Nophek Gloss, by Essa Hansen
A sleek space adventure that tries so hard not to be YA.
Orbit, 2020, 408 pages
Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.
He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.
Nophek Gloss is a stylish modern space opera, but it's basically just a YA space adventure at heart (although it's not marketed as YA) that was clearly produced in the modern writing-sphere of beta-reader exchanges and polished up movie scripts and repurposed fan fiction and an emphasis on what kind of "rep" is represented therein. Every chapter of this book felt like it was trying so very hard to be EXCITING! and HEARTFELT! and so very precious. The stylishness is mostly chrome with a quirky writing style that never clicked for me. Essa Hansen loves using odd verb choices in dialog and action scenes: faces and foreheads "steeple" and "tent," feelings "ripple," voices "aspect," steam "freckles" the air, bodies "lever" and ships "judder." After the first few times, this becomes something you notice in practically every paragraph. It reads like someone's first book (which this is) while the author is still groping around to find their "unique" style.
The story is a familiar young man's revenge quest in which he levels up after his entire family is killed, until he's ready to take on the universe.
Caiden is a teenage boy living on a planet ruled by advanced technological "Overseers." He's a young mechanic, fairly happy with his simple life, even if their lives are dull and seem to be spent entirely toiling for the Overseers with no benefit to themselves. He's curious though, something his more jaded father is trying to stomp out of him. He has a best friend, a soft, empathic girl whom he tries to protect from bullies and other hardships, but it's clear she's not cut out for this rough life.
One day, the Overseers arrive and tell everyone they're moving them to another better place. Everyone is herded onto a ship, stuck inside for hours without food or bathroom facilities, and then dumped onto a plain where a bunch of monsters promptly tear everyone apart, described in quite grisly fashion. Only Caiden escapes, managing to hide inside the hulk of another ship fortuitously grounded on the plain of beasts.
What follows is your basic hero's journey with a bit of Star Wars, a bit of Firefly, and a lot of Final Fantasy. Caiden is able to trigger the weapons system on the ship, he encounters first Overseers and then the scrappy crew of another ship who adopts him into their dysfunctional space family and starts teaching him about how the multiverse works. Every ship is able to travel between "universes," each of which have their own laws of physics, and apparently the "Overseers" are basically just a bunch of pirates running a little illegal slave-breeding operation, off in a universe where no one was looking. Caiden's entire world was pretty much a cattle farm for them, and they'd outlived their usefulness.
Caiden of course wants to expose their crimes and get revenge, but that's not how things work. But fortunately for him, he has some special powers and learns there was more than luck involved in his escaping.
Nophek Gloss is the unobtanium that's found in the brains of the monsters that killed Caiden's people. There's a lot of worldbuilding and gee-whiz science fantasy technology, and Caiden turning out to be a genetically engineered super-soldier who also goes through an accelerated aging that instantly makes him physically 6 years older. He works through a lot of PTSD and guilt complexes, still acts like a fourteen-year-old which gets him in trouble repeatedly when he can't stifle his impulses to lash out at the bad guys. There is a lot of action and fighting. The storyline gets quite convoluted, but whenever there's too much exposition, Caiden gets in another fight and there's some more action.
Caiden is a hotshot fourteen-year-old with an adult supersoldier body skipping across universes, brawling with aliens, dueling in space battles, trying to beat the system when the bad guys run things and have mind control powers. It would be cool as a game and the whole book felt kind of like a Final Fantasy installment. But I found myself getting bored, and unimpressed with the writing style or the setting. Nophek Gloss ends with an obvious setup for a sequel (you didn't really think Caiden's little girlfriend from back home was dead, did you?) but I wasn't hooked enough to read the next one.
My complete list of book reviews.
Orbit, 2020, 408 pages
Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.
He vows to do anything it takes to get revenge on the slavers who murdered his people and took away his home. To destroy their regime, he must infiltrate and dismantle them from the inside, or die trying.
Nophek Gloss is a stylish modern space opera, but it's basically just a YA space adventure at heart (although it's not marketed as YA) that was clearly produced in the modern writing-sphere of beta-reader exchanges and polished up movie scripts and repurposed fan fiction and an emphasis on what kind of "rep" is represented therein. Every chapter of this book felt like it was trying so very hard to be EXCITING! and HEARTFELT! and so very precious. The stylishness is mostly chrome with a quirky writing style that never clicked for me. Essa Hansen loves using odd verb choices in dialog and action scenes: faces and foreheads "steeple" and "tent," feelings "ripple," voices "aspect," steam "freckles" the air, bodies "lever" and ships "judder." After the first few times, this becomes something you notice in practically every paragraph. It reads like someone's first book (which this is) while the author is still groping around to find their "unique" style.
The story is a familiar young man's revenge quest in which he levels up after his entire family is killed, until he's ready to take on the universe.
Caiden is a teenage boy living on a planet ruled by advanced technological "Overseers." He's a young mechanic, fairly happy with his simple life, even if their lives are dull and seem to be spent entirely toiling for the Overseers with no benefit to themselves. He's curious though, something his more jaded father is trying to stomp out of him. He has a best friend, a soft, empathic girl whom he tries to protect from bullies and other hardships, but it's clear she's not cut out for this rough life.
One day, the Overseers arrive and tell everyone they're moving them to another better place. Everyone is herded onto a ship, stuck inside for hours without food or bathroom facilities, and then dumped onto a plain where a bunch of monsters promptly tear everyone apart, described in quite grisly fashion. Only Caiden escapes, managing to hide inside the hulk of another ship fortuitously grounded on the plain of beasts.
What follows is your basic hero's journey with a bit of Star Wars, a bit of Firefly, and a lot of Final Fantasy. Caiden is able to trigger the weapons system on the ship, he encounters first Overseers and then the scrappy crew of another ship who adopts him into their dysfunctional space family and starts teaching him about how the multiverse works. Every ship is able to travel between "universes," each of which have their own laws of physics, and apparently the "Overseers" are basically just a bunch of pirates running a little illegal slave-breeding operation, off in a universe where no one was looking. Caiden's entire world was pretty much a cattle farm for them, and they'd outlived their usefulness.
Caiden of course wants to expose their crimes and get revenge, but that's not how things work. But fortunately for him, he has some special powers and learns there was more than luck involved in his escaping.
Nophek Gloss is the unobtanium that's found in the brains of the monsters that killed Caiden's people. There's a lot of worldbuilding and gee-whiz science fantasy technology, and Caiden turning out to be a genetically engineered super-soldier who also goes through an accelerated aging that instantly makes him physically 6 years older. He works through a lot of PTSD and guilt complexes, still acts like a fourteen-year-old which gets him in trouble repeatedly when he can't stifle his impulses to lash out at the bad guys. There is a lot of action and fighting. The storyline gets quite convoluted, but whenever there's too much exposition, Caiden gets in another fight and there's some more action.
Caiden is a hotshot fourteen-year-old with an adult supersoldier body skipping across universes, brawling with aliens, dueling in space battles, trying to beat the system when the bad guys run things and have mind control powers. It would be cool as a game and the whole book felt kind of like a Final Fantasy installment. But I found myself getting bored, and unimpressed with the writing style or the setting. Nophek Gloss ends with an obvious setup for a sequel (you didn't really think Caiden's little girlfriend from back home was dead, did you?) but I wasn't hooked enough to read the next one.
My complete list of book reviews.