C.A. Higgins, Lightless. Del Rey, 2015. E-ARC courtesy of the publisher.
Science fiction written by a person with a degree in physics. Sounds great, right? I’m sure Lightless has some good points – the prose, though naive, is brisk and energetic – but I couldn’t last out long enough to identify them. The aforesaid naive prose relies much too heavily on to-be verbs, the main character is basically a person-shaped hole, and very shortly we meet a Man who is possibly a Pirate with Very Blue Eyes.
The most brilliant blue Althea had ever seen had been in the sky of the equatorial region on Earth, where she had gone for a brief vacation from her studies. That did not compare to the brilliant color of the man’s eyes.
The blue-eyed man. The blue-eyed man. HEREAFTER WE SHALL REFER TO HIM AS THE BLUE-EYED MAN. The blue-eyed man likes to BANDY WORDS. When confronted with people carrying guns, this happens:
“And what if we don’t go?” the blue-eyed man asked.
“Your friend tried to resist me,” said Domitian. “I snapped his arm. What do you want me to do to you?”
The blue-eyed man smiled, white teeth showing.
“I mean if we think getting shot would be better than going into your brig,” he said, clarifying with a show of false politeness that perfectly matched his Terran accent.
THE BLUE-EYED MAN. WE GET IT. HIS EYES ARE VERY FUCKING BLUE.
Clearly he is Special, and if he doesn’t wind up being a romantic interest, I’ll eat a handful of raw peppercorns.
It was shortly after this point that I decided I had better things to do with my time. If any one of you has read it, please let me know if it improves?
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea 
Well, Althea is attracted to the blue-eyed man, but that’s as far as it goes. At least in this book.
Anwyay, it took somewhere between 10-30% of the novel for it to work for me, and I was fairly skeptical until then. But once it *did* start to work for me I was very glad I’d stuck with it, as there was, I felt, effective tension and suspense, and some of the mid/late revelations and developments were, um. Suitably punchy.
Althea’s characterization does improve, a bit, but she remains…not particularly well drawn. The second protagonist (who I believe you would not have met yet) is a literal sociopath, so while I found her interesting there wasn’t much there there.
Mind you, a large portion of the book involves the sociopath interrogating the blue-eyed man, which…might not be your thing.
That’s good to know. I’m glad to hear it *does* get better. Given the number of books on my TBR shelf, though, sticking past the first thirty pages tends to require a little more up-front promise than I got here.
Mind you, a large portion of the book involves the sociopath interrogating the blue-eyed man, which…might not be your thing.
Um. Yeah. Maybe not.
Love this review. Thanks for a good chuckle on an otherwise regular Tuesday!