Tuesday, November 10, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Medusa in the Graveyard by Emily Devenport



Medusa in the Graveyard is the sequel to 2018's Medusa Uploaded, a scifi novel which I reviewed here.  Medusa Uploaded - which I read as an audiobook - was an.....interesting book to say the least: in short, it was an utter mess, jumping back and forth in time for seemingly no reason, with characters acting in utterly unrealistic ways, and a plot that just got more and more crazy as our crazy and borderline psychopathic heroine learned more about her home, a generation ship (for example: our protagonist got thrown out an airlock at least five times).  But here's the thing: while it was an utter mess, it was an utterly fun mess, one where I really couldn't wait to see what our protagonist would do next. 

Medusa in the Graveyard is a similar book in many ways - it's again an utter mess, the characters act and talk (oh especially talk) in utterly insane ways, our protagonist is again kind of nuts. - but it loses a lot of the fun, honestly.  The book separates our main protagonist from her best ally - Medusa, the deadly tentacled AI machine - and expands the universe, but rarely gives the protagonist a chance to make any decisions on her own to change the outcomes, instead putting her on a journey through crazy new places where she is pinballed around in other beings' agendas.  Those beings are kind of interesting, but not nearly as interesting as our protagonist used to be, and removing her agency in favor of her melodrama is a losing trade, and makes this one not nearly as fun as its predecessor.

Note: I read this as an audiobook, so if I misspell any terms or names below, I apologize.  The audiobook reader is very good though at accentuating the bonkersness. 


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Oichi Angelis' revolution on the generation ship Olympia, aided by her AI ally Medusa, is complete, but the generation ship's journey is far from complete.  For the ship is approaching its destination: Graveyard, the planet which is home to The Three - three alien behemoths/ships with monstrous power that have been sleeping for generations.  The people of Olympia were designed to interface with the Three by the Weapon's Clan, and it seems destiny that Oichi will once again meet them in a way that could possibly change everything.

But meeting with the Three will not be something easy to achieve.  The Weapon's Clan is not happy to be removed from its control of Olympia's destiny, and will do nearly anything to get it back.  Other aliens and human factions have a strong interest in the Three remaining asleep, and may choose to help or hinder Oichi in her quest depending on what they see from her and her fellow Olympians.  And worst of all for Oichi:  her relationship with Medusa seems to be fracturing, with the AI deciding that it doesn't quite agree with Oichi's plans and that it should work towards its own agenda. 

But without Medusa's help, can Oichi really make it out of the Graveyard in one piece?
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Like its predecessor, Medusa in the Graveyard starts by jumping all over the place in chronology, beginning near the ending, before jumping to the beginning, and then jumping back and forth in time over a few days.  Unlike its predecessor, it actually then proceeds chronologically after that first bit.  Of course like its predecessor, the book always follows the mind of Oichi in her first person narration seemingly from some point in the future, and Oichi is utterly bonkers - she doesn't talk like a real person nor think like one, and her first thought at the beginning is basically to slaughter anyone even partially in her way - something that the deadly AI has to chide her for.  Mind you, the rest of the cast is similarly nuts - very much not speaking like real people, talking in full speeches, with all their thoughts out loud, in such a way that you might feel that certain people are clearly not on the level....but they actually are.  That's just how things are.

Still, the last book didn't really try to do character development for Oichi or anyone else - it was more about how her crazy sociopathy would enable her to plot and scheme and murder executives and others in her way of reclaiming her generation ship for its people rather than its elites.  This book tries by contrast to be about character development, of Oichi trying to learn to recognize the views of others, of not being always murder first, and of acknowledging even as she uses people that they are more than just pawns, but actual people to be valued. And well, like everything Oichi does, she does this character development with tremendous melodrama, with tons of internal dialogue about how miserable she is at things falling apart relationship wise and how she has clearly made mistakes....it's a lot.  Which again, is no surprise from this series.

What is a surprise is that it comes in a plot that basically takes away Oichi's agency entirely, putting her on a journey that is constantly upended by other beings (usually non-human) in the setting putting her in stranger and stranger situations.  Oichi makes literally one decision that isn't forced upon her in the final 2/3 of this book, and that one decision....again puts her on a track where another alien entity controls her destiny and sets her on a different course.  These other beings and situations are interesting sure, but there's nothing particularly special about them, whereas Oichi's crazy decision-making in the last book was so much of what I enjoyed about it.  And well, the ending is just kind of a blah, with the major event that the reader will spend the entire book waiting for resulting in basically nothing happening - the event happens mind you, but not in a way to really change anything in any meaningful way. 

Lots of books can be crazy messes, but what was fun about the first book was how the crazyness came from a fun lead character who made you excited to see what she would do next.  Robbing this sequel of that feeling only would've worked if the replacement was interesting enough to give me that same feeling and honestly, it didn't come close. 
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