The Lighthouse of Kuiper – Rensing (2023)

[msstice]

The Lighthouse of Kuiper – Rensing (2023)

I’m angry at this book. I really wanted to like it, but I did not finish it. I started to get restless at the 15% mark and at the 17% mark I skipped ahead to 20% to see if anything improved a…

theblackdeepblog.wordpress.com

I’m angry at this book. I really wanted to like it, but I did not finish it. I started to get restless at the 15% mark and at the 17% mark I skipped ahead to 20% to see if anything improved and it didn’t and I gave up.

Of the recent science fiction I have read, I think this wins top marks for imagination and ambition. There are flashes of excellent writing but not enough and it gets a hard fail for story telling.

I think it is a tragedy that no editor thought to guide the writer to reduce the amount of exposition and dialog.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

Personal notes: quibbles, notes on style and structure. Some spoilers.​

Jargon​

For the first 5% of the book I was impressed by the fluidity of the writing and the story telling. But soon the constant jargon from the characters began to bother me and then the jargon spilled over to the narrator.

I think jargon has its place. It builds atmosphere, builds mystery and expectation. It is important not to dump too much jargon all at once, to allow users to understand jargon from context and not to keep too many terms mysterious for too long. One or two important world-building elements can be kept mysterious but if the dialog is peppered with unexplained words it gets old fast.

Infodumps and poor pacing​

The author has thought up a very rich and detailed world but the pace of the story is badly damaged by long dialog that is concocted expressly for world building, and more frequent and long, undisguised narrative tracts of world building.

The first chapter of the book is written very engagingly, with world building subtly slipped into dialog and plot, setting an excellent pace. This high quality falls off a cliff quickly and we devolve into the infodumps. The assumption is that after the first chapter we are invested in the story and will tolerate this, but this assumption should not be misused.

And it’s not just this book. I see this pattern repeatedly. It’s almost like the first chapter of current books is being tuned to grab an agent, publisher or reader and the effort put into the rest of the work is much less. It speaks to a lack of love.

Bad choice of invented pronoun: “Hen”​

Invented pronouns never went out of fashion in science fiction. This story uses it, but not in any central or definitive manner. In previous examples I’ve run across, the authors have been careful to invent a new word (like Xe for example). The problem is that you run the risk of it being interpreted as a name (Xe, for example could be a Chinese name).

In this book the invented pronoun is “hen”. This is an unfortunate choice as it lends some unintended comedy where it is used, and some confusion.

It is also used following noun rules, so we have sentences that go “tDaer stuck hen’s hand in it”. Whether this is worse than “tDaer stuck hen hand in it” is up for debate. The distraction over this invented pronoun disrupted my immersion without any payoff.

On top of this, it is not used consistently, which tDaer being referred to as him and he in places.

Supernatural stuff in Science Fiction​

I don’t like supernatural stuff mixed in with my science fiction. I know Dune is considered to have done it well, but my personal taste for this is “No thank you”. which is what I said to Dune. At about the 10% mark we get a wonderfully done passage which then slips us into the supernatural. As we go on this supernatural bit (a la “I see dead people”) gets more page space. Does it turn out interesting? Sadly I did not have the patience to find out.

Minor things: constant homonym confusion​

“Discrete” is repeatedly spelt “discreet”. This makes me more annoyed than it probably should, probably because it indicates a certain carelessness on part of the author. There is also another word that is consistently mixed up that I can’t be bothered to go back and dig up.

 

[Vertigo]

In this book the invented pronoun is “hen”. This is an unfortunate choice as it lends some unintended comedy where it is used, and some confusion.

I wonder if the author also realised that in some part of the UK it is also a term of endearment for a (usually) young lady.

I have always hated these invented pronouns and every time I read one it pulls me out of the story. I much prefer it when authors simply used the plural - they, them, their - which I find reads much more naturally, if ungrammatically. But then, technically, what is an invented word if not ungrammatical!

 

[AllanR]

Are the characters all Swedes?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/27/395785965/he-she-or-hen-sweden-s-new-gender-neutral-pronoun

 

[msstice]

Are the characters all Swedes?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/03/27/395785965/he-she-or-hen-sweden-s-new-gender-neutral-pronoun

Man, I recall seeing that article so many years ago. Never thought of it again, until you posted this. I wonder if the usage in the book was inspired by that. In any case, I will not be using this particular technique in my writing. I don't think it worked well at all. Now, if I was writing a SF comedy, I would totally use it.