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A review by timinbc
Finders by Melissa Scott
2.0
Hmph. Didn't work for me. I just about tagged this as fantasy. See, I've always liked the concept that SF is about stuff that *could* happen, while fantasy plays more with "couldn't happen but let's explore it anyway." This slips over the line.
We dive right in with the GREEN and the RED and the BLUE etc. which seem to be a cross between S*lly P*utty, L*GO, and computer circuits with a dash of magic. Except the GREEN can somehow slow the progress of a fatal disease. The one Silde goes on and on about at first; can't blame her but it's tedious and obviously she ain't gonna die of it, she's effectively the POV character.
We have a threesome–and I use the term intentionally–of salvagers. They're after valuable stuff, but there seem to be very few of them, all polite except a few Bad Guys. Until we find that among all the GREEN and RED and BLUE wtf-ium one might find a Gift. At first I thought "Excalibur?" No, not as likely as that. Magic psychic nanites. No, really.
We meet a Bad Guy who's the classic "what do I want? Bwah-hah, I want to be badder than bad! And break the universe, ahhahha!"
We go to a planet, they rent a vehicle, and ol' Gabby Hayes at the store says, "A'course ya gotta be careful in case there's a storm," and they say, "It's cool, dude, we checked the forecast." Hah. You KNOW what's gonna happen, dont'cha? Yep. It happened, but it was uneventful and I am not sure why Scott bothered with that scene unless it was a sly joke.
The scene with Dehlin is thoughtful and good.
Then we get into the gods who made this stuff. They gots these magic doodads that heal people, and they made them with time crystals and alternate "possibles, and you know what? I'm getting tired of all the handwaving. Especially when our heroes suffered dyschronorrhea from jumping outside time for a moment, until they could latch into a time signal (this is, of course, just a fancy version of the old [wakes up] "how long was I out?" cliché.
At the end, these leftover ultrapowerful whatevers are somehow contained. OK, mythology is chock full of gods and demigods locked up forever with "no chance of escaping (pauses) unless ... nah, couldn't possibly happen" so I'll allow this. They telepath our plucky heroine "let us free, we'll be good this time, Scout's honor" and she's like "nah" and we're done. Huh? I would have liked an exit that included a bit of "Sooooo, what are we gonna do with these her Gifts? What else do ya s'pose they can do?" As Scott has a character say at the end, they have (ahem) plenty of time.
Lookit, I've enjoyed reading along with orogeny and ringworlds and life on a gas giant, and tribbles, and sentient fungus, and I am NOT fussy about worldbuilding. But this one reads more like a comic book or a Star Wars "Kessel run in less than a parsec," or what Vonnegut called a chronosynclastic infundibulum. Every new scene left me expecting a new surprise, like weight-loss pies made from backwards atoms. This is a basic story dressed up in seven-league boots and invisibility cloaks.
AND .. what bugged me most: these Gifts are incredibly rare, and yet our crew of three thinks it's perfectly natural to plan to ... no, I won't say it. I've done enough spoiling.
I've liked quite a few of her others, but for me Scott has been too inventive in this book.
We dive right in with the GREEN and the RED and the BLUE etc. which seem to be a cross between S*lly P*utty, L*GO, and computer circuits with a dash of magic. Except the GREEN can somehow slow the progress of a fatal disease. The one Silde goes on and on about at first; can't blame her but it's tedious and obviously she ain't gonna die of it, she's effectively the POV character.
We have a threesome–and I use the term intentionally–of salvagers. They're after valuable stuff, but there seem to be very few of them, all polite except a few Bad Guys. Until we find that among all the GREEN and RED and BLUE wtf-ium one might find a Gift. At first I thought "Excalibur?" No, not as likely as that. Magic psychic nanites. No, really.
We meet a Bad Guy who's the classic "what do I want? Bwah-hah, I want to be badder than bad! And break the universe, ahhahha!"
We go to a planet, they rent a vehicle, and ol' Gabby Hayes at the store says, "A'course ya gotta be careful in case there's a storm," and they say, "It's cool, dude, we checked the forecast." Hah. You KNOW what's gonna happen, dont'cha? Yep. It happened, but it was uneventful and I am not sure why Scott bothered with that scene unless it was a sly joke.
The scene with Dehlin is thoughtful and good.
Then we get into the gods who made this stuff. They gots these magic doodads that heal people, and they made them with time crystals and alternate "possibles, and you know what? I'm getting tired of all the handwaving. Especially when our heroes suffered dyschronorrhea from jumping outside time for a moment, until they could latch into a time signal (this is, of course, just a fancy version of the old [wakes up] "how long was I out?" cliché.
At the end, these leftover ultrapowerful whatevers are somehow contained. OK, mythology is chock full of gods and demigods locked up forever with "no chance of escaping (pauses) unless ... nah, couldn't possibly happen" so I'll allow this. They telepath our plucky heroine "let us free, we'll be good this time, Scout's honor" and she's like "nah" and we're done. Huh? I would have liked an exit that included a bit of "Sooooo, what are we gonna do with these her Gifts? What else do ya s'pose they can do?" As Scott has a character say at the end, they have (ahem) plenty of time.
Lookit, I've enjoyed reading along with orogeny and ringworlds and life on a gas giant, and tribbles, and sentient fungus, and I am NOT fussy about worldbuilding. But this one reads more like a comic book or a Star Wars "Kessel run in less than a parsec," or what Vonnegut called a chronosynclastic infundibulum. Every new scene left me expecting a new surprise, like weight-loss pies made from backwards atoms. This is a basic story dressed up in seven-league boots and invisibility cloaks.
AND .. what bugged me most: these Gifts are incredibly rare, and yet our crew of three thinks it's perfectly natural to plan to ... no, I won't say it. I've done enough spoiling.
I've liked quite a few of her others, but for me Scott has been too inventive in this book.