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A review by trike
Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang
2.0
This book has one of the best opening scenes I've ever read. It's awesome!
So why the 2 stars? Because that's the high point, sadly.
This suffers from typical First Book Problems, like inconsistent narrative, uneven characters, repetitive and frequently obtuse dialogue, and, worst of all, a weak ending. I bought this book years ago and kept putting it down. In the meantime I've read numerous books that were two or three times longer with ease. Just in terms of pure "time spent with the story", it took me less time to read the 900-page Seveneves than it did to get through this book.
Which is a shame, because the idea here is solid. It's just that the execution is lacking. It feels like we're spinning our wheels and backtracking a lot when the main character is investigating the mystery at the core of the story, and there are tons of tedious action scenes which feel like they were included just because Huang thought they were cool. If that floats your boat, fine, but it feels gratuitous to me.
In the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, the first time Starlord, Rocket, Groot and Gamora meet, they engage in a particularly painful game of Keep-Away. They each want different things and those things are at odds with each other. It's a fun action scene. Later in the movie they are being chased by a bunch of goons in spaceships and Gamora almost dies and Peter chooses to sacrifice himself to save her, but it's boring because you know no one is going to actually die. Aside from the initial scene, the action sequences in Zero Sum Game feel like multiple versions of that second GotG scene.
The main character, Cas, is super-mathy and can instantly calculate trajectories and angles and such, which makes her especially dangerous. She knows just how to hit someone so they go flying across the room, she never wastes a bullet, she can do extreme parkour without hurting herself... it's literal applied math.
Sure, we've seen this exact skill dozens of times before. Cyclops demonstrated that he has this skill way back in the 1970s when the X-Men first encountered Murderworld and he took out multiple kill bots with one banked optic blast. It turns up in [b:Battle Royale|57891|Battle Royale|Koushun Takami|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331235272s/57891.jpg|2786327]. Pretty much every superhero marksman with "eye" or "dead" in their name has this ability. Hawkeye, Bullseye, Deadshot, Deathlok, etc. Is there a "Deadeye"? If so, he probably has it double.
But it's cool to see it used, especially from an author who apparently has a degree in math. I just wish it were employed more engagingly. There's enough "been there done that" to the skillset that I suspect she hasn't read those other versions of characters with this ability.
Anyway, super-calculator Cas comes up against a psychic. And HERE is where it really should have gotten interesting: turns out the evil plot the psychic and her organization are engaging in is good for all mankind. Which makes the protagonist and her group of ne'er-do-wells the bad guys. How cool is that?
Not very, turns out.
They don't agonize much over this, which really should be the meat of the story. This is the heart of the conflict, after all. They spend time wondering whether or not they're doing the right thing by opposing Pythica, and they worry that this super-psychic may have messed with their minds so that they merely think this Hydra-like organization is actually doing good in the world. Then they decide, "Nah, burn it all down," and go from there. Except they have actual proof that Pythica is strangling drug cartels and crime syndicates!
I can imagine this story in the hands of a subtler, more imaginative writer would have offered up a decent "What would you do?" conundrum for readers, or at the very least been more ambiguous as to how the main characters responded. Even Philip K. Dick, who was not a great writer, managed to make this sort of concept thought-provoking, which is why his work has such staying power.
The only real uncertainty I was left with was why Huang didn't give us any answers -- or even any hints -- as to why Cas has this amazing calculation ability or why she has the protection of the world's most dangerous sociopath. We get fractured dream images which tell us nothing. Combine that with the deus ex machina ending where there's no resolution between Cas and the Psychic and I was left wanting some closure.
You know how at the end of Inception the final shot is one of the spinning top? At first glance that feels like a completely ambiguous ending which leaves the audience wondering if what we're seeing is real or imaginary. But when you stop to think about it, it's not vague at all; it is, in fact, complete misdirection. I would have enjoyed this type of ending just fine, but we're not given anything of substance to work with.
Even revealing that the people we thought were the good guys are actually the villains would have been preferable to the non-ending.
So, yeah, 2 stars. It misses the target.
So why the 2 stars? Because that's the high point, sadly.
This suffers from typical First Book Problems, like inconsistent narrative, uneven characters, repetitive and frequently obtuse dialogue, and, worst of all, a weak ending. I bought this book years ago and kept putting it down. In the meantime I've read numerous books that were two or three times longer with ease. Just in terms of pure "time spent with the story", it took me less time to read the 900-page Seveneves than it did to get through this book.
Which is a shame, because the idea here is solid. It's just that the execution is lacking. It feels like we're spinning our wheels and backtracking a lot when the main character is investigating the mystery at the core of the story, and there are tons of tedious action scenes which feel like they were included just because Huang thought they were cool. If that floats your boat, fine, but it feels gratuitous to me.
In the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, the first time Starlord, Rocket, Groot and Gamora meet, they engage in a particularly painful game of Keep-Away. They each want different things and those things are at odds with each other. It's a fun action scene. Later in the movie they are being chased by a bunch of goons in spaceships and Gamora almost dies and Peter chooses to sacrifice himself to save her, but it's boring because you know no one is going to actually die. Aside from the initial scene, the action sequences in Zero Sum Game feel like multiple versions of that second GotG scene.
The main character, Cas, is super-mathy and can instantly calculate trajectories and angles and such, which makes her especially dangerous. She knows just how to hit someone so they go flying across the room, she never wastes a bullet, she can do extreme parkour without hurting herself... it's literal applied math.
Sure, we've seen this exact skill dozens of times before. Cyclops demonstrated that he has this skill way back in the 1970s when the X-Men first encountered Murderworld and he took out multiple kill bots with one banked optic blast. It turns up in [b:Battle Royale|57891|Battle Royale|Koushun Takami|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1331235272s/57891.jpg|2786327]. Pretty much every superhero marksman with "eye" or "dead" in their name has this ability. Hawkeye, Bullseye, Deadshot, Deathlok, etc. Is there a "Deadeye"? If so, he probably has it double.
But it's cool to see it used, especially from an author who apparently has a degree in math. I just wish it were employed more engagingly. There's enough "been there done that" to the skillset that I suspect she hasn't read those other versions of characters with this ability.
Anyway, super-calculator Cas comes up against a psychic. And HERE is where it really should have gotten interesting: turns out the evil plot the psychic and her organization are engaging in is good for all mankind. Which makes the protagonist and her group of ne'er-do-wells the bad guys. How cool is that?
Not very, turns out.
They don't agonize much over this, which really should be the meat of the story. This is the heart of the conflict, after all. They spend time wondering whether or not they're doing the right thing by opposing Pythica, and they worry that this super-psychic may have messed with their minds so that they merely think this Hydra-like organization is actually doing good in the world. Then they decide, "Nah, burn it all down," and go from there. Except they have actual proof that Pythica is strangling drug cartels and crime syndicates!
I can imagine this story in the hands of a subtler, more imaginative writer would have offered up a decent "What would you do?" conundrum for readers, or at the very least been more ambiguous as to how the main characters responded. Even Philip K. Dick, who was not a great writer, managed to make this sort of concept thought-provoking, which is why his work has such staying power.
The only real uncertainty I was left with was why Huang didn't give us any answers -- or even any hints -- as to why Cas has this amazing calculation ability or why she has the protection of the world's most dangerous sociopath. We get fractured dream images which tell us nothing. Combine that with the deus ex machina ending where there's no resolution between Cas and the Psychic and I was left wanting some closure.
You know how at the end of Inception the final shot is one of the spinning top? At first glance that feels like a completely ambiguous ending which leaves the audience wondering if what we're seeing is real or imaginary. But when you stop to think about it, it's not vague at all; it is, in fact, complete misdirection.
Spoiler
The spinning top is irrelevant. The top is his wife's totem. Cobb's totem is the wedding ring.Even revealing that the people we thought were the good guys are actually the villains would have been preferable to the non-ending.
So, yeah, 2 stars. It misses the target.