Grey Lotus

Review

Rating: 9

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book. Supposedly Reynolds has a number of books in this universe, so I didn’t know if I’d understand it well enough. Happily, this particular entry stands alone in his universe, requiring no further reading. More importantly… it’s really, really good.

Despite the title, I’d say that less than half of the book is actually set in Chasm City itself, and the setting is merely a vehicle to forward the plot. The plot itself is pretty tight, with only a few minor holes in it that may be more from me missing details on a first read through than actual problems.

One of the things that impressed me about this book is the storytelling style used. Chasm City starts in media res… that is, it jumps right into the plot with Tanner Mirabel hunting down his employer’s murderer. We don’t know why the man killed Mirabel’s boss, nor the circumstances of the murder. It’s told from Tanner’s viewpoint, and we quickly learn that he’s an unreliable narrator not because of dishonesty, but due to his own limited understanding. Throughout the action, references to bits of the world are dropped almost carelessly… but in fact these are used to make the reader familiar with terms so that they’ll not be burdened with exposition when it becomes important. By the time we really need to understand what a “hamadryad” is, we’ve learned most of the details through hints and casual references.

The background leading up to the plot itself is told in a series of flashbacks… but interwoven with that, Tanner starts having memories of Sky Haussman, the founder of the colony he’s from, give him a second set of flashbacks due to a nanovirus he’s infected with early on in the book. At first I was annoyed at this digression, as it didn’t appear to have anything to do with the main plot… but after a few segments of this, I looked forward to seeing more of Sky, and watching him grow into his sociopathy.

It’s this that made me realize the genius of the book, once I was finished with it. Firstly, all three threads are tied together neatly with the /real/ plot of the book, which I won’t go into here. Secondly, and more important of the two points, the flashbacks served to provide action to the slower-paced portions of the book, and cool down after particularly tense segments, leading to a steady and engrossing pace. It’s not an easy technique, but Reynolds pulls it off with flair. I devoured this book mostly in two days, once I got past the first couple chapters. It might have been faster if I hadn’t been bedridden at the time.

That’s just the technique that I covered. Some of the characters I couldn’t care less for, but the main character is Tanner Mirabel. The reading grows to understand him, even if they don’t agree with him for much of the time. Tanner is really who this is about, and Chasm City is more a backdrop upon which the reader watches Tanner develop, and watches the founding of Sky’s Edge unfold. It’s a fascinating read, all in all, and I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone into science fiction. I’d say it’s Niven-esque, but I find Reynolds to be an easier read than Niven, who can sometimes come across as a bit dry, to me. I should warn that this is a hefty book, over 700 pages, and it’s pretty dense, but well worth the time.