November 30, 2017

Review: Acadie

Acadie Acadie by Dave Hutchinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those stories that has a stinger at the end, and this one is such a complete surprise that it makes you want to reread the entire thing right away, to see if you can pick up on the clues you missed before.

It also makes the book hard to talk about. Let's just say that this story is exactly the length it needs to be for this installment. Just in this novella, we have genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, quantum physics, and an Earth hellbent on pursuing a group of breakaway colonists and dragging them back for some supposed "justice."

Or do we?

That's the beauty of this little book. Once that twist comes, the reader isn't certain of anything anymore. One thing for sure, the writing draws you in; the narrator, John Wayne "Duke" Faraday, given a leadership role he didn't want and determined to carry it through nevertheless, has a marvelous, wry, put-upon voice. The worldbuilding seems to be well thought out (the image of two cats fighting in zero gravity will never leave me) and unintrusive, with little infodumping. It's an interesting read, and I hope the author writes more stories in this universe.

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