A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. CzernedaMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was not really what I expected. I expected a space opera in an SF world, I expected a little bit of cheesiness, and I expected a focus on characters over story - and I got all of that. I didn't expect, however, the fantasy elements, the incredible amount of cheesiness, and the excessive explanation of every character's motivations that contribute to one of the most convoluted plotlines I've ever read. I expected to love it, and I just didn't. I did get sucked in, I was invested in the story, cared about the characters, wanted to know how things would end up. But there were very noticeable rough patches that made it hard to get through.
There was a lot about this book that was frustrating. The pacing is first and foremost. So many goddamn things happen, and every moment is treated as if it's Incredibly Important and Crucial, which made the whole thing feel melodramatic and made it hard to tell when something ACTUALLY important was happening. There was a point where I thought the story was almost over - and then realized I was exactly halfway through and still had SO MUCH MORE to get through. There were too many villains, too many unnecessary journeys (why did they even need to stop on that planet where Morgan had a delivery? Nothing narratively important happened there that didn't happen elsewhere, too).
There was also the narrative devices - half the story, all of the "chapters," are first-person from Sira's perspective. The other half is made of "interludes" from an omniscient narrator from various characters' perspectives. I feel like in this case, less would have been more. We know way too much to keep the story interesting, while Sira knows too little. We're supposed to be invested in Sira finding out about her life and history but we already know all of the (very obvious) answers, so it doesn't really work. In general, I feel like we got all kinds of information way too many times; there was no subtlety. We get an explanation of Choosing several times, we get incessant descriptions of how Morgan and Sira feel for each other, we get long descriptions of how particular characters feel about things every time we visit those characters. Everything is overdone.
The relationship between Sira and Jason Morgan was inexplicable and overdramatic. I mean, I guess the eventual plot twist of the story explains why it happened so quickly, but there was no chemistry between them. Talking excessively about how it feels to touch hands or to see each other or to be around each other sounded super forced and not romantic at all - otherwise their relationship would have been right at home in a romance novel, because of the sappiness and artificiality of their interactions. And the rest of the characters were pale, underdeveloped shams.
Despite all that, I did kind of enjoy the plot. And the world-building was pretty good - I liked some of the details of the worlds, like the giant space station that's a mall, and there's at least an attempt at some sort of culture-building as well.
I will attempt to go through the plot, step by step, but I'm probably going to leave out a lot because so much happened.
The novel starts with the perspective of Terk, a non-human whose body seems to be chicken-like. He's a Trade Pact Enforcer, which deals with all off-world crime involving member species of the Trade Pact, and he's following two members of the Clan. Clan members look human, but have extraordinary telepathic ability - while some humans have telepathy, it's much rarer and much less strong than Clan telepathy. The Clan members are attacked; one gets away, the other is severely injured and Terk takes him into custody.
The one who got away is Sira, though she doesn't know it. Blocks have been put on her memories during travel to keep her safe. From what? We don't know yet. The one in custody is a relative of hers, Barac, who was her escort. Sira hears compelling voices in her head telling her to find a ship and get off the planet. She runs into a human, Captain Morgan (lol) who initially refuses to take her on. Barac pays Morgan a visit, as they happen to be friends, and tells him that he's looking for Sira. Sira, meanwhile, gets captured by a slaver named Roraqk and after some disorienting hijinks she escapes.
When Sira approaches Morgan again, he agrees to let her work as temporary crew until they get to another planet. He doesn't tell her what he knows about her - he suggests she goes by Sira, but doesn't tell her it's her own name, and she thinks she's human and he doesn't correct her. So Morgan and Sira leave the planet, but Barac - working begrudgingly with the Trade Pact Enforcers - follows. Oh, and Barac has also contacted Sira's sister, Rael, who is also there. Sira begins to learn how to be a crewperson on a ship, and very suddenly falls in love with Morgan, who gently rejects her advances. This is important, because Barac keeps talking about Choice, which is when female Clan choose their male partner - and apparently, if the female is much stronger than the male, he will die.
So anyone. Sira and Morgan land on a planet where Morgan is delivering technology parts to some local important guy. En route, though, Morgan gets a message from the lead Enforcer telling him to give Sira to said local important guy so the Enforcers/Barac can pick her up. I'm a little fuzzy on why he agrees to do this, since he's clearly very reluctant to give her up and wants to protect her. He get in trouble with some local priests, and Sira can somehow sense his danger, and she goes and rescues him - even after realizing he was going to turn her over. Then they discover that when they touch, Sira can kind of partially enter her head. Sira, who doesn't remember anything about anything, especially that telepathy exists, is very freaked out by this. Morgan kind of explains telepathy to her a little bit. I think this is the point where Rael kind of appears as a ghost and gives them a little more information, but I'm not sure. Morgan also reveals to Sira that he knows her memory has been blocked, and he knew all along that she was telepathic, and also that he was working with her family. But he doesn't tell her she's not human, apparently - I didn't even realize that until she later finds out and throws a fit about it. Anyway, he removes some of the blocks on her memory, so she starts remembering more, but gradually.
Then they go to a giant space mall, I think. Sira plans to leave him behind at some point because she's just a danger to him. Oh, also, they're kind of definitely in love at this point and consider each other family. He realizes she's going to leave and convinces her not to. Instead, they crash with his lobster-like friend at his restaurant for a few days. Then Sira decides to run away and promptly gets caught by Roraqk - that slaver who captured her like 150 pages before. He's discovered who she is and that there's a bounty on her from a bad guy whose name I cannot remember. At this point, I thought I was at the climax of the story - and then realized I was literally only halfway through. Morgan and lobster friend find Roraqk's ship (and Sira) and then Roraqk launches from the space mall station and takes off for the bad guy's planet. The Enforcers and Sira's family follow.
Morgan, Sira, and lobster manage to take over the ship and kill Roraqk - but one of the crew is taken over by the bad guy - who is, like Sira, a Clan member - sets the ship on course to the bad guy's planet, and destroys the control panels. Sira is rapidly getting better at telepathy. She calls on her sister and tells her the bad guy's name, and the sister freaks out because he's Clan and he's supposed to be dead and also very bad. Morgan, Sira, and Lobster decide to take escape pods down to the planet so they don't end up exactly where the bad guy expects. They don't quite land all together - Sira and Morgan are separated from Lobster. Then the bad guy kidnaps Morgan and Sira and Lobster rescue him, but that gets Sira trapped in the process. Then she escapes. Then she gets captured again, and finds out he means to make her Choose him - and if she doesn't, he'll just take her mind over and wipe it with his mind and use her body to make babies, because apparently Sira is the most powerful telepath ever produced by the Clan's selective breeding program.
Morgan teams up with Barac and everyone helps save Sira - and Sira, who was supposed to be in a state of Choosing, has suspended her Choice, which is something no one has ever done. She is not Chooser or Chosen (it doesn't make sense the women that have made their selections are called Chosen but w/e) so she has no Clan rights. She has to go back to the Clan now. So she does, and meets her father, who explains to her that she was the one who wanted her memory blocked, because she WANTED to go off and marry Jason Morgan, because the Clan Choosers were getting too powerful and would never find a suitable match that they wouldn't destroy. Why would it help to pair with humans who are a lot weaker? NO clue. At this point, Morgan has been sent off-planet but he turned right around to go rescue Sira (even though there was no indication she needed rescuing). Anyway, it turns out that the father, who was supposed to be on Sira's side, really just wants the same thing the bad guy wanted: he agrees with the council that if she can't find a match, they'll just wipe her and use her body to breed stronger people.
So Morgan shows up, I think Sira Chooses him, and they leave together. The end.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment