Landon, Kristin: The Dark Reaches
The Dark Reaches (2009)
Written by: Kristin Landon
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 292 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Three (ongoing?)
I'm supposed to be reviewing Ursula K. LeGuin's The Farthest Shore right now, and even though I took notes while reading, I just can't focus my brain on a review. So, instead, you're getting the next book in the review pile, Kristin Landon's third (and possibly last?) installment in her space opera romance, The Dark Reaches.
I've been following this series somewhat obsessively, in that I buy the books the instant they come out and end up reading them a year later. Ooops. But Landon's not the only author I do that to, and besides, when it comes to women writing SF that includes a romantic subplot of any kind, I have to get my hands on it to see what they're up to. I just have to. It's a compulsion, I swear. At any rate, even though it's nearly a year later, I finally sat down to read the third (and hopefully NOT last) installment of Landon's series.
The premise: ganked from BN.com: After the Earth was destroyed by ruthless machine intelligences known as the Cold Minds, the remnants of the human race sought refuge among the Hidden Worlds. Now, renegade pilot Linnea Kiaho and her fellow pilot Iain sen Paolo embark on a dangerous journey to Earth's solar system, where humans may have survived. But what they find is a secret so powerful it may save the Hidden Worlds--or shatter them forever.
Review style: a short and sweet review to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the series so far and why I keep reading. Spoilers? Yes, so if those bug you, just skip to the "My Rating" section of the review and you'll be fine and dandy. :)
My experience with this series has kind of dwindled. I really enjoyed The Hidden Worlds, despite it hitting some of my cringe-buttons when it comes to plot devices. The Cold Minds wasn't quite as engaging for me, but that wasn't going to stop me from reading forward. It may have kept me from devouring the next installment in a timely manner (no, wait, I've read books I loved that I've put off reading sequels to), but nothing was going to stop me from reading this book eventually.
And I'm trying to decide how my experience with The Dark Reaches compares to the rest of the series (I refuse to call it a trilogy, because that would mean it's OVER and this is most certainly NOT OVER): to date, The Hidden Worlds remains the strongest installment, IMHO, but The Dark Reaches is a stronger book despite carrying some of the same issues that drove me batty in The Cold Minds.
And with this book, I finally realized what ultimately bugs me and why: multiple POVs can make or break a novel, depending on how they're handled. I've read books with a total of ten POVs and I've been fine, and then I've read books with three POVs and thought that three was too many. Truly, it depends on the book. And in this case, it depends on the characters.
From book one, we've been invested in Linnea and Iain. They're our foundation for the series, the characters we trust to guide us through the story and to teach us about their world and their lives. And in truth, Landon has always used multiple POVs outside of Linnea and Iain to tell her story, but it only started truly bugging me in The Cold Minds and now in The Dark Reaches. Not as much in The Dark Reaches, but I'll tell you why it bugs me on the whole in relation to this book:
We have Linnea and Iain, of course. But we also get Esayeh, Pilang, Hiso, and Tereu. We may get more I'm forgetting about. But as it stands, we've got six POVs in a book that isn't quite 300 pages. Now, I'm of the preference that I want my main characters to be in the thick of the action. I want them to make things happen. Iain is essentially a victim in this book and needs to be rescued (better him than Linnea, so no complaint there really) and Linnea's biggest moments come from deciding to follow the jump point to Earth and rescuing the Tritoners from the invasion even though she knows the deepsiders don't trust them. Okay, that's important, but it's not very climatic. Okay, so it's her insistence that kept Iain alive, and she relies on the expertise of others to find the cure, and that's fair.
But the ultimate climatic moment in the book is when Esayeh tricks Hiso and catapults them into Earth and into the Cold Minds. That's what ultimately saves both the deepsiders and the Tritoners, and that scene left me somewhat ambivalent. Reasons being are this:
When you've got six POVs (and we're talking limited third person, here) and less than 300 pages, there's not a whole lot of room to develop those characters as POV characters, as people you should care about, for better or worse. Being in Hiso's head didn't make me hate him more actively (in fact, I felt nothing but dread when reading anything at all about Hiso, because there was all the unspoken threat of forced seduction or sex and I might've hurled the book had Landon gone in that direction), and I never could warm up to Esayeh, because for all I knew about him from his revealed history, I never really knew him as a person. He was devoted to his cause, conflicted due to his past, and he made the "right" decisions, but he was always and forever distant, so the big climatic moment of the book was also very distant, because they involved characters I didn't know well and/or couldn't stand the sight of.
But I like the risks Landon takes. Her books toe the line between SFR and straight SF to moments of hard SF, and that's such an interesting mixture. Sometimes said mixture is a little TOO strong in certain ingredients, which makes my reading of the book a little off-kilter and I never know where anything is GOING, but I really appreciate seeing just what Landon is packing into her worlds.
For example, while the whole concept of jumping and a pilot's connection/addiction to otherspace is pure fantasy, the way of life for the deepsiders is actually pretty feasible (but I'm no expert). I loved the habitats and culture of the deepsiders, and I loved how freaking hyper they all were. Though I wish we could've seen more of what made the Tritoners distrust them so. A comment was made about breeding pairs, and by the end, we know for a fact that Pilang and Esayeh were a couple, but it was always an uncomfortable thing and I never got the sense they truly loved each other, though Linnea seemed to think otherwise. I would've loved to see that relationship magnified and used as an example for all such pairings in the deepsider universe. We did, however, learn how child-rearing worked, and that was interesting, and surprise of all surprises, we learned the origin of the Cold Minds, which happened so unexpectedly that I just read right over it and it wasn't until the facts registered a couple of pages later that I went back and realized what I'd read. Cool, but somehow, I'm still distant. I'm still blaming the POV problem for diluting the focus of the books. But there's a thought niggling in the back of my mind regarding motivation and focus of the characters I care about. Did the Pilots of the Hidden Worlds ever KNOW how the Cold Minds came into being? Did we get that history? Keep in mind my memory may be faulty, but that's not surprising since I haven't read the first book in the series since 2007. I just wonder now that I'm done with the book if Linnea and Iain were asking the right questions. Yes, learning how everyone survived was important and yes, learning whether or not they had a super-weapon against the Cold Minds was important too. But if neither Linnea nor Iain knew the real story of the Cold Minds, shouldn't that have been something they were asking?
I can say I didn't care for Tritoner culture, but that's wholly because what I got of it was from Hiso's and Tereu's POV. I hate the political undercurrent Landon takes with these books, because the undercurrent is always wrong and it's alway slimy and I never have any reason to trust it. That said, at least Hiso got what he deserved, though it was frustrating to read a book and know that Hiso's plan wouldn't have worked at all: it would've been far more exciting if Hiso had a plan that COULD'VE worked, so that the reader (and the POV character) could've been in a moral quandary. I think that's what Landon was trying to do with the whole Tritoners versus deepsiders bit, but the Tritoners were so wrong that there was never ever a quandary involved, if that makes sense.
At any rate, I want another book, but I have no news on the horizon. Nothing on the author's website, nothing on Amazon, and this month marks the second time I've email the author to find out the nature of the series but haven't gotten a response. Oh well. The good thing about these books, and one of the reasons I keep reading, is that Landon provides something new and important in each book that'll change the nature of the characters' lives and their surrounding universe. And certainly, the Cold Minds have NOT been defeated, so that's still left to do. It'll be interesting too for Linnea and Iain to come back. Certainly, everyone they knew as young when they left will be OLD when they return, thanks to that pesky thing called physics, and I can't wait to see what's become of Hidden Worlds culture.
There's lots of potential here. I just want to know whether or not there's going to be another book!
OH: The Dark Reaches has a fantastic opening. Really rooted to character and heart-wrenching all the same. THIS is what I wish Landon could achieve in every chapter. Because the first chapter was excellent.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: if you've followed and liked the series so far, you know you have to keep reading, right? There's some excellent revelations in this book regarding the Cold Minds, but not the kind of revelations you'd expect. I absolutely loved the opening chapter and thought it set an excellent tone for the book, and by the book's ending, I really hope there will be another installment, because there's so much yet to DO in this universe and I want to see how Landon ties it all together. It could be epic. :) That said, I still find that the first book in the series, The Hidden Worlds, is the strongest installment, though this is easily a better read than The Cold Minds (the second book), in my very humble opinion. There's a little more romance here in this third installment, a little more angst, than there was in the second, and it helped make the relationship between Linnea and Iain stronger. It's an enjoyable read with some lovely world-building, and again, I hope to see more installments in the future.
Cover Commentary: I absolutely LOVE these covers, and this is my favorite so far. I love the blues, the Matrix-y long black leather, the snow… it just looks awesome. Of course, there's no such scene in the book, but still, it's excellent eye-candy. I still don't think the cover artist is rendering the characters as they're described in the books (I keep picturing them with darker skin tones), but the models look great.
Next up: The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin (I promise!)