G. Deyke reviewed Resonance by Dora M. Raymaker
Takes first-person perspective to the level of an art form
5 stars
This book is something of a technical marvel: it does something really cool with the perspective, with several very different first-person narrators inside an (also first-person) framing narrative, with high immersion and hardly any narrative distance, and while it's really cool and works really well it's sort of difficult to explain why from the outside.
It's also sort of a sequel to Hoshi and the Red City Circuit (do HTML tags work here), though it's disconnected enough that either of them can easily be read on their own, and/or in any order. The world is the same, but the location is not, and no characters are shared. I'm not sure when the framing narrative takes place relative to Hoshi, and even less sure of the even-more-framing device that takes place outside of that, but the internal narrative in fact takes place before the events of Hoshi and the …
This book is something of a technical marvel: it does something really cool with the perspective, with several very different first-person narrators inside an (also first-person) framing narrative, with high immersion and hardly any narrative distance, and while it's really cool and works really well it's sort of difficult to explain why from the outside.
It's also sort of a sequel to Hoshi and the Red City Circuit (do HTML tags work here), though it's disconnected enough that either of them can easily be read on their own, and/or in any order. The world is the same, but the location is not, and no characters are shared. I'm not sure when the framing narrative takes place relative to Hoshi, and even less sure of the even-more-framing device that takes place outside of that, but the internal narrative in fact takes place before the events of Hoshi and the Red City Circuit: on a plot level, this is a book about what went down on Callisto with the élans vital, which Hoshi only vaguely alluded to. The plot level is not really the most relevant, though, also because it is about the élans vital. It is about feelings and resonance and hatred and hope, and it is very good.
Selling points: cool metaphysics; queer; largely neurodivergent cast (most protagonists have K-syndrome, a fictional genetic disorder distinct from, but very similar to, autism) whose neurodivergence expresses itself in very different ways, highlighted through the close first person perspectives; big high-stakes climax stuff happens through a non-violent artistic medium.
Warnings: deals with severe institutionalised ableism, self-hatred, addiction; in-world bigotry is very noticeably flattened onto this one channel, with no intersectionality.