A novel with three narrative strands (which come together in quite an exciting conclusion in the final 100 or so pages) which, for me, was only about 1/3 completely successful.
There is fabulous world-building in the "Haven" sections, developing a great society that flows naturally from the challenges of of colonizing a savagely challenging planet, and relatable characters who are the offspring of that world, the only world they have ever known. Witty, too, in fair measure: I particularly loved the Haven residents misremembering of history, and mangling of words and phrases: "... when we swear, for instance, we say "Crise!" It comes from crisis of course, we know that ..." Levey does a great job of constructing a society that has only the most tenuous hold on its own past, due to the passage of time, the struggle of survival, and a deliberate policy of forgetting and obfuscating. I was particularly interested to learn, in Levy's Acknowledgements at the end, that he'd done research into the history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge as the starting point for his Haven.
The other two strands are, IMHO, much less successful, in varying degrees. The "Haze" chapters feel like a Very Special Edition of an M. Night Shyamalan story: a jungle planet occupied by a primitive hunter/gatherer society, which is riven by tribal wars, and lorded over by sadistic overlords who steal the natives' children to supplement their numbers, and seem to have access to a much higher level of tech. It was ok, but felt more like a fantasy story than the much more historically organic world-building of Haven. A punch-line, in search of a story ...
And the "Cap" sections ... well, true confession: Reader, I skipped them. After the first couple, I found the voice of the unreliable narrator gratingly boring and repetitive. Right, evil genius (a televagelical preacher, no less), being completely disgusting, self-pitying and self-serving; plotting all sorts of things and probably going to be revealed as the Big Bad responsible for all the goings on on Haven and Haze. Got it. Don't really need to know much more. I probably missed out a little fine detail of the Big Reveal, by not reading those chapters, but I honestly don't think so.
The final 100 or so pages are just great -- genuinely exciting, and quite moving as (trying to avoid Spoilers, here) the scales fall from the eyes of various of the characters. Perhaps a little too pat, easy and sudden -- but I think it's only in contrast to the ultra-slow of slow burns and (seemingly) inconsequential meanderings in the 300 pages that precede it. I wish an editor had suggested that Levy speed it up just a bit, make clearer the hints about the interconnectedness of the three strands, and what the heck is going on ...
There is fabulous world-building in the "Haven" sections, developing a great society that flows naturally from the challenges of of colonizing a savagely challenging planet, and relatable characters who are the offspring of that world, the only world they have ever known. Witty, too, in fair measure: I particularly loved the Haven residents misremembering of history, and mangling of words and phrases: "... when we swear, for instance, we say "Crise!" It comes from crisis of course, we know that ..." Levey does a great job of constructing a society that has only the most tenuous hold on its own past, due to the passage of time, the struggle of survival, and a deliberate policy of forgetting and obfuscating. I was particularly interested to learn, in Levy's Acknowledgements at the end, that he'd done research into the history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge as the starting point for his Haven.
The other two strands are, IMHO, much less successful, in varying degrees. The "Haze" chapters feel like a Very Special Edition of an M. Night Shyamalan story: a jungle planet occupied by a primitive hunter/gatherer society, which is riven by tribal wars, and lorded over by sadistic overlords who steal the natives' children to supplement their numbers, and seem to have access to a much higher level of tech. It was ok, but felt more like a fantasy story than the much more historically organic world-building of Haven. A punch-line, in search of a story ...
And the "Cap" sections ... well, true confession: Reader, I skipped them. After the first couple, I found the voice of the unreliable narrator gratingly boring and repetitive. Right, evil genius (a televagelical preacher, no less), being completely disgusting, self-pitying and self-serving; plotting all sorts of things and probably going to be revealed as the Big Bad responsible for all the goings on on Haven and Haze. Got it. Don't really need to know much more. I probably missed out a little fine detail of the Big Reveal, by not reading those chapters, but I honestly don't think so.
The final 100 or so pages are just great -- genuinely exciting, and quite moving as (trying to avoid Spoilers, here) the scales fall from the eyes of various of the characters. Perhaps a little too pat, easy and sudden -- but I think it's only in contrast to the ultra-slow of slow burns and (seemingly) inconsequential meanderings in the 300 pages that precede it. I wish an editor had suggested that Levy speed it up just a bit, make clearer the hints about the interconnectedness of the three strands, and what the heck is going on ...
