Reviews

• Themes of love, loyalty, family, despair, betrayal. What goes wrong when you lose your humanity. What is really important. All wrapped up inside a sci-fi thriller. Told from multiple perspectives but done very well. Takes about a chapter and 1/2 to understand what direction the story is going. Keep w/it. Turns into a page-turner. The ending was satisfying yet written in a surprising way. Sadly this appears to be the authors only work.

• Normalerweise habe ich nichts dagegen, wenn ein Autor den Leser nicht mit Informationen zu der geschaffenen Welt erschlägt. Anderson wollte hier wahrscheinlich die Technik anwenden den Leser erstmal mitten in die Geschichte zu werfen und dann nach und nach die Lücken im Laufe der Geschichte zu füllen. Das ist hier leider überhaupt nicht gelungen. Der Hauptstory kann man folgen: Unsere Heldin wird nach einer langen Auszeit in der sie eine Familie gegründet hat wieder in den Dienst der Guardians zurückgerufen und soll den Tod einer Kollegin auf einer entfernten Kolonie-Welt aufklären. Der ausführlichen Beschreibung der emotionalen Schwierigkeiten die sie mit dieser Entscheidung wird viel Platz eingeräumt. Für eine etwas nähere Beschreibung dieser Zukunftswelt und den entwickelten Technologien bleibt dagegen kein Raum. Es ist nicht so, dass überhaupt keine Hintergründe erklärt werden, aber als die Handlung dann letztendlich zum Hauptort wechselte hatte ich immer noch keine rechte Vorstellung davon wie in dieser Welt alles zusammenhängt. Als Leser muss man sich hier selbst aus Nebensätzen der Charaktere zusammenreimen wo man sich befindet und wie die politischen Gegebenheiten sind. Gerade diese Information hätte aber zumindest mein persönliches Verständnis für die Brisanz der Situation sehr verbessert. Erst zum Ende hin wird klar warum der Tod eines Guardians so Brisant ist und was auf der Koloniewelt wirklich im verborgenen liegt. Leider war zu dem Zeitpunkt schon so davon genervt mich ständig zu fragen was ich jetzt schon wieder verpasst habe das ich die doch recht spannende Auflösung auch nicht mehr genießen konnte. Schade, die Ideen sind wirklich spannend.

• "Bitter Angels" by C. L. Anderson (aka Sarah Zettel) doesn't bear up well under close examination. Many of the characters' motivations make no sense. Really basic pieces of information -- like what is this "Pax Solara" thing? -- are left out. The bad guys' nefarious plot turns out to be just as crazy and as house-of-cards fragile as something Dr. Evil might have come up with on one of his off days. And yet, most of these problems emerge only in retrospect. While reading "Bitter Angels", readers are more likely to focus on its strengths. Field Commander Terese Drajeske is a sympathetic character, a woman of conviction who, despite lingering psychological wounds and dogged resistance from her family, feels compelled to honor a debt to Bianca Fayette, a former mentor who long ago saved Terese's life. Terese is determined to learn how Bianca died and, more important to her superiors, ascertain whether the nasty and brutish ruling oligarchy of the Erasmus system (a set of moons and habitats orbiting a distant sun) is planning to declare war on earth. Anderson/Zettel is sufficiently adept at building tension, supplying a sense of foreboding, and applying foreshadowing to draw the reader in. The novel does pose a Big Question: What should we do to help the victims of tyranny? Earth is prosperous and powerful, while the vast majority of Erasmans live in poverty and misery, their every move and utterance watched by human Clerks or inhuman machines. The Pax Solara has sent "saints" to do charitable work (apparently limited to medical services and soup kitchens) and Guardians to monitor the political situation, but little more. Bianca, it seems, decided this wasn't enough. Was she right? When our country is deeply engaged in two wars that have been justified at least partly on the basis of humanitarianism and democratization, this is a reasonable question to ask. Unfortunately, Anderson/Zettel declines to offer a response. (Other candidate big questions: What do the rulers owe to the ruled? What do I owe to you if my innovation puts you out of a job?) The bottom line: The novel has numerous problems (including quite a few not listed here), but its less-than-perfect parts come together well enough to make this a good read.

• I really love the whole book. It was a quick fun interesting read. I liked all the characters. I would reccomend this book to friends who like science fiction.

• This was a surprising novel despite many similarities to the standard space opera trope. A pleasure to read with characters I cared for and by the end I wanted more of them. I also wanted more of the unlikely premise that a culture of peace could exist in the solar system that was enforced by a government agency or force that never killed, not even in self defense, because the state that kills models the very behavior that needs to be extinguished...At first I was sceptical, but a reasonable argument, I realized, and one used for many years by anti-capital punishment advocates. What a premise for the system-wide force! They did depend on some amazing non-lethal but incapacitating tech. Another interesting idea was the implants in their brains that turned out to be AI companions wired into their neurons. An AI with whom the person talked, befriended, fell in love, and of course endowed with personality. One member evidently conceived of her AI as an 8 year old girl but we never heard more about that. I want to read that story! In the meantime, Sci Fi fans ought to buy this book and hope by this support CL Anderson will write another quite like it.

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