285 pages
English language
Published Oct. 29, 2016 by TOR/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
"New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community to forgo bio-engineered enhancements, but her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline? Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa's front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be--but now, the danger is personal" --
First part was really great and has some impressive world-building. Lots of good ideas that I think should have been more central to the plot. Second part was more conventional tech-noir tropes, while the final felt a bit rushed.
This book took a bit to get into - while I enjoy a book that just starts and doesn't use exposition, it does make it difficult to get into at first. Take the time though - it is worth it.
The two main characters are Go Jung-hwa (HWA to her friends) and the oil rig/city of New Arcadia off the east coast of Canada. Oh, there are other people in the book, but these are the stars.
First, Hwa - I liked her a lot. She's a kickass bodyguard for the United Sex Workers of Canada, tough, and has a moral center despite all odds of her upbringing. She has an embryonal development anomaly known as Sturge-Weber Syndrome which causes headaches, seizures, and a whole host of other medical complications, including an extensive port-wine birthmark which marks her face to such a degree facial recognition scanners can't read her.
New …
This book took a bit to get into - while I enjoy a book that just starts and doesn't use exposition, it does make it difficult to get into at first. Take the time though - it is worth it.
The two main characters are Go Jung-hwa (HWA to her friends) and the oil rig/city of New Arcadia off the east coast of Canada. Oh, there are other people in the book, but these are the stars.
First, Hwa - I liked her a lot. She's a kickass bodyguard for the United Sex Workers of Canada, tough, and has a moral center despite all odds of her upbringing. She has an embryonal development anomaly known as Sturge-Weber Syndrome which causes headaches, seizures, and a whole host of other medical complications, including an extensive port-wine birthmark which marks her face to such a degree facial recognition scanners can't read her.
New Arcadia is a company town in the Atlantic Ocean, and is an oil rig, a frontier town, and a corporate facility all rolled into one. I both like it, and would hate to live there. Like many one service towns, New Arcadia is always at the mercy of the market, and purchased by the Lynch Corporation before the start of the book, the whole town is nervous as they wait to see what will happen next.
Everyone else comes and goes as interesting data points with no real feeling of depth. Joel, who Hwa is hired to protect, and Daniel, who hires her, have full dimension and development but Hwa's friends and family are more directly plot driven, appearing only as devices moving the story along.
The plot has a lot of moving parts which come together with grace at the end, but there is a definite feeling in the last chapters of being rushed, and that is the books only real weakness. I feel like the story got crumpled to fit within a page count rather than unfolding to a natural conclusion. Because of this, the handling of the antagonists seemed startlingly abrupt.
Overall, would very much recommend to someone who enjoys earthbound near futurism. The world is well visualized, the cast diverse, the issues thorny and I enjoyed every minute of reading.
I really liked this cyber-punk style sci-fi novel for its female protagonist, and her female view. There aren't to many of those around in my feeds. I also liked the milieu, the tech ideas, and the action parts.
What I liked less was the progression of the novel. There are some jumps in time specially towards the end, that left me a bit confused, and had me feeling like something was left out.
