Melko, Paul: Singularity's Ring
Singularity's Ring (2008)
Written by: Paul Melko
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 326
For a long time now, I've been a suspicious science fiction reader. It seemed like of all the SF I read, I liked less of it than more, and the more that I disliked got really tiring, really fast. Also getting really tiring, really fast, was hearing about all these latest and greatest SF authors who wrote books that reviewers SWORE would enthrall me. And, given my experiences, I just wasn't in the mood to take the bait. Staying on top of the genre be damned.
When Melko's debut was released in hardcover, I had little inclination to check it out, mostly because it was in hardcover, but also because I'd unfortunately started to develop reading prejudices in SF and I was afraid that Melko was going to be another author in a long line of promised greats that didn't do jack for me. However, my reluctance ebbed some when my SHU mentor, timons promoted and raved about this book. See, he knows Mr. Melko, and I respect his opinion. So, with that in mind, I waited for the mass-market of Melko's debut to be released, and picked it up. And fortunately for me, I enjoyed this. It would've been a bad thing for my SF reading habits if I hadn't.
But I've read Paul Melko before, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I've completely forgotten the story itself, and reading my review of it tells me only that it's one of three short stories that Melko wrote before writing his debut novel that takes place in the same world (and even uses the same characters). This cracks me the hell up, so I'm going to have to find that copy of that mag, wherever it is, so I can read the story with fresh eyes. I enjoyed it then, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it more now.
The premise: Apollo Papadopulos is actually not an individual person at all, but made up of five separate teenagers who form a new entity by combining their specialties and talents. Strom, Meda, Quant, Manuel, and Moira are a pod, and are engineered to share thoughts and information non-verbally, as well as work and think as one person. They are training to become the captain of a starship, but someone doesn't want them to achieve their goal. What starts out as a series of accidents turns into something more sinister, and it's all Apollo can do to survive, as well as keep the sum of its parts.
Review style: Back to the stream-of-conscious review style with spoilers scattered inside. I've got to talk this one out, folks. :)
I've got to give Melko credit for the world-building here. There's a lot to absorb, and I really love the concept of pods and how they work. While it got predictable, I liked reading a chapter from each individual in Apollo and learning how that person functioned within the pod and what went wrong when that person was missing from the pod for any length of time. I also was fascinated by the concept of the Community, as well as the leaps and bounds that humanity's made in Melko's future. Melko also did an excellent job with description, and I had no trouble visualizing the story unfolding in front of me.
His POV choices were also very interesting. I was intrigued to note that Strom's POV was first person present, while everyone else was first person past, and I'm wondering if that was intentional or a by-product from the fact that Strom's section was written as a stand-alone at first. The "we" POV was a little bit jarring, especially reading the individual characters' names in a scene. I also found the section where we got a brief scene from each character in his or her first person POV jarring, but that's because it made me slow down and pay attention to figure out whose head I was in.
But if there's a weakness to this book, which is--all in all--a very enjoyable debut, it lies in the structure and the plot.
Structure-wise, I've already explained it's predictable. There's danger, a pod member will get separated from the pod for a certain length of time, and then will be reunited once the chapter is over. And the chapters are, for my personal tastes, ridiculously long. Strom's was especially difficult, placed at the beginning, because when I start a book, I want to get moving and get moving fast, and a good way to do that, IMHO, is shorter chapters. But again, it's a personal thing. The truth is, the first five chapters, which give us each pod member's POV, function as short story each, so the length of each chapter, as well as the the predictable structure, are a bit understandable.
But then there's the plot, which does relate to a portion of the world-building, and raises questions that it never fully answers, if at all. The problem I had is that the pod would make intuitive leaps and understand something, yet that understanding never really translated to the page. I get that the pod got it, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to fully understand and empathize with. It's surprising and disappointing considering the POV, but information was held at a distance.
For example: how was Apollo suddenly able to listen in on other pods and create an octet or whatever? The first example was Strom's experience with the bears, but there's nothing about that experience, save for the remarkable fact that the bears were a pod, to suggest that something was changed in his make-up to allow him (and the rest of the pod) to hear other pods. Nor did we ever get the impression, at any time, that an event triggered this ability. It becomes pretty important, and hell, I suspect maybe some of it has to do with the singletons outside of the cafe, but it's never fully explained. The pod makes intuitive leaps I can't follow, and damn it, I want to understand!
Another question, though minor, that doesn't get answered: when Strom is separated from the pod, how did the rest of them beat him to camp? Minor detail, for sure, but I couldn't help but wonder.
And why, once Moira got jacked into Leto's AI, couldn't she access the Ring since she was a part of Apollo? I guess that's because Meda was never really introduced to Leto's AI, or if she was, it wasn't powerful yet so it didn't count, but it would've been nice if the characters worried about it before coming to the conclusion of why she wasn't a danger in that regard.
McCorkle & Co: Really? Okay, so there's rebel factions who don't want the quintets to exist, but doesn't that put all quintets in danger? Sure, the first chapter shows us that, but we never get a solid whiff of that danger for ALL of them afterward. And also, if quintet research was illegal, how did the raid on the lab to kill the fetuses overturn that law? Perhaps I was reading too fast at that point and missed the obvious answer, but the question wiggled into my head and is stuck there. It would've been more interesting, to me, if the government never realized quintets existed and therefore didn't have jobs available to them (like captaining the spaceship), which would've made the danger that McCorkle & Co presented more tangible. Also, the fact Khalid allowed Leto to do whatever he wanted to Apollo, to Meda in particular, is especially skeezy. What bugs me, deep down, is the fact that quintet research came from the Community, but apparently pod research itself did too, but yet there's a backlash against Community technology, and it gets all clogged up in the loop of information, and I'm too stubborn to want to sit down and really sort it out. It seems like the whole point of the quintet was more than just captaining starships, and while I know we get the answer that quintets, let alone pods period, were meant to focus the power of the Ring better, what did KHALID and his people think the quintets were meant to do? Or were they just fucking with the researching in hopes of finding out? Probably the latter, but still, annoying.
Also: Meda annoyed me quite often with her refusal to consider or look at Ring technology. Yeah, I know, what happened to her was bad, but before she got jacked in, she made her own decisions, and Leto tricking her had everything to do with seduction and nothing to do with rape, pure and simple.
I nitpick because I really enjoyed the book on the whole and wanted to know more. Wanted the holes to be plugged in. I don't know if this is meant to be a stand-alone or part of a series, but if it's a part of a series, I sure as hell won't mind reading more. I'd like to know what happens now that the Ring is activated, and there's a potential for a new Community and the prevention of a second Exodus (I liked the answers there, what really happened to the Community). We'll see what happens.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: it's an enjoyable science fiction debut, if only for the fascinating concepts of individuals engineered to become a pod and the descriptions of how each of these individuals function within and what they bring to the group. It's a solid read that does leave you asking questions in the end, but I think some of the answers to my questions can be found in the text--I was just reading too fast. The chapters are too long for my taste, though they're structured like (and in some cases ARE) short stories, and knowing that helps with the pacing. I'm definitely interested in reading more work from Melko, but I'm also happy to wait for the mass-market versions of his work. Good stuff, interesting stuff, and worth checking out if you're a fan of SF.
Cover Commentary: really, I've got nothing on this one, save to say I always thought the cover art, coupled with the design, was a little bit TOO busy. But that's a personal thing.
Next up: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman