Cascade Failure

Thanks to Tor and the Goodreads Giveaways for an ARC of this book.

This new novel, from debut author L.M. Sagas, is billed as “fast, brash, and wickedly fun” by Dayton Ward. On the inside, author J.S. Dewes says it has “earned its place among my favorite found family tales, alongside Killjoys, Mass Effect, and Battlestar Galactica.”

I couldn't stop thinking about Mass Effect the whole way through. Mass Effect is one of my all-time favorite video game series. There are big chunks of this book that read a bit like ME fan fiction. I don't know whether that is good or bad. Though I love Mass Effect, my joy here is less than full. I think it's because the story is so oriented around the “found family” and writing has a style tries to emphasize the ‘fun' and ‘gritty space crew' over everything else.

I kept thinking to myself, “I think other people would find this very fun.” I wish I did, but what I find fun in a video game is distinctly different from what I enjoy in a book. I have been reflecting on my reading (especially relating to my book club books, of which this is one), and I realize that I don't enjoy fun books very much. I had to work to finish the book. The way the author writes characters and dialogue is so far removed from what I like - every single emotion and motive is spelled out, sometimes over and over. There is so much telling, so little showing. Think words repeated, words in italics, words emphasized with “fucking” and other expletives (which does not offend, just doesn't work for me).

I also don't enjoy found family stories. There is a scene where the crew has a brief reprieve from the action and so they're dancing with one another. I had to skip pages to get past all of this, I couldn't take it.

If you're a reader that enjoys really light fiction with no thought required, where everything is explained, this would be a good pickup. If you want to read the novelization of a Mass Effect DLC that never was, I think this would be a good pickup. It's not reflective, contemplative, or serious in almost any way. That means it wasn't a good fit for me.

I felt obligated to finish this because it's a debut. I won't be picking up the novel's sequel, but I will check-in in a few years to see what sort of thing the author is writing at that time. This feels like an author finding their legs and using a very firm structure to manage that.