2013 read #1: Memory by Linda Nagata.

Memory by Linda Nagata
416 pages
Published 2003
Read from January 1 to January 3
Rating: ★★ out of 5

I haven't read much hard science fiction -- an Iain M. Banks novel, a few issues of Analog, one or two other books I've mostly forgotten about. Mostly I liked what I read, but the genre never really clicked with me. It tends to be dry, impersonal, predicated on specific technological configurations rather than the character interactions and social implications that really draw me into speculative fiction. The concepts are neat sometimes, but since only so many things are technologically feasible, it can feel a bit repetitive even after the handful of titles I've read. Nanotechnology, geoengineering and terraforming, ringworlds, super AI's, intelligent ships, human consciousness technologically enhanced with godlike powers -- hard science fiction is as dull and cliched in its own way as vaguely medieval fantasy with its princesses and brigands and dragons. Or else I've been reading the wrong stuff.

Memory seemed intriguing enough at first. I liked the scattering of Nahuatl names in the geography, the "truckers" driving across the lowlands to take shelter in "temples" every night, and imagined that interesting cultural worldbuilding would be a central draw of the novel. Alas, it wasn't to be. The meat of the narrative was a generic travelogue through a grassland and a forest and a desert, no different than any C-list fantasy novel. The bulk of the plot centered on the dry mechanics of Nagata's fake technologies, again like any C-list fantasy novel. In fact, in every respect Memory could be a C-list fantasy novel. The desert portions, especially, reminded me of some lackluster Fable sequel or novelization. That I think was the biggest disappointment. I've read more than enough generic fantasy. I had hoped that a hard science fiction story would offer something fundamentally different. But really, if Nagata had invoked magic instead of magical nanotech, nothing of substance would have changed. Even the main villain -- dressed in black, laughing bitterly, immortal, driven to destroy the world for some stupid arbitrary reason -- is a stock dark wizard character.

Nagata's prose was meh, the characters one-dimensional and dull, the interpersonal conflicts predictable and kind of silly. One thing that especially bugged me was Nagata's method of dropping loads of background information. At least twice, a concept would be introduced in one chapter and suddenly be everywhere the next. We went about eighty pages before the concept of "cessants" was introduced, but in the very next chapter and from then on throughout the book, suddenly every other new character is a cessant. There are whole monasteries full of them, and nobody cares.

I also hate it when a major "twist" is obvious from like the second chapter. When your characters all refer to themselves as "players," and mention all the prior lives they've lived, there isn't much of a mystery; when the main character finally realizes what she and her fellow players are, it doesn't carry nearly as much emotional impact as the text seems to think it should. I'm not spoiling that for you, because seriously -- it's right there from the second chapter or so.

Also, your big climactic final chapter shouldn't have page after page of your cardboard characters walking around looking for something and chit-chatting as if they were comfortable at home. It shouldn't feature the line "We walked and walked, and I began to think we would walk forever through that flat, featureless terrain." Just sayin'. There was pretty much zero tension in this book, mostly because the characters were that uninteresting, partly because the pacing is kind of terrible.

I didn't hate Memory as much as you'd think, but it was entirely unremarkable in every way. At least it was a fast read.