I’m a judge for the Self-Published Science Fiction Contest (SPSFC or “Spacefic”) and I’ll be writing first impressions for every single book in our slush pile. To refresh the reader, the slush pile is the randomly assigned set of books each group gets from which they’ll select semifinalists. I have book covers, blurbs, links, and initial thoughts for our entire slush pile here. My group chose the judging method for our slush pile in which we each read 10-20% (minimum) of every book in our slush pile, then vote on whether we want it to advance to our next round in which we read them entirely and then choose semifinalists. These impressions, then, will not necessarily be based upon the whole book, but will be enough of the book to give at least a fair idea of whether I want to continue or not. In some cases I may have read the whole thing, and will likely make note of about how far I got in each book.
NOTE: These first impressions are only MY OWN and do not reflect the entire group’s consensus.
Cartographer’s Vault by Richard Houlden
The beginning of this story has some characters rediscovering the Cartographer’s Vault, a mythic font of knowledge where humanity’s greatest minds had hidden to do smart things. Unfortunately, those humans are long gone and all they’ve left is their records of time across the multiverse. This brief narrative acts as a framing device for what is mostly a series of other stories telling readers about how people developed in different ways across time.
I’m a sucker for this kind of story. A favorite of this type is Cloud Atlas, with its seemingly disparate parts coming together near the end. I thought Houlden brought together an entertaining set of stories here. I read about half of this book and I found most of my time in it enjoyable. The stories are sometimes unexpected, too. I guess I kind of thought we’d see a set of somewhat space-opera-esque stories of humans moving to the stars, but that is not the case at all. My favorite of the bunch I read was actually about humans on the run from vampires in a desolate apocalyptic scenario. Houlden truly grabbed my interest with the breadth of the stories included.
What set me back on the novel, though, were two things. The first is that at least some of it seemed to be written aimed at a specific agenda. Early on, in the section we learn about the Cartographer’s Vault, we find that the reason they gathered this knowledge was to avoid “cancel culture,” basically. I found this to be pretty nonsensical, because the way it was presented was a kind of “cancel culture kills the ability to learn things,” which both weirdly empowers cancel culture while also trivializing the very real concerns people may raise. The second issue is that I found the writing style to be frequently distracting. I thought the book as a whole could use a significant amount of editing. Sentence structures throughout the book are very awkward, such as: “It took him over a couple of weeks to reach the mountain. Why not just say “it took several weeks…”
Another example is more indicative of how difficult the writing style can make it to get to the plot: “Humanity didn’t expand out into the deep reaches of the galaxy for pleasure walks. Especially not to the arid, most desolate, planet of Vaili. This world was colonized for the sole purpose of mining. Agriculture earned its place in society with the discovery of crops surviving in the harsh conditions that could be harvested. Both ventures were a booming success on the planet.” I found myself trying to figure out how any of this would work. The first two sentences are an awkwardly worded combination. Something like “Humanity didn’t seek/find pleasure walks as they expanded into the deep reaches of the galaxy. Instead, they found/came upon/settled on places like the arid world of Vaili.” The rest of the paragraph is troubling to me as well: it implies a kind of subsistence agriculture (an arid, desolate planet on which agriculture had to “earn its place”) but then moves on to suggest that despite it being colonized only for mining, the fact that some crops could survive there somehow turned agriculture into “booming success.” I guess all of this could make sense somehow, but I found paragraph after paragraph with these awkward turns of phrase and lack of verbs, and it started to grate at me.
Overall, Cartographer’s Vault has some promise, but could probably use a good amount of finessing to get it more readable and enjoyable.
The Fall is All There Is by C.M. Caplan
Petre Mercy is a prince who doesn’t especially want to keep being a prince. He’d prefer to hop on his cyborg horse and get outta Dodge. His life among noblity calls him back, however, after his father the King dies. Petre is one of a set of quadruplets who must now be considered for the throne–along with his sister. But does he want to go along with the game of thrones?
By far the most intriguing part of this story for me has been the narrative voice. The Petre Mercy’s headspace is one filled with a tangle of emotions, trauma, and second-guessing. There’s also this certain feeling of shared experience that Caplan manages to convey that truly dragged me into the story and the world. I also loved that we have at least one neurodiverse character at the outset.
Narrating the book from Petre’s viewpoint also made it so Caplan had to do quite a bit of exposition in his voice. While this was mostly enjoyable because Caplan captures the feel of someone else’s mental space so well, it also meant that there is no small amount of info dumps via Petre. Early on, there’s an extended scene of Petre receiving a series of injections that include muscle memory and other things. It was a cool scene, and sets up a number of intriguing technological features of the world. However, it also eventually started to read as a little drawn out, making me wonder when we’d be able to move the plot forward.
The characters introduced so far each have a few wrinkles to their personalities that make me want to know more. For example, one of Petre’s brothers seems to be much more willing to forgive and chat than Peter anticipated–is there more to this? These kind of details make the novel read like it’s setting up for a wider exploration and plot.
The Fall is All There Is has a compelling style that makes me want to read more. I’m excited to continue.
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Links
The Third Annual Self-Published Science Fiction Contest Begins– Team Red Stars Slush Pile- I write blurbs, show covers, give links, and share initial thoughts on all the books from our slush pile.
SPSFC– All my posts about the SPSFC can be found here. Just scroll down for more.
SDG.
Eclectic Theist 