![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
It's not my 43rd review (for the year or in total on LJ), but while waiting for an impressive round of software installation to finish up, I blazed right through Version 43 by Philip Palmer. Mr. Palmer also wrote Debatable Space which I'd read some time back and rather enjoyed. This book is set in the same universe, some time after the events in Debatable Space and no prior knowledge is required.
So you've got Galactic Cop X43 -- a cyborg who enforces Solar Neighborhood laws on the Exodus Universe. Many of the people in the Exodus Universe being criminals who were transported to other worlds via the quantum beacons and fifty/fifty technology (so-called because of the survival rate for those using this mode of travel). So Belladonna is a planet that subsists on corruption and crime. Still, when a grotesque and unusual murder crops up, the local authorities call in the Galactic Cop.
X43 has been here once long ago as X12 when he cleaned up the planet, but things have slid back since then. And X43 has changed a bit too. When a Galactic Cop "dies" his memories are uploaded to the replacement body -- stripped of any emotional or irrelevant information that might distract. So X43 runs into a few people he's known before. And he also winds up getting killed a few times in the book which leads to some interesting replays when he encounters folks again for the second first time. With each reboot X43 discovers deeper and deeper layers to his case and slowly unravels a much larger mystery. He also starts to figure out more about the mystery of himself.
Meanwhile, an alien species is attempting to wipe out humanity. They'll be important later on.
This book is a lot of fun. It's got a real 50's or 60's sci-fi vibe about it, but informed by modern sci-fi tropes and given a bit more heft. It's still mostly a good story without a whole lot of deeper subtext, but it plays out well and was a good read. The cover, sadly, is just creepy. Luckily, you'll spend more time looking at the pages than the cover if you pick it up.
later
Tom
It's not my 43rd review (for the year or in total on LJ), but while waiting for an impressive round of software installation to finish up, I blazed right through Version 43 by Philip Palmer. Mr. Palmer also wrote Debatable Space which I'd read some time back and rather enjoyed. This book is set in the same universe, some time after the events in Debatable Space and no prior knowledge is required.
So you've got Galactic Cop X43 -- a cyborg who enforces Solar Neighborhood laws on the Exodus Universe. Many of the people in the Exodus Universe being criminals who were transported to other worlds via the quantum beacons and fifty/fifty technology (so-called because of the survival rate for those using this mode of travel). So Belladonna is a planet that subsists on corruption and crime. Still, when a grotesque and unusual murder crops up, the local authorities call in the Galactic Cop.
X43 has been here once long ago as X12 when he cleaned up the planet, but things have slid back since then. And X43 has changed a bit too. When a Galactic Cop "dies" his memories are uploaded to the replacement body -- stripped of any emotional or irrelevant information that might distract. So X43 runs into a few people he's known before. And he also winds up getting killed a few times in the book which leads to some interesting replays when he encounters folks again for the second first time. With each reboot X43 discovers deeper and deeper layers to his case and slowly unravels a much larger mystery. He also starts to figure out more about the mystery of himself.
Meanwhile, an alien species is attempting to wipe out humanity. They'll be important later on.
This book is a lot of fun. It's got a real 50's or 60's sci-fi vibe about it, but informed by modern sci-fi tropes and given a bit more heft. It's still mostly a good story without a whole lot of deeper subtext, but it plays out well and was a good read. The cover, sadly, is just creepy. Luckily, you'll spend more time looking at the pages than the cover if you pick it up.
later
Tom
