Review: Embedded
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I came to this book through a roundabout path. ClarkesWorld Magazine had an interview with Lauren Beukes, in Issue #56 (May 2011). Jeremy L. C. Jones was talking with Ms. Beukes about her new novel Zoo City. I got intrigued and checked out the publisher, Angry Robot.
As I browsed their catalog, I stumbled on Embedded. The description intrigued me right away.
When journalist Lex Falk gets himself chipped into the brain of a combat soldier, he thinks he has the ultimate scoop - a report from the forbidden front line of a distant planetary war, live to the living rooms of Earth. When the soldier is killed, however, Lex has to take over the body and somehow get himself back to safety once more... broadcasting all the way.
And, at only $4.79 for the Kindle edition, it seemed eminently worth taking a flyer on.
Now that I’ve finished it, I still think it was worth the money. But it wasn’t nearly as good as it could have been. I knew I was in trouble when I started to think about other books, only a quarter of my way through this one. While I can suffer from ADD while reading, getting distracted while reading a book is generally a good sign that I’m just not that into the book.
This book had several flaws, in my opinion. To begin with, the story dropped us onto a planet still undergoing colonization, without first giving us any reason to care about the world itself, the colonists, or the organizations overseeing the colonization. Then we get a main character, Lex Falk, that we again have very little reason to care about or be interested in. I had a very hard time connecting emotionally with anything (or anyone) in the story.
The story also fell prey to the SF temptation to introduce new lingo as a way of showing that the world of the story is different from our own world. It might have worked except that it felt like it took a lot of work in order to understand what was standing in for what. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t all bad. But parts were and I didn’t think that they really added much to the story as compensation.
Sadly, it took about two-thirds of the book before I really felt like I developed a bond with the characters and started to care about what happened. From there on out, for the final one-third of the book, I really enjoyed the read. There was some great action, some great investigation work, and a great reveal. It was a really great read and I enjoyed it a lot.
How do I rate a book like this? Well, 4 stars for concept and the execution of the last third of the book. And 2 stars for the execution of the first two-thirds of the book and the introduction of everything. I’ll average that out and call it 3 stars for the book as a whole.
I think this book can be a good read, if you’re willing to endure the setup necessary in order to get to the really good parts.
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