#the net

“The Net”

from the ‘Unmasked’ portfolio

This is the second of the three 20th century sci fi softcovers I grabbed basically at random from a used book store while on vacation. It’s also – according to the introduction – a debut novel published as part of a series promoting unknown writers and it’s certainly not a name I’d heard otherwise. So I really have no one to blame but myself when this turned out to be a bit of a mess. A mess with fun ideas and several charming features, to be clear – but god this book needed a meaner editor.

The book follows Jason Horichi – corporate magnate, star captain, adventurer and (as a hobby) interstellar jewel thief. On the world of New Crete, the scheming son of her greatest rival offers her a bet: if she can steal the ancient ruby being exhibited in their family museum, he will pull back from every market their firms compete in; should she fail, Jason will do the same. Being something of an obsessive gambler when it comes to things like this, she accepts – and instantly begins organizing and expanding her starship’s crew to conduct the perfect heist.

The book’s most fundamental issue is probably the pacing. Told cleanly and efficiently, the plot would be a slim, sharp novelette or longer short story – you can almost count the number of scenes really concerned with the whole heist and resulting vendetta on one hand. Instead the better part of the book is devoted to a sort of meandering exploration of the world and its incredibly bloated supporting cast. The final effect is that of spending most of the story setting the table for a feast far, far larger than the host can actually afford to put on. There are no economies taken at any point, the book abounds with characters introduced with potted biographies and lengthy explanations of their relationship and history with Jason who never appear on screen again. More dynamics and conflicts are established than I can even remember, the overwhelming majority near-instantly forgotten about. It’s the sort of thing that might be forgivable if this was the start of a massive series that would eventually make use of all the setup. As a standalone book it’s just incredibly frustrating.

The same issue is replicated on the level of prose and description. This is a very, very visual book, and no restraint is ever employed when it comes to painting vivid, detailed pictures in the reader’s mind. Even if it’s just describing a stairway or an anonymous bar, or the look of a lawyer who will never appear again. It makes reading the book an oddly exhausting experience, slogging through so many irrelevant details.

Doubly and trebly so because the complete lack of focus means all the extraneous detail crowds out the few character arcs that really do matter. Choices that the whole plot hinges on and character-defining revelations are brushed over with mechanical efficiency, almost just from lack of space to give them the focus they really need. People’s inner lives and motivations feel either mechanical or outright inexplicable. Which is kind of a fundamental issue, when it comes to what is driving and keeping loyal the crew very literally and directly risking life and limb to indulge an oligarch’s ego-trip and hobby (which would feel less pressing if Jason’s ego didn’t get so many of the supporting cast crippled or killed for no actual reason at all through the course of the book, something the narrative really does not seem to properly appreciate.)

Jason herself is a kind of fascinating character, in that she is both intensely, intensely ‘80s (Japanese in the ‘written-by-a-white-guy-in-Seattle’ way, described with comparisons to a samurai at least twice, wears exclusively black leather and skin-tight denim) and a bit of a fossil of older golden/silver-age space opera, but now coming in woman (hundred-year-old trillionaire oligarch space captain titan of the interstellar economy, almost none of which actually matter to the plot). The end result feels like someone’s beloved and incredibly overpowered rpg character, honestly.

The setting is interesting, for all of the very odd choices in focus. Beyond the very mid-80s genre writer representation of sexuality and people of colour, it commits more to how genuinely weird cosmetic surgery would get and how odd a lot of people would choose to look given the technology and budget that makes it possible. The main villain has four arms and one of the most important secondary characters has a thick coat of bears fur and these were both basically just the results of impulsive surgery they got as teenagers. It’s unironically one of the book’s strongest points.

The other big, salient feature of the setting is that the better part of the story takes place on New Crete, which is one of the more orientalist things I’ve read recently, let alone ‘space Greece’s.’ There’s even a hooting, jeering crowd swarming around the arena to watch some major characters be publicly lashed to death, and a bunch of strange and freakish religious sects.