd really like but the way in which the author dealt with the plot in question just didn't quite work for me. As usual, YMMV.
The basic premise is that it's science fiction, set in a world where corporate entities control entire planets, which means that the people living there (whether human or not) have to live under the dictates of those corporations. One of our protagonists, who goes by Jasper (aka Mason, when he's undercover) has grown up on one of those worlds, where use of drugs on the population has led to a number of side effects cropping up which give the planet's inhabitants various psychic powers, while simultaneously decimating the birth rate. Somehow this has been able to be kept from the company which ran this (and many other) planets and so Jasper uses his particular gift of being able to see the emotional connections between people to try and sabotage that company's work on other planets.
Our other protagonist, Jasper's eventual love interest, is Kovari rather than human - despite his name Sowing of Small Havoc lives within a society where working towards the group good is the main goal and that's been abused by the company who owns this planet to make even the idea of organising against the company almost taboo. When our main characters meet, Jasper is supposedly encouraging unionisation but also has a plan to try and infiltrate the company headquarters, as further work is being done on a drug that works much like the one that affected his planet, destroying the birth rate but being immensely profitable.
In general terms, there's pretty good world-building and a nice range of supporting characters (including a spaceship which has recently acquired sentience and wants to get involved in what's going on) but the main characters aren't as strong as they could be. I had some trouble visualising what the Kovari look like, so it's probably a good thing that this is not a particularly explicit book for m/m and I hope the writer has a clear grasp of the respective biologies if she plans to change that in future installments. There's also a bit of bleed-over from what looks like the author's own experience of unionising, as sometimes there's a degree of info-dumping of 'how to organise people into a union' which just feels awkward.
So, in general terms not a bad book and it's likely to work well for some - for me, it just lacked that clarity of characterisation that makes me care what happens to the people involved and then want to pick up the next in the series.
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Jo Miles’s story “Grow, Divide, Sacrifice, Thrive” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 21 February 2020.
When I was in college, my good friend was the caretaker for a portion of her family’s heirloom sourdough starter. It blew my mind that this starter had been passed down through multiple generations of her family, and I loved the idea of a living, growing family heirloom. (That you could…
New story! Grow, Divide, Sacrifice, Thrive - Jo Miles, @josmiles, #Free #SFF
February 2020
The circular driveway at the Randolph family house was already full when Chris arrived, packed tight with cars all the way out to the curb, so Chris parked on the street. It seemed fitting that there was no space left for them, and anyway, their scraped-up little Honda didn’t belong next to the family’s Lexuses and Teslas.
Evening bathed the neighborhood in softening shadows,…
A: One non-fiction book that I read recently and enjoyed immensely is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester who combines his personal, life-long experience working with trees with some incredible recent science to show that trees have a lot more going on than we give them credit for.
Not only do trees change their chemistry to survive…
Jo Miles is a non-binary author of science fiction and fantasy and is working to build a more hopeful future, both in their fiction and through their day job helping nonprofits use the internet to save the world. They live in Maryland, where they are owned by two cats.
www.jomiles.com, @josmiles
Jo Miles’s story “Grow, Divide, Sacrifice, Thrive”
in Metaphorosis Friday, 21 February 2020.
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