Zero World by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on August 18, 2015

My reaction to Zero World is much like my reaction to Jason Hough's Dire Earth novels. I thought the trilogy told a fun action-adventure story that lacked depth and strong characters. I also thought the novels seemed padded and could have been condensed into a tighter, stronger, single novel.

So it is with Zero World. The novel sets up a sequel. It seems longer than it needs to be. The characters are bland and the story isn’t thought-provoking. But as an action-adventure novel, it is fun, easy reading with a couple of surprising moments.

Peter Caswell is an assassin. His memory is wiped after each assassination, so he starts fresh every time. He has 206 kills as the novel starts (a statistic he knows only because of a little trick he plays with beer bottles).

Peter is sent through something like a wormhole to track down Alia Valix, who is making mischief on an Earthlike planet called Garta where people conveniently speak English. Hot on the trail of her mischief is ace reporter Melni Tavan, who seems to be the Lois Lane of the planet Garta although she may not be what she seems.

In fact, none of the major characters, including Peter, his boss, and Alia are necessarily the people they appear to be. Hence the surprising moments. In addition to some interesting plot twists, the story moves with a good pace despite the apparent padding. I suspect that, after reading the sequel, I will again think that the same ground could have been covered in a single novel, but I enjoyed this one despite its wordiness.

RECOMMENDED

The Plague Forge by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on September 24, 2013

As the final novel in the Dire Earth trilogy, The Plague Forge promised to solve the central mystery that animated the first and second books: Why did aliens build space elevators on Earth, turn most humans into subhumans (except for those protected an aura emitted by alien gadgetry), and scatter objects around the globe that were meant to be plugged into an alien spaceship like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? The Plague Forge does indeed answer those questions -- apart from some annoying gaps in the explanation -- although the reader must wade through a lot of repetitive action scenes before an expository information dump in the final pages reveals the aliens' purpose. The answers are disappointing, and in some respects absurd, but most disappointing of all is that they seem to set up another series of books that will probably feature more mindless action scenes with little substantive content.

The characters are the strength of the series. They aren't particularly deep but they have well-defined personalities and undergo credible changes as the story develops. Although Skylar is the chief protagonist, several of the supporting characters are equally important, and in some respects are easier to care about. Some turn into unlikely heroes, furthering a theme that heroism is often a function of desperate circumstances. That's the aspect of The Plague Forge (and the series) that I liked best.

Post-apocalyptic political struggles are well conceived, giving rise to the kind of characters who are fun to despise. The seeds of political intrigue that were planted in the first two books bear fruit here. Some other interesting ideas underlie the series, but they are too often buried in scenes of people hitting and shooting each other. There are only so many times our heroes can do battle with subhumans or bad humans before the battles become tiresome. The entire series could (and should) have been whittled down to a single book, yet it would still be a book with a disappointing expository ending that isn't an ending at all. The Dire Earth novels have some merit, but if there are more to come, I doubt I'll devote any time to them.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on August 27, 2013

Camp Exodus has been overrun by a militia of immunes commanded by a less than angelic Gabriel, stranding Skyler in the wilderness where he's at risk of being attacked by subhumans. But even worse than subhumans are a new breed of ... armored subhumans? That won't make sense to you if you haven't read The Darwin Elevator, and even then it might not makes sense. In any event, since The Exodus Towers picks up the plot where The Darwin Elevator dropped it, you won't get much out of the second novel in this trilogy if you haven't read the first.

The troubles at Camp Exodus occupy the first half of this lengthy novel. Much of it seems like filler. One meandering plotline focuses on Samantha Rinn from Skyler's old scavenger crew, who spends much of the novel on a sort of wok release from her imprisonment in Darwin. A better plotline focuses on the ongoing power struggle between Tania Sharma, who is in charge (more or less) of the Orbitals -- some of them, anyway -- and Russell Blackfield, who is in charge (more or less) of Darwin -- part of it, anyway. Blackfield is in a power struggle of his own with a dude named Grillo, who has mustered a private army of religious zealots.

The story derails for quite a long time as Skyler takes on the immune militia. Significant plot advancement is relegated to the novel's final quarter. While those events are worth waiting for, they bring us no closer to the resolution of the mysteries that drive the trilogy: Why did aliens build the space elevators? Why did they release a disease that killed most humans while turning most survivors into zombie-like subhumans? What do the aliens plan to do next?

It's a given that science fiction depends upon a willing suspension of disbelief. The Exodus Towers occasionally tested my willingness, particularly when a group of immunes decides to engage in strange genetic experiments involving subhumans. As was true in The Darwin Elevator, I'm not sure the whole subhuman subplot works very well, even though it's central to the story. Perhaps the final installment will explain why subhumans are central to the story.

Characters are the strength of the first two novels in the trilogy, although it's best not to get too attached to anyone because Jason Hough kills them off rather freely. Relationships between the characters are convincing. The Exodus Towers is always interesting, including the chunks that add nothing to the overall story. It's good enough to persuade me to move on to the final installment, but it would have been better with fewer words.

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The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough

Published by Del Rey on July 30, 2013

An alien disease has laid waste to Earth. The disease killed most people, but about 10 percent of its victims survive in a devolved, subhuman state. They are not zombies in name, but they act like zombies. It seems to be an unwritten law of the decade that no science fiction novel is complete without zombies. In any event, the only safe place on Earth is within the protective field that extends nine kilometers from the space elevator in Darwin, Australia. The elevator is a gift from aliens who never introduced themselves. The disease is also an alien gift. Why did the aliens deliver a gift that is both wondrous and destructive? More importantly, are they coming back? Unfortunately, most of the readers' questions go unanswered. Fortunately, The Darwin Elevator (book one of The Dire Earth cycle) is a promising start to a series that presumably will provide the answers before it ends.

Skyler Luiken and his crew are among the few who are immune to the disease. They are scavengers who travel outside the protective field to find goods they can sell to inhabitants of the Orbitals. The Orbitals can only be reached by the space elevator, but unexplained power fluctuations have shut it down. The man who decides whether to restart the elevator is Russell Blackfield, the evil administrator in charge of Nightcliff, the Darwin-based station that handles elevator transit. A good bit of political drama comes from the tension between the residents of Darwin, who depend on Orbital farms for food, and the residents of the Orbitals, who depend on Darwin for water and oxygen. Blackfield's position gives him a great deal of power, but like all evil administrators, he wants more.

Tania Sharma, an Orbital scientist, and her boss, Neil Platz (who, like Blackfield, is driven by an agenda of his own), have a theory about the aliens. To test the theory (based in part on knowledge of the aliens that Platz is keeping to himself), Tania needs data that can only be acquired outside the protective field. Skyler and his crew are called upon to undertake a dangerous mission to Japan to recover the data. The plot moves forward from there.

Two things make this story work. First, the characters are fun. They aren't deep, but they have enough personality to make it easy for a reader to cheer for, or root against, them. Russell is a power-hungry, nightmare bureaucrat, while Skyler is an insecure but basically decent adventurer. Second, while the story isn't entirely original and certainly isn't ground-breaking, it moves quickly enough to maintain interest. The story is more action-dependent than idea-dependent, but the mystery of the aliens' purpose in constructing the elevator and contaminating the Earth holds sufficient intrigue to feed the reader's imagination.

Jason Hough's writing style tends to be uninspired ("Skyler led the way, moving as fast as his legs would carry him") but it's serviceable. I could have lived without all the chase scenes involving zombies (excuse me, subhumans). They detract from the mild intelligence that otherwise characterizes the story, and the conflict between Russell and Platz generates enough action without tossing subhumans into the mix. Readers who can't get enough zombies will probably disagree. In any event, it's too soon to judge the subhuman plot element. Perhaps the next book will provide a more credible explanation for the subhumans than "readers really dig zombies." In any event, I look forward to reading it.

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