A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 43-44 (Really Chapters 35-36)

Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

Finally it's time for the main event of this book, the Boarding Games!  Appropriate I get to this part of the book just as Ameican sports are coming back, honestly, except there's no danger of the spread of any dangerous diseases at these games.....except for the disease of some Navy assholes.

Okay enough prelims, let's get to it - we have our first cage match and lots of family drama this week!  Oy.



Chapter 43 - Boarding Games - Day One:

Quick Summary:  After the intro ceremonies, the Boarding Games begins.  Of our main crew, Max is the first one to have an event: her first hand to hand competition, against Spacer Emery Montauk.  Max, upon advice from Jenks, acts far more confident than she is, and has her opponent off guard from the jump, winning easily on points.  After the fight, the crew parties, and Jenks and Luis talk about Parsikov, with Luis assuring her that he's fine with Jenks' attraction to Parsikov, and noting that Parsikov might be interested in more with both of them.

Thoughts:  Again, the sporting aspect of these competitions doesn't seem to make much sense?  It seems like its borrowing some sort of point system like the Olympics uses for amateur boxing, except this is clearly some form of MMA.  But whatever, Max wins, yay!  Sorry, not being very profound right now on this.

Luis once again shows how great he is for Jenks, understanding and even encouraging Jenks' sexual attraction to Parsikov - although you can tell he's a bit intrigued himself.  But really this chapter once again shows the unity of the entire NeoG squad, which is more than a bit heartening.

Chapter 44 - Boarding Games - Day Two:

Quick Summary:  As Max heads to the piloting competition, she encounters Navy Commander Chau, who tries to talk to her about Max's brother, claiming Scott was hurting.  Rescued by Nika, Max breaks away confused.  After Jenks wins another cage fight, she and Max talk about how much it hurts Max to see Scott - who was once supposed to go into NeoG, before a last minute change to go to the Navy....and then never sent any messages back to Max, who considered him her closest older sibling.  Jenks assures Max that she's her family now.

Meanwhile, Rosa finally can't avoid her mother as she watches the swordfighting, and gets into a fight with her mother over Gloria (her younger daughter)'s choice to stop going to church.  Rosa breaks down in the locker room after refusing to break down, but is comforted by D'Arcy, whose joking and assurances help.

Thoughts:  Whereas last chapter was essentially a happy one, as healthy relationships grow, this one is more of a struggle for our heroes, as they deal with family issues that don't have an easy solution.  Going in reverse order, Rosa's story is one that is really easily relatable, in which one's own mother argues with one about the raising of their own children - in this case Rosa with Gloria, and about Rosa's progressive willingness to let her children choose their own faiths.  Having work family like D'Arcy, to go along with Rosa's own wife, is really something special and it's the kind of support that a lot of people don't have in real life.

Max's situation is.....well, it's sympathetic as well, except as soon as she tells the story to Jenks, it's pretty damn clear what is actually going on and you kind of wonder why Max herself can't see it - presumably because she's too emotionally close to it all to take a look back and notice what's going on - how Chau and Scott's behavior makes no sense for someone who willingly abandoned her, and how Scott's switch from NeoG to the Navy clearly made her parents happy given how Max was essentially disowned for going into NeoG.  It's a situation where someone needs to get the two siblings to compare notes and that will make everything clear which is a bit frustrating for a reader....but thankfully we'll get to see that soon enough.

Finally, my biggest complaint is that after we got a taste of the really cool piloting competition in the prelims, we see Max heading to her first round in that here....and never get to see it.  I want more piloting damnit!  Oh Well.
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Next time, I think we're going to do three chapters instead of two, to cover the finale of the Boarding Games and the family drama!  Will NeoG pull it off?  No, you get no points for guessing.