Adelaide's Sean Williams and Shane Dix impressed the hardcore science fiction world with their Orphans Of The Earth trilogy and the Evergence series. True to form, Geodesica Ascent is the first in a new series - although of perhaps just two novels this time.
Its prose is energetic and concise.
The plot rollicks along, propelling the reader into the action. Plush with imaginative detail, this approach gives the novel pace, but also recalls George Lucas's attempts to fill every frame of the Star Wars prequel trilogy with colourful activity: whizzing spacecraft, alien cityscapes and multi-limbed life forms, all designed to distract from the limitations of character, story or dialogue.
Thankfully, Geodesica is not as indigestible, though this novel doesn't acquire real pace for 70 pages or so, when the immediate action begins to make contextual sense. Frustratingly, much of the back-story, the side plots and associated characterisation remain confusing and unclear.
And while more questions are asked than answered - setting up a more satisfying sequel - the basic plot is straightforward. Heroes, villains, political intrigue, chicanery, space battles - standard adventure fare.
The science of Geodesica too is straight up and down. Williams and Dix concern themselves primarily with notions of inter-species purity, being and self-determination as the lines are blurred between man and machine. Cybernetics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology are all used to workmanlike effect in propelling the story forward.
I did enjoy the novel's central theme of a benign despotism disguising itself as an advanced, participatory autocracy, where dissent and crime have been all but eradicated by the extension of the Big Brother principle to every facet of life including government: freedom of information begetting freedom from fear, crime and conflict? An interesting if familiar notion, when you consider just how far behaviour in the recent reality TV series degenerated simply because its participants no longer cared that everyone was always watching.
