One of the reviews I saw for this book called it something along the lines of “a private eye novel without all the toxic masculinity,” and that’s what sold me on reading it. What kept me reading, though, was the absolutely wonderful world building. It’s thousands of years in the future, and there are passing references to legends of space travel, and references to the collapse of our current civilization, lost knowledge of the ancients, all that. But the single line that most sold me on the whole thing was a passing reference to “Arthur Kennedy and the betrayal of Camelot”. Given a couple thousand years, even with written history, it absolutely makes sense that two legendary figures would get merged together.
I really enjoy things like this; I like science fiction where a lot of different things have happened, with one Big Deal technological change that gives us all sorts of implications to explore. If I had to track it down in this one, I’d say there were two things: CRISPR allowing for genetic modification, and a nuclear war that was small enough not to cause nuclear winter, but large enough to EMP everything digital to oblivion.
All in all, this was an excellent read, and I highly recommend it. Check it out.1
- This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩