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Reviews among the Debris
Oct. 5th, 2011 02:45 pmHey,
So I just finished up Debris by Jo Anderton. It was a pretty good book, but I wish its central conceit had been rolled out a bit better.
So you've got Tanyana, who's an architect/engineer in a world that used to have steam power but gave it up for Pions. Pions being magical particles that can shape and control matter in the real world. Essentially, it's the magical equivalent of nanotech. People have varying levels of skill when it comes to seeing and manipulating these pions. Tanyana is one of the better ones. Or she was until an accident left her so badly injured that her ability to work with Pions was removed. It was replaced with the ability to see debris. Debris is the by-product of Pion activity and unless it's collected and removed, it can build up and disrupt regular pion activity.
Tanyana gets fitted with a magical suit -- it extrudes a silvery-metal substance that is the only thing that can pick up debris and she gets tossed in with a team of debris collecters. Essentially pariahs in her society she has to come to grips with her new position and prove herself with her team.
Like I say, I really like the conceit of magical nanotechnology. The people in Tanyana's world live a pretty comfortable existence (as long as they can see/interact with pions which seems to be most people to a greater/lesser degree). They can use magic to create new materials so it's a fantasy world with plastic. The problem is that despite being an incredibly adept user of pions, Tanyana doesn't seem to understand much about debris beyond "it's just waste". I know this allows the author to explain the world to us while she explains the world to the character, but she seems utterly baffled by the suits collectors wear. Sure, she might not know how they work, but she should at least know what they do. She seems surprised that the suit can generate tools to manipulate debris, but her very first scene involves her working on a construction site and noting the presence of a debris team who help clean up. Surely she has a better-than-average idea of how the teams work even if she doesn't know the fine details.
Tanyana also suffers a bit from Noire Protagonist Syndrome -- crap keeps getting thrown at her so she's never able to stop and ask the few questions that you, the unstressed reader, wishes she'd get to. It takes awhile for Tanyana to go from reactive to proactive, but she's a pretty strong character when she gets there. Also, this is the start of a trilogy and thus loses a letter grade for that. The book finds a halfway decent stopping point, but there are more than a few loose ends.
Anyway, an interesting little book despite it's problems.
later
Tom
So I just finished up Debris by Jo Anderton. It was a pretty good book, but I wish its central conceit had been rolled out a bit better.
So you've got Tanyana, who's an architect/engineer in a world that used to have steam power but gave it up for Pions. Pions being magical particles that can shape and control matter in the real world. Essentially, it's the magical equivalent of nanotech. People have varying levels of skill when it comes to seeing and manipulating these pions. Tanyana is one of the better ones. Or she was until an accident left her so badly injured that her ability to work with Pions was removed. It was replaced with the ability to see debris. Debris is the by-product of Pion activity and unless it's collected and removed, it can build up and disrupt regular pion activity.
Tanyana gets fitted with a magical suit -- it extrudes a silvery-metal substance that is the only thing that can pick up debris and she gets tossed in with a team of debris collecters. Essentially pariahs in her society she has to come to grips with her new position and prove herself with her team.
Like I say, I really like the conceit of magical nanotechnology. The people in Tanyana's world live a pretty comfortable existence (as long as they can see/interact with pions which seems to be most people to a greater/lesser degree). They can use magic to create new materials so it's a fantasy world with plastic. The problem is that despite being an incredibly adept user of pions, Tanyana doesn't seem to understand much about debris beyond "it's just waste". I know this allows the author to explain the world to us while she explains the world to the character, but she seems utterly baffled by the suits collectors wear. Sure, she might not know how they work, but she should at least know what they do. She seems surprised that the suit can generate tools to manipulate debris, but her very first scene involves her working on a construction site and noting the presence of a debris team who help clean up. Surely she has a better-than-average idea of how the teams work even if she doesn't know the fine details.
Tanyana also suffers a bit from Noire Protagonist Syndrome -- crap keeps getting thrown at her so she's never able to stop and ask the few questions that you, the unstressed reader, wishes she'd get to. It takes awhile for Tanyana to go from reactive to proactive, but she's a pretty strong character when she gets there. Also, this is the start of a trilogy and thus loses a letter grade for that. The book finds a halfway decent stopping point, but there are more than a few loose ends.
Anyway, an interesting little book despite it's problems.
later
Tom
