SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: "Ninth Step Station, The Complete First Season" by Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi, & Curtis C. Chen https://t.co/O7v2wgomNz Short Review: 7 out of 10 (1/3)— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 23, 2019
Short Review (cont): A cyperpunk buddy-cop story (kind of) featuring a Japanese Cop and an American Peacekeeper investigating a war-torn future Japan, which is divided between the US & China, is really solid at times, but ends just when events teased early begin to happen (2/3)— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) May 23, 2019
Ninth Step Station is one of the newer serials by Serial Box Publishing, a publisher whose modus operandi is to release written stories as "seasons" of "episodes" - with each serial being a collaboration by a bunch of writers, just as if it was a TV series with its own writer's room. The serials aren't necessarily meant to be read all at once, but are released weekly (again as if they're TV episodes). The publisher has dipped into SciFi/Fantasy a number of times, and Ninth Step Station is the fifth serial of theirs I've tried and while I've never really disliked any of their series, only one of the other four I've tried (Bookburners) has had me really wanting more after finishing.
Alas, Ninth Step Station reminds me more of the non-Bookburners' serials I've read than Bookburners: it shows promise throughout, has some interesting twists....but never really pays off that promise until the final cliffhanger. The series combines some classic tropes - Cyperpunk Japan split up by America and China as the setting with a buddy-cop relationship, featuring a new outsider being assigned to a veteran insider as the heart of the series....it very much feels like something you may have seen before in some respects. It is executed well and I enjoyed the main duo and the world, but the failure to provide a satisfying ending - leaving all the interesting follow-ups to next season - is just frustrating.
===============================Plot Summary===============================
Future Japan stands on the precipice between two great powers - China, which invaded the Country and now controls half of it; and America, whose peacekeepers have come to try and "help" ensure the Chinese don't overstep. While Japanese citizens can cross the checkpoints to and from the Chinese and American zones (and zones belonging to other entities), the nation lies on edge for the conflict to flare up once again, with the country's people caught in the middle.
Detective Miyako Koreda of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police is one of these people, with ties to both the Chinese and American zones, and she just wishes she could do her job like she did before the conflict began. But when an American Peacekeeper, a novice with a cybernetic eye named Emma Higashi, is forced upon her as a new partner, it's hard to maintain the illusion. Still Emma's quick thinking and military experience, especially her aptitude with drones, makes her an excellent partner as the pair examine crimes as ordinary as murders and as strange as....lost arms.
But Emma and Miyako's partnership will be put to the test, because the detente in Tokyo is near the breaking point, with factions on all sides - Japanese politicians, American Spies, Chinese Diplomats, etc. ready for the next grab at power. All it will take is a flashpoint, and everything will once again return to chaos...and what will remain of their partnership and their loyalties when that happens?
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Ninth Step Station is an example of a pretty classic genre - the Buddy Cop Procedural, in which each episode features a mismatch partnership of cops trying to solve a single case, with long-term plot arc stuff going on in the background until it comes to roost late in the season. As with the classics in the genre, we have a rookie cop (Emma) and a veteran (Miyako) pairing off, with the rookie cop's own skills - in this case her experience as a US Peacekeeper - coming in handy to solve cases, but her inexperience causing problems at the same time. The spin NSS puts on this genre is that we're in a cyberpunk Japan here (not a new setting for this genre of course) on the verge of war and to the serial's credit, it does a good job using this spin to keep things generally lively and interesting.
A key to that of course is the two lead characters are rather well done. Miyako at first seems like she's going to be written as the grumpy veteran who needs to be persuaded that her partner has value, but NSS sidesteps that plot trope with Miyako being fairly willing to work with Emma as a partner pretty quickly. Instead Miyako serves as the veteran experienced with the setting, who wishes things could go back to the way it was, and who tries to mentor Emma a little bit more than anything. Emma meanwhile isn't the typical rookie disrespectful of old methods as in the standard version of the genre, but a woman who is well aware of how much she doesn't know and is trying to make up for it quickly, who wants to try and do her best but isn't quite ready for some of the things she'll see as a detective on the murder beat. The two work really well together, from their professional to their personal lives, and each episode provides some interesting situations for the two to deal with and investigate.
Still, while the season does provide a nice variety of "crimes of the week" to keep things fresh from episode to episode, it does have some issues that prevent the serial from truly being great. First, like a lot of Serial Box works, sometimes it feels like developments occur off-page from episode to episode which feel kind of awkward (a relationship one of the main duo has goes from ongoing to on the rocks and almost over out of nowhere for example).
More importantly, the series, like its fellow Serial Box work "Born to the Blade" (which I reviewed here), teases certain events occurring early and throughout - the re-igniting of the conflict forcing our heroines to make tough choices - and then doesn't have those events occurring till the very end. The result is that the status quo is now greatly more interesting as the serial ends....which would be fine if this serial had a few more episodes, but instead it just ends without any examination of how that climax has changed things or any resolution of the season's arcs. Cliffhangers are a fine and expected part of this genre, but especially when you're trying to portray a serial as a complete season, the season should provide a satisfying conclusion to at least some arcs brought up, and NSS fails to do that in any way. It's really frustrating.
We'll see if I get to NSS Season 2 - NSS Season 1 did show up on Hoopla (though I won it as a goodreads giveaway), so if season 2 shows up as well, I'll probably give it a try. But it'll need to do a lot with the new status quo to justify this disappointment here which kind of sucks in the end.
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