Book Log #6: Echelon, by Josh Conviser
Feb. 14th, 2008 12:21 amJosh Conviser's Echelon is not quite a recommendation--its sequel, Empyre, had been something I'd spotted mentioned by John Scalzi over on his blog. I thought the premise sounded interesting, and I like me a good espionage-flavored SF thriller, so I thought I'd jump back and check out the first of this particular pair of books.
What I got for my read was a not half-bad story, though parts of it were notably flawed. Three areas hit me in this regard: one, the book needed another copyedit pass. While the errors I found weren't hugely jarring, they were still noticeable little bumps in the flow of the story. Two, one scene in particular partway through the book came across to me as one cliche after another, which made it difficult to read--especially given that up until that point, Conviser's handling of dialogue was much smoother. The contrast was therefore much more noticeable, and the characters spend way, way too much time hammering on the particular cliche of "we were given a chance to play God!". Three, I felt out of sorts about his general handling of female characters. His female lead is generally okay, but there's only one other female character of note in the entire thing, and she's almost an afterthought at the end of the plot, not showing up until the final few chapters. Up until then the only other signs we have of female characters aren't really characters at all, but rather, oversexed constructs in "the flow" (this book's much more advanced version of VR/the Net/etc.) who are manipulated mostly by male characters. Which reminds me, pretty much, of a lot of the characters I used to run into while MUSHing, and not in a good way. ;)
To balance this out, though, I should also add that the book does have some good solid action scenes. Conviser does have a way with pacing, and although his style doesn't match the razor clarity of Charles Stross, there's a certain eclectic rhythm to it when he's not weighting his characters down with cliched dialogue. All in all it is clear this is a first novel, but it's not a bad attempt; there's promise in his prose, and hopefully it will come into better focus as he keeps up with his work. Two and a half stars.
What I got for my read was a not half-bad story, though parts of it were notably flawed. Three areas hit me in this regard: one, the book needed another copyedit pass. While the errors I found weren't hugely jarring, they were still noticeable little bumps in the flow of the story. Two, one scene in particular partway through the book came across to me as one cliche after another, which made it difficult to read--especially given that up until that point, Conviser's handling of dialogue was much smoother. The contrast was therefore much more noticeable, and the characters spend way, way too much time hammering on the particular cliche of "we were given a chance to play God!". Three, I felt out of sorts about his general handling of female characters. His female lead is generally okay, but there's only one other female character of note in the entire thing, and she's almost an afterthought at the end of the plot, not showing up until the final few chapters. Up until then the only other signs we have of female characters aren't really characters at all, but rather, oversexed constructs in "the flow" (this book's much more advanced version of VR/the Net/etc.) who are manipulated mostly by male characters. Which reminds me, pretty much, of a lot of the characters I used to run into while MUSHing, and not in a good way. ;)
To balance this out, though, I should also add that the book does have some good solid action scenes. Conviser does have a way with pacing, and although his style doesn't match the razor clarity of Charles Stross, there's a certain eclectic rhythm to it when he's not weighting his characters down with cliched dialogue. All in all it is clear this is a first novel, but it's not a bad attempt; there's promise in his prose, and hopefully it will come into better focus as he keeps up with his work. Two and a half stars.
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