Refreshing Critical Reviews of Eric Kay's hard sci-fi novels.

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The parts that are a seasteading romance novel are cute, but came off more as a convenient frame for the real plot. That being along the lines of: ordinary guy gets lucky by marrying up and even luckier by divorcing a woman who is only interested in taking her half of the seastead they built together (even though it is very clear that she funded it while he was a "sweat equity" partner, which should mean she owns a lot more than strictly half, even with very equitable compensation for his contributions). Considering I've only read two seasteading romances it's an interesting pattern that both featured middle aged couples. The real plot is about a couple of atheists (divorced guy and disgruntled sys admin) having forced religious experiences because the real world is a simulation and God and the devil are extradimensional hackers. I almost quit reading because the story you clearly wanted to tell wasn't even set on this planet, much less the seasteads the characters occupy.

You also took way too long to mention that Keight's name is pronounced "Kate", by the way, so I thought it was "Kite" for ages, and honestly it was more believable that it was a next generation name as Kite... If she were the l33t hacker character, maybe it would have come across as Kate earlier, so I gave you the benefit of assuming that maybe Clark was originally going to be Keight but you liked the name too much not to use it after all. The setting would be pretty believable, though, with the characters only a little older than my kid, putting the first independent seasteads afloat around 2033, but some of the hints work out to the characters being only a little younger than me, putting the first seasteads floating closer to 2016. Which I assume was a continuity error, as several other hints reinforce the slightly later timeline. 

Honestly, I would describe the narrative style as having too many notes to self left in. The actual writing style jumps around jarringly in several places, switching tenses and breaking character or the fourth wall or both. A good editor would have caught those moments and finessed them into the story better, because that's what good editors do, is polish and refine otherwise mostly decent writing to help keep the reader immersed in the story. You did a little too good a job making some characters mysterious while failing to make other characters seem more approachable, relying too much on telling the audience who they were and not enough invested in making them feel like important people to your main characters. They come off very much as supporting characters instead of friends or even coworkers, so their impact is blunted by the time the action happens, because we're mostly only told that these characters are competent and trustworthy... It comes off a bit half assed to have the genius plotting all happen off screen on both sides until the big reveals in the conclusion. Conveniently, the main characters never have to understand the plans, only execute. Which reduces these supposedly very thoughtful, smart, successful people to improvisation. Which is fine, because it's believable that successful seasteaders would be people who are good in a crisis, and even how they each get to be that way is well built. It's just a little annoying that none of the mains seem to even be consulted much about their involvement in the plot. 

You really did Keight dirty, too, and don't let her subplot have the impact it should. Ed and Clark are more obviously impacted by their experiences, but you gloss over Keight's horror too much. Of the three, she is the only one who doesn't have some flavor of informed consent and is actively non-conned several times in rapid succession and just soldiers on like being a therapist means she doesn't desperately need a moment to process or compartmentalize to address when there's time to decompress her experience. 

(They only read the first chapter 😅)

The cover doesn’t do anything for me, and the blurb seems more like part of a summary than a proper blurb.

The first chapter was well written, from Ed’s POV, and I liked the voice and writing, but ultimately, it has nothing to do with the overall plot laid down by the blurb and didn’t hook me adequately to make me want to read more.

The book will appeal to those who enjoy the man vs machine stories, as evidenced by the blurb.

 

 Over the Top! ADW review 3: The SPSFC cut

Consensus: Our readers agreed that this was a smooth read, with grounded worldbuilding and at least one intriguing plotline.But it had a pretty over-the-top villian and a lot of characters with a penchant for preaching about the misuses of technology that might have made sense in-story but nevertheless broke immersion for our readers.

 


 

That is pretty spot on, if you've read this far, then that's no surprise. Now we move onto my other books.

A Hardness of Minds 

I'll admit, this was a but rough but it was an early novel. I went back and cleaned up many of the flubs, but the main story structure of course struggles. It's a first contact without much 'contact'. In that way it is a subversion of the trope and later I reworded the blurb to make sure the audience knows what they're getting. 

Airquotes. Then suggestion to skip

 Not Your Average ‘First Contact’ Story

So … The Author DID make this a ‘First Contact’ story, and he essentially told it from 2 points-of-view — we mere humans, and ‘them’. But, that’s about all of the pats-on-the-back that I’ll give The Author … which, all in all, means that my 3-star Rating is generous.

This was just not all that good of a story, and the reading was kind of torturous, with the Chapters flipping back and forth between ‘them’ and us. And, would you believe The Author thought it important to have 2 simultaneous wars going on, both there (on Europa) and here (on Earth) ??? … Who would have guessed that there was that much conflict and animosity to spread across the entire Solar System?

I, personally, did not like The Author’s character development for either the humans or the aliens — and, that tainted everything.

My recommendation would be to skip this book, and look for a better tale,

 That's pretty spot on, but hey, it is accurate.

Non- Sympathetic Characters 

Special note, I did take this review to heart when writing Space Ants, and make them far more sympathetic although still alien. 

The chief problem is that I didn't care about the protagonists. Flawed characters are fine but I usually need something that makes me care to see them struggle and improve. Here though I found nothing to like and, even worse, he doesn't ever improve either. The Europan protagonist is marginally better and so I cared about him and his partner a bit more, but sadly he doesn't really improve through the story either.

Since I didn't care about the protagonists it was too easy to put the book down at the end of any given chapter knowing that a big context switch was upon me again. The switching reduced the urge to keep reading one more chapter which a really good novel can induce. Furthermore the payoff when the two story lines began to intermingle their timelines was minimal. Also there is no really satisfying first contact moment much less any kind mutual awareness between the two protagonists.

Compelling characters and character arcs are challenging for any writer and a lot of science fiction manages to do well without them, but this particular novel would have been enhanced considerably with just a bit more reason to care about the human protagonist, more fleshed out minor characters and some signs of growth in any of the characters. The science fiction aspects work well and there are some fine insights about how we know what we think we know, but ultimately the story didn't hook me in as a really good novel should do. 

 

Forgotten.  No Lack Of Sunshine

It was my first novel but I getya, I've done it too.

Project Hail Mary is similar to Space Ants Hard Science Fiction by Eric Kay 

Conclusions

I admit, No Lack of Sunshine might be slow and idealistic at times, and A Hardness Of Minds was about two difficult characters, and subverted expectation, but in Above Dark Waters, I knew what I was doing and committed to it. Now that level of sci-fi that escaltes to the end of reality might be 'over the top' literally, but that's the kind of science fiction I like. 

 If you're looking for in-depth critical bad reviews of Eric Kay's novels, then look to this page. 

If you're human and would like to reach and about my next novel, Drones Above, Hell Below, then reach out to me and I'll get you a review copy.

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