Chill, by Elizabeth Bear
Title: Chill
Series: Jacob's Ladder #2
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Year: 2010
Pages: 310
Genre: Science Fiction
Subgenre: Space Opera, Generation Ship
Challenge Information: SF Challenge 2011 category "SF dealing with robots/artificial intelligence"
Full Disclosure: As I've mentioned before, I am an Elizabeth Bear fangirl. Also, I read this book and wrote most of this review almost a year ago.
Jacket Description
Sometimes, the greatest sin is survival.
The generation ship Jacob's Ladder has barely survived cataclysms from within and without. Now, riding the shock wave of a nova blast toward an uncertain destiny, the damaged ship -- the only world its inhabitants have ever known -- remains a war zone. Even as Perceval, the new captain, struggles to come to terms with the traumas of her recent past, the remnants of rebellion aboard the ship still threaten the crew's survival.
Yet as Perceval's relatives Tristen and Benedick play a deadly game of cat and mouse through a vast ship that is renewing itself in strange and dangerous ways, an even more insidious threat is building in a place no one ever thought to look. And this implacable enemy could change the face of the ship forever if a ragtag band of heroes cannot stop it.
My Review
WARNING: No spoilers for Chill, but plenty of spoilers for Dust.
Chill picks up almost directly after Dust ended, when the ship is reeling from the nova blast and the crew is reeling from all of the deaths, particularly Rien's sacrifice to bring the new angel -- an A.I. integrating all of the splinter A.I.s that developed when the ship broke down centuries before -- into existence. Perceval is now captain, but she is barely functional as she deals with her grief, and there is an enormous power vacuum that the remaining Exalts of Rule and Engine -- both those for and against Perceval's captaincy -- are scrambling to fill. And while the A.I.s have all been integrated into the new angel, it is bothered by enormous black spaces in its awareness of the ship, due either to damage or enemy machinations. And then a very dangerous prisoner escapes, so two teams -- one led by Tristen, the other by Benedick -- are sent in pursuit.
The plot is made up entirely by that pursuit, and I found that choice disappointing. The entire plot of Dust was Perceval and Rien fleeing through the fascinating landscape of the half-ruined ship; to have the entire plot of this one be another chase through a now-much-more-familiar landscape just seemed repetitive. There are a couple new and exciting set-pieces -- particularly a scene involving massive intelligent fungi doing something deliciously unexpected -- but ultimately I felt a bit let down by Bear's imagination. What stood out most about Dust for me was how gloriously imaginative the world-building was; with that thrill behind me this was just another SF action novel.
Or would have been, were it not for the characters. If there was one flaw in Dust, it was that all of the characters were ciphers to me for 2/3 of the novel. Not so here. Dust and Chill ended up being mirror images of each other: the first all ideas and no character development; the second few (new) ideas but wonderful, complex characters with long histories and complicated relationships. The chase plot is really just window-dressing for internal, character-driven action, as the characters left standing after Dust figure out who they want to be in this new world.
Unfortunately, window-dressing or not the chase plot was still there, and it required a resolution, and that resolution was something of a deus-ex-machina. It also left a pretty significant plot thread dangling, as this is the middle book of a trilogy. But for these characters I would forgive a great deal more than that.
Rating
Overall Satisfaction: ★★★★
Intellectual Satisfaction: ★★★1/2
Emotional Satisfaction: ★★★★1/2
Read this for: The characters
Don't read this for: The ideas
Bechdel Test: Fail
Johnson Test: Fail
Books I was reminded of: Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space trilogy; The Tempering of Men by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
Will I read more by this author? Of course!