Thursday, August 13, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Atlas Alone by Emma Newman


Atlas Alone is the fourth and so far final book in Emma Newman's Planetfall series of scifi novels, which began of course with Planetfall.  Through three books, the series has consisted of a series of stand-alone novels set in the same universe, a not too far off dystopian SciFi world under corporate control changed when a woman discovered a way to set off to the Stars to find "god", with each novel featuring a protagonist with deep mental trauma and/or illness, often stemming from tragedies in their past.  Newman's prose is really excellent at making the novels read fairly quickly, and she does a phenomenal job putting the reader in the heads of her mentally ill protagonists as they try to deal with new and old discoveries about their worlds.  At the same time, the tone is at best bittersweet through it all, and I haven't quite always loved how the novels' plots developed.

Atlas Alone is both a continuation of that trend and a departure - it once again deals with a new protagonist dealing with substantial mental trauma relating to her past, but it for the first time is basically a direct sequel to a prior novel, in this case the 2nd book in the series, After Atlas.  It's easily the shortest novel in the series, and is just as readable and enjoyable as ever, but at the same time again has plot developments that, when not predictable, I'm still not quite sure I find that interesting in the end, with this novel almost verging into horror.  It's a hard thing to explain, but I'll try after the jump.

Spoilers I guess for Book 2 (After Atlas) of the series below, but the spoiler isn't really a big deal for reading that novel so not much to worry about in my opinion:


--------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
It's been six months since Dee left her life as the property of a corporate on Earth and joined the crew of the Atlas 2, bound for the planet found by the Pathfinder all those years ago.  Six months where nearly the only people Dee has seen are her longtime friend Carl and his current lover Travis.  Six months where Dee has had to live with the knowledge that someone on board the Atlas 2, unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, ordered a nuclear strike on Earth as they left and resulted in the death and destruction of everyone left behind.

Dee may not have had anyone she cared about back on Earth, but she just can't accept that the culprits are living alongside her, and these feelings are preventing her from moving on with her life - even from playing in the VR games that she used to love.  Unfortunately, as a last minute addition to the journey, she lacks any access to the ship's net that she could use to discover who could have been responsible.  But when Carl's father finds her a job with a woman from another part of the ship, doing data analysis, Dee sees here in - the access needed from the data analysis will allow her to dig for answers, and even better, the employer invites her to join an elite VR gaming session, the type she's always heard rumors of and wanted to compete in.

But as Dee starts to dig into the data, weird things start coming up.  The data about the younger members of the expedition is weird, for starters, and she can't understand it.  And a strange person is suddenly able to contact her and invite her into a VR simulated game - one impossibly based upon a tragedy from her own unique childhood.  And when she finishes that game, she discovers the man she killed as the end boss really died elsewhere on the ship....and that he may have been one of the ones responsible for the nuclear strike.

Soon, Dee finds herself unable to get away from the mysterious stranger, who keeps tempting her with the potential to kill those responsible for her nightmares.  But how far is she willing to go to avenge her dreams and can she really trust the stranger, who seems to know things no one but her could possibly know?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Atlas Alone is a first for this series, in that it essentially is kind of a direct sequel to a prior novel instead of just taking place in the shared setting.  In book 2, we met Dee from our protagonist (Carlos/Carl)'s point of view - there, Dee was Carlos' closest thing to a friend, the person who helped him as they both found themselves growing up essentially as slaves to be sold to a corporate entity, who Carlos thought had betrayed him to a reporter before forgiving her by the end (and then ensuring she gets onboard the Atlas 2).  Dee's mental trauma stems in part from her childhood tragedies but also stems from the conclusion to book 2, in which the Earth was hit by a nuclear strike from America.  You can go into this book blind, as its plot is not completely dependent upon the prior novels, but it does rely upon an understanding of the setting and the characters of Dee, Carlos & Travis to a certain extent, which is a new thing for this series.

But despite all that, this book is very similar in structure and concept to the prior novels.  Once again we have a protagonist dealing with mental trauma/illness - in Dee's case, depression brought upon by having everyone she cared about dying at an early age (Carlos excepted), her being bought as a slave and never being able to trust anyone, and then finding out that her own escape from all of that, and the planet, came hand in hand with the destruction of so many others.  It's a series of traumas that when prodded results in Dee being desperate to do anything to find some way to remedy the wrong that was the nuclear strike on Earth, but also in her being unwilling to trust even her closest friends, like Carlos, with her fears and traumas for fear of them leaving her in revulsion.  Dee has been without autonomy for her entire life, and having it, but being limited in what she can do with it by restricted access, does not help the situation.

And like the prior books, these mental wounds are pushed by a plot that brings them all back into the forefront.  In this case, the bringing back is practically literal - the unknown strange hacker who provides Dee with access and puts her into games actually pushes Dee by putting her into virtual reality situations that actually are based upon her traumatic childhood and other similar events that haunt her.  It's an utterly cruel thing to do, and it actually leads this novel to very much resemble a horror novel as much as a SciFi one, which is only made more the case as Dee discovers horrifying truths about the ship she's on and the people who are on it.  This horror culminates with the story's final conclusion, which comes really quickly - this book is by far the shortest of the series - and ends in stunning fashion.  Other books in this series have ended on bittersweet notes at best, and this one doesn't even go there, with its ending, as the plot's poking of Dee's mental traumas leads her, and everything else, into a really dark place.

Here's the thing - while again this is a very readable novel and its easy to empathize in Dee, I didn't really like what the plot did to her?  Dee is just as irresponsible for the traumas done to her that have made her the way they are as any of the prior protagonists in this series (and is far less blameworthy than Ren, the first novel's protagonist) and yet this book treats her in the end in brutal fashion, as if she is in any way the worst of all of them....when her actions here are entirely led on by the other actors in the plot.  This treatment of her is caused by a mostly predictable plot device (you will guess who the stranger is fairly early) that takes a sharp left swerve at the end, and well, that swerve just serves to make me angry on Dee's behalf.

In short, the novel again does a great job of setting up a main character I cared about, but then puts her through the ringer and leaves her in a terrible place at the end, and doesn't really do anything to justify that choice - and so I'm only angry on her behalf.  I'm not quite asking "What exactly is the point of this book" as I was with book 3 (clearly the worst in this series), but well, the book seems to be trying to argue that the reader should take a step back and condemn Dee's actions at the end....and I can't actually do that.  And so, in the end, it kind of fails.  And after two books like this, I suspect I wouldn't be interested in continuing if this series was to continue with a fifth book.


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)