Second book syndrome
Feb. 7th, 2007 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysI'm not alone in having liked Chris Moriarity's Spin State. It has won a lot of critical acclaim for its blend of thriller style with post-human politics and hard science. I did not like the next book Spin Control all that much really. The balance of various components that the first book displayed was skewed. This time around it feels like Moriarty has written a cold war spy thriller and then squashed it into a future setting. Hardly anybody writes these convoluted cold war thrillers these days with their countless factions, double, triple crosses, multiple hidden agenda and mysterious figures named but not shown. Obviously they took a nosedive when the cold war itself stopped but a few authors continue to write them set in places like Israel. The Mossad is a place of refuge for the authors in this genre. So Spin Control is set in a future Israel that looks a lot like the Israel of today complete with the Mossad and all the spies. A ridiculously over complicated story and a vast cast of indistinguishable characters complete the picture.
The above comments exclude one thing. I was only able to force myself to read all the way through this thing because there was a second story in the book. Embedded as a few small chapters was the back story to the goings on in the main plot. It was the story of a crew of post-humans investigating a terraformed planet. The end of this story providing the motivation for some of the goings on in the main threads. But this small story was really well done. It combined a fascinating character dynamic with a good scientific puzzle. Separated out and given a proper ending it would be a great little novella. In fact I believe that it was solid and complex enough to have been the core of a whole novel. So my final thoughts about this book are ones of wasted opportunity - of the promise of the first book and the unresolved potential of this little thread.
The above comments exclude one thing. I was only able to force myself to read all the way through this thing because there was a second story in the book. Embedded as a few small chapters was the back story to the goings on in the main plot. It was the story of a crew of post-humans investigating a terraformed planet. The end of this story providing the motivation for some of the goings on in the main threads. But this small story was really well done. It combined a fascinating character dynamic with a good scientific puzzle. Separated out and given a proper ending it would be a great little novella. In fact I believe that it was solid and complex enough to have been the core of a whole novel. So my final thoughts about this book are ones of wasted opportunity - of the promise of the first book and the unresolved potential of this little thread.