Emma NewmanCritiques

Each of the ten stories here is distinct, fleshing out the "Planetfall" universe from Newman's four brilliant novels in different, yet always rewarding, ways. Very enjoyable, and I regret it not having a physical release, as it very much deserves a place on the shelf next to the other installments.½

I liked it, right up to the end that kind of...ended? IMO, although I can accept the ending, it felt too much like a novella that should be a full book. There is a lot of story left to be told.

This lost two stars for being half a story. What was there was good, but the ending, IMO, was so abrupt that it might as well have stopped mid-sentence. Also--the book is super short. Isn't 160 pages a novella?

Don't get me wrong. As I said earlier, what is here is good. Ms. Newman knows how to tell a story. I read the book like I was watching a soap opera. I was yelling at the protagonist, knowing what was going to happen. All with the good feeling you get shoving popcorn in your mouth watching a character go into the basement in the dark where you KNOW they're going to get it.

I think I'd like to blame the publisher for what I feel are shortcomings. This should have either been serialized into short, cheaper chapter books (remember The Green Mile?) or it should have been held until all the books in the series were ready and released closer together.

So far, I've enjoyed the story, if not the delivery, enough that I'd buy audio and ebook versions, AND I plan to re-read the series in its entirety. I don't plan on buying any more books in the series until it's concluded. Then I'll get them all.

I listened to this as an audiobook. I really struggled with the first few chapters, there was just. So.Much.Swearing. If I had had access to a paper book I probably could have skipped over some of the frequent F-bombs. The first few chapters also seem to be about how angry the main character is at the whole of existence. He has reasons to be angry but it did not make for a story I was interested in pursuing. Once I got past that part and into the middle section it got much more interesting as it was primarily a police procedural. Carlos is a sort-of slave/indentured servant to the MOS and is sent to investigate the death of someone who was once his mentor.. As he uncovers the past of his mentor we learn more about Carlos as well. At about the 2/3 point the story changes again into a more dystopian SF future. Carlos goes to Texas to attend the funeral of the man he was investigating and also reunite with his father. He uncovers a massive international plot and chooses to leave Earth.
The ending is hugely depressing., possibly because with world politics the mess they are I can see all this happening.
I don't think I am up to another book by this author.
Read for the British author challenge Feb 2024
audiobook completed 2/26/2024

Reason read; British author challenge. This is SF. It is the author's first SF novel. Setting is off planet, the main character is "keeping a secret" and has issues, so it is also about trauma and mental illness. Issues covered include; environment, recycling, recreational drug use, various sexual partners. Technology in the book includes the 3 D printer, networking, retinal displays. The people are cult like; God’s City creates a seed for the people, which is what their new religion is based on. Apparently Suh-Mi is up there with God, and is sending the Seed down to her people. Except it’s actually Mack putting the Seed there every year. The colony is built on a lie. The ending is disappointing for most readers but for, I was glad it came to an end. This book contains offensive language, sexual content but it is part of the story if you choose to read it. It has some similarities to The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

Although technically well-written, I felt a bit cheated by the ending.

This was quite an interesting book! First, the protagonist is a colored woman. She is competent. Before long, it becomes clear that she is lesbian, and then, it turns out she has a mental disorder. Any one of those things would have made for an unusual protagonist, let alone all of them!
The story is interesting as well. A colony of people living on a strange planet at the foot of what they call God's city. What has happened at the first planetfall? What is that city about?
There are answers of a sort at the end, even though part of the end is open as well. As the answers I got were to the questions that mattered to me, that was fine. I did feel that the twists to the story at the end were a bit disjointed. All of a sudden, the whole story veered in another direction. I felt like the whole story was a setup to get to the ending, but that took too long at the beginning, and then sped up too fast at the end,with an unexpected change of direction, and all of a sudden you're there, and you don't know what just happened to you.

So, if Mack had told the truth about Suh's death, the colony would have fallen apart? But why?

Hoarding is about as interesting as drug addiction or alcoholic hangovers.

And why is God's place so boring? And why did no one ever see Ren moving outside the colony?

Suh's son is the only intriguing character.

Ten short stories set in her capitalist hellscape future; nothing stood out a lot but it reminded me that I really liked the main books.

Seemingly straightforward at first, with a geologist-artist joining a small scientific outpost on Mars, it quickly becomes a psychological mystery. Why are there mysterious hints that she's been there before? Enough of her past supports the fear that it might by her own mind cracking. But is it?

Would work as a stand-alone but is part of the Planetfall series.

This was a rather strange story and I liked it. It reminded me of Annihilation both in the way the people get involved with a totally bewildering alien ecosystem, and in the way there's an unexplained but creepy backstory. I don't even mind the way that the ending was unresolved. It seems completely appropriate. Other reviews have complained about all these things but I'm comfortable with ambiguity and think that was a major theme of the book. And oh yes! I loved the cover art: if you read the physical book be sure to look at the detail.

I was uncomfortable with the moral stance of this one (turns out so was the author). Wonder where this series is heading.

As a murder mystery in a science fiction setting, this book hit both of my favorite genres. I don't usually read the second book in a series without having read the first (Planetfall), but the ebook was a BookBub deal and I went for it. Clearly what happened in the first was important to the development of the characters and I was eager to read it (and I will), but only in the final couple of chapters and pages did events develop that are only clear if you've read the first book.

Still, the mystery, the investigation, and the characters were interesting and I read this one straight through, which is unusual for me.

Review for Entire Series

Cathy is our protagonist, angsty and rebellious, desperately trying to avoid the magical world (the Nether) she was raised in. This Nether world is like a reflection of modern day England, where cities still retain their Roman names and all citizens are controlled by their family’s fae in exchange for eternal life.

The Split Worlds trilogy is told from four perspectives – that of Cathy, Max, the arbiter, mortal Sam who gets tangled up in the mess by accident, and Cathy’s reluctant husband, William. Vying for power in the Nether cities of Aquae Sulie (Bath) and Londinium (London) are the (banished) Roses and the Irises (William’s family). William is coerced and tricked by the devious Roses into taking the dukedom of Londinium; the sorcerers are at war; and the arbiters are all dead but one (Max)… and his talking gargoyle that holds his soul. Sam’s wife is possibly cheating on him… to protect him? So much happens in the course of such a short amount of time that I cannot even begin to explain it all but Emma Newman weaves her stories together effortlessly.

My only cause for concern is that Cathy never seems to really come into her own. First, she’s rebelling, then she’s the “domesticated housewife,” trying to undo the treachery of the Nether from within, and then she’s the Duchess of Londinium, still trying to figure out her role and deal with William who has no idea why he’s behaving the way he is. And they’re supposed to go through it all together, for eternity, but they just never seem to fit (William’s infidelity with a Rose certainly doesn’t help matters). I read all three books in quick succession without ever feeling like I’d gotten to know Cathy properly. And for that reason, I don’t think I’ll be returning to re-read the trilogy. I loved the plot while reading it, but it may be one that I just leave as it is.

Wow! I liked this a lot! The story is about a hoarder with anxiety disorder and the colony she lives in on an Earth-like planet.

Hm. I liked this sci-fi mystery well enough, but the ending felt like it didn't fit. It also didn't feel at all connected to the first Planetfall book.

Carlos Moreno's mom left him behind, as a baby, to keep her place on the starship Atlas. Baby Carlos and his Dad were rejected. Dad couldn't face life after this rejection, so he gave up on the world and left little Carlos to fend for himself. Cult founder Alejandro rescues little Carlos and his Dad and bring them into cult-land, in Texas. Carlos struggles to fit in as his Dad worships the ground that Alejandro walks on.

Long story short, Carlos ends up owned by a very scary billionaire, who demands obedience or face torture, and that's when the author seemingly changes horse in mid-stream. I ask myself"what just happened?"

"Atlas Alone" is the story of a former corporate slave (literally) on a spaceship headed towards a distant planet, humanity's new hope. She is burdened with secret knowledge that someone on board committed genocide before they left Earth, knowledge she has no way to act on until some anonymous hacker on board starts infiltrating her virtual reality games, offering to help her get revenge.

Newman's ability to keep the final two or three chapters' worth of story almost entirely obfuscated throughout the reading experience to get there keeps impressing me, novel by novel. Having consumed unknown thousands of stories in my life, I'm used to at this point having a fairly decent sense, subconsciously or consciously, as to what any given story is headed towards -- even with the ones I love. Newman dances around this intuitive expectation rather brilliantly, with snappy, almost shockingly quick finales in each of these 'Planetfall' novels, that usually focuses on some seemingly tertiary aspect of the story I wasn't quite realising would turn out to be its focus. And yet, it always works.

That's not to say some twists aren't telegraphed and can be predicted (I saw one of the main ones in this book coming a mile away, for instance), but the _direction_ of the story, more than the actual reveals, is always something satisfyingly other than what I'd have first thought. "Atlas Alone" is very much following in this tradition, with perhaps the most chillingly unexpected final twist yet, in my eyes. (And, endearingly, both darker and less dark than what I _was_ sort of expecting, at the same time,)

With this novel, what has only been hinted at in the previous installments becomes rather clear: All of the (fairly standalone) novels in this series are pointing towards some kind of explosive mutual convergence. I'd be very excited to read that, should Newman ever get to write it. Because based on these four, she definitely knows what she's doing.½

Another great entry in the "Planetfall" series of standalone novels by Emma Newman. Where "Planetfall" was a science fiction drama gradually turning into psychological thriller and "After Atlas" was dystopian detective noir, "Before Mars" somewhere in the middle. This novel's protagonist (the book is told in first person the way the other two were) struggles with trauma and depression like the one in "Planetfall", but of a different (and less severe) kind. She is also, as the story progresses, trying to get to the bottom of a mysterious conspiracy, like the one in "After Atlas", but unlike him, it is not her job to do so.

I'm impressed by Newman's ability to make each of these novels utterly self-contained and yet enriched by each other's widening and deepening of the universe they take place in (they literally each occur on different planets, albeit in a roughly equivalent time frame). Whichever of the three novels you read first, the later ones will benefit from the added context you now can bring to casual mentions of shared backstory and societal concepts.

I also quite like how she is able to write easy, gripping narratives where the reader is very gradually realising what is actually going on. In all three of these books, the final few chapters are quite different from the rest, as the reader (and often the protagonist) at that point finally knows what the book has been about this whole time. And yet, there's none of the directionless feeling in the earlier chapters that such a structure might make me expect. I'm entertained throughout, a testament to Newman's ability to place me in the head of her (always troubled, if in different ways) protagonists.

My sole note, perhaps, after three novels, is how all the protagonists have conveniently agreed with the reader's intuitive dislike of many of the dystopian future's facets that everyone around them seem so fine with. It would perhaps be more interesting at this point to see a protagonist who is actually happy to live in this world, rather than quietly resisting it, and as well-adjusted as many of the secondary characters do seem to be. Certainly, it would be more challenging for me as a reader to see a protagonist be so used to concepts that to me are horrid and upsetting, rather than read about the odd ducks who still have antiquated notions of privacy, freedom, self-reliance, distrust of AIs, etc.

But this is a terribly minor thing, and really only something I considered once all three books had been read and this pattern started seeming apparent. I'm very pleased with these books, and eagerly looking forward to the fourth one. And will no doubt be thoroughly entertained by that one, too, even if the protagonist there yet again turn out to be a secret luddite of some shape or form.½

A brilliant, but troubled, scientist is living on a distant planet in a colony of people who set out there from Earth, following a Messiah-like figure. Something about the expedition is implied to have gone horribly wrong after the initial landing ('planetfall'), and the novel very gradually divulges the details, some of which the protagonist is actively hiding, others she's trying very hard, consciously or subconsciously, not to think about at all.
Much like in "After Atlas", Newman's ability to make an unhappy first person narrator engrossing and relatable is very impressive. The science fiction elements are internally consistent and provide an intriguing, memorable backdrop. I did feel that perhaps a couple of subplots could have used a bit more time to pay off -- they're sort of chewed up by the whirlwind of the conclusion to what is revealed to be the main plot in the final few chapters -- but that's nitpicking. I hugely enjoyed this novel, and am looking forward to reading the remaining two in the same universe. And hopefully, Newman will get to write even more of them in the future.½

Review of eBook

Stonemaiden Kerry believes herself to be a monster. Her touch turns living things into granite statues. Since the day she turned her parents into statues, she’d been so careful to keep from touching another person. She’d been lonely.

Captain Flint has watched out for her; Kerry’s gratitude is boundless. She wants nothing more than to prove herself, to make a difference, to become the hero she believes she could be, to join other aces in the Silver Helix.

Although a bit reluctant, Flint gives Kerry a first mission, the surveillance of Kazimir Nazarenko, an aide to a Russian diplomat in London for trade negotiations. Kerry scrupulously follows her instructions . . . until Lilith knocks at her door.

Lilith, obviously an ace, suggests that Kerry take some initiative with the mission; Lilith assures her Flint will be pleased. Kerry, convinced that the mission is some sort of a test, decides to follow Lilith’s advice.

It isn’t long, however, before Kerry discovers that, although she’d thought she’d followed her instructions well, Kazimir knew she was surveilling him. But his contact with her is for something far removed from either of their tasks.

What does Kazimir know that he feels is vital for Kerry to learn? And what will she do once she discovers Kazimir’s secret?

=========

This story is one of part of a series of superhero tales set in the Wild Cards universe. [For readers unfamiliar with it, this is an alternate universe where the Wild Card virus infected some humans, rewriting their DNA and mutating them. Those known as aces, like Kerry, acquired superhuman abilities from the virus.]

Intriguing characters, a compelling plot, and a strong sense of place all work together to pull the reader into the telling of the tale. Kerry’s loneliness, her fearful hesitancy to interact with others keep readers invested in what happens to her in the unfolding story; she’s an appealing protagonist caught in circumstances not entirely of her own making.

This story is an excellent fit for the Wild Cards Universe; there’s a bit of foreshadowing considering the current situation between Ukraine and Russia, but this serves to strengthen the reader’s stake in the ultimate outcome.

Highly recommended.

Outstanding. THIS is great SF. I keep typing things then deleting.

Go in as blind as you can.

Great ideas/plotting, but as human a story as any, including a protagonist who has probably had one trauma too many, delicate relationships in a small community, and smart touches like the focus on 3D printing and the light social media overlay.

I wish there were about 50 more pages. But it beats the opposite.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/after-atlas-by-emma-newman/

This is the second in the four-volume Planetfall series by Emma Newman, which I have read completely out of order. (Third, fourth, first.) I’m afraid this lost me pretty early on when the protagonist, a police detective, was compelled by his bosses to investigate the murder of a former close friend. Sure, he is indentured through an ‘orrible system of cyber-slavery, but really, assigning someone like that is a crazy thing for a police force of any size to do. I read patiently through for the payoff, but it didn’t come.

There is some complicated storytelling here, with the story from when they landed, plus the story in the present, plus a few mysterious or hidden things in both of them that. And a bit more that I won't mention because spoilers. It mostly goes together smoothly. I almost put the book down during the late middle because it was just too dark for a character I liked, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

I'll certainly look for other books by Emma Newman.

For me, the weakest of the series so far (though given I still rated it a solid 4 stars, it's by no means weak). That ending though, HOLY CRAP.

This is the greatest mindfuck of a book I've ever read.