This is science fiction about adults, for adults. Everything about it is solid: the prose, the world-building, the characters. Both the central mystery and the central romance are well-paced and resolve satisfactorily. In short, it's damn good.
The prose is of the sort that gets out of the reader's way, putting the story front and center. It's written in tight third person perspective, alternating fairly regularly between Mace and Nemily. The pacing is sure, doling out information about the characters, the world, and the mystery as needed and not before. There is a rough moment early on when the story jumps forward in time several years; I wish the part before the jump had been set aside in a prologue or a Part I to give that jump more visceral impact. But that's just a quibble.
The world-building is quite compelling. It's barely 100 years into our future, when the solar system is in the process of being settled but humans have yet to make it any further out. In that 100 years there has clearly been quite a bit of political upheaval, and figuring out the details of that history is at times a more intriguing mystery than the one Mace is investigating. There are a couple of infodumps when all action comes to a screeching halt, but for the most part Tiedemann manages to show a messy, precarious balance of power that is fascinating in its own right and increasingly relevant to the main plot.
But the thing that makes this book refreshingly adult fare is the characters. There's sex too, it's true, and more of it than I was expecting; but the far more groundbreaking elements are the ways in which Mace and Nemily are not your standard noir detective and ingenue. Much though he might want to be, Mace is not a loner: he is surrounded by people who care for him. Not a fellowship determined to aid him in his quest, but friends, of varying degrees, both people he'd trust his life to and people he wouldn't, but who want to celebrate his birthday with him anyway. And though Nemily looks at first like the typical cold, desperate woman with a secret, she just gets stranger and stranger, a convincingly alien future human. And over their entire relationship hangs the spectre of Mace's dead wife, who is not some gilded idol but instead a complex and achingly real woman whose death I felt more the further into the story I got.
If this book has a weakness it is the central mystery; part of the reason I found the world more intriguing than the plot was that I had figured out much of the mystery well in advance of the characters. The villains were also a shade too hissable for my liking. But overall this is a strong entry in the science fiction mystery canon, and one with a far better romantic subplot than most (actually, two romantic subplots, one forward and one backward). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
The prose is of the sort that gets out of the reader's way, putting the story front and center. It's written in tight third person perspective, alternating fairly regularly between Mace and Nemily. The pacing is sure, doling out information about the characters, the world, and the mystery as needed and not before. There is a rough moment early on when the story jumps forward in time several years; I wish the part before the jump had been set aside in a prologue or a Part I to give that jump more visceral impact. But that's just a quibble.
The world-building is quite compelling. It's barely 100 years into our future, when the solar system is in the process of being settled but humans have yet to make it any further out. In that 100 years there has clearly been quite a bit of political upheaval, and figuring out the details of that history is at times a more intriguing mystery than the one Mace is investigating. There are a couple of infodumps when all action comes to a screeching halt, but for the most part Tiedemann manages to show a messy, precarious balance of power that is fascinating in its own right and increasingly relevant to the main plot.
But the thing that makes this book refreshingly adult fare is the characters. There's sex too, it's true, and more of it than I was expecting; but the far more groundbreaking elements are the ways in which Mace and Nemily are not your standard noir detective and ingenue. Much though he might want to be, Mace is not a loner: he is surrounded by people who care for him. Not a fellowship determined to aid him in his quest, but friends, of varying degrees, both people he'd trust his life to and people he wouldn't, but who want to celebrate his birthday with him anyway. And though Nemily looks at first like the typical cold, desperate woman with a secret, she just gets stranger and stranger, a convincingly alien future human. And over their entire relationship hangs the spectre of Mace's dead wife, who is not some gilded idol but instead a complex and achingly real woman whose death I felt more the further into the story I got.
If this book has a weakness it is the central mystery; part of the reason I found the world more intriguing than the plot was that I had figured out much of the mystery well in advance of the characters. The villains were also a shade too hissable for my liking. But overall this is a strong entry in the science fiction mystery canon, and one with a far better romantic subplot than most (actually, two romantic subplots, one forward and one backward). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.
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