Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
I get that there’s a vision, a dream, an inspiration. Something interesting, even! Vampires, werewolves, cthulhu-worshippers. But in space! How would the unknowable eldritch interact with cyborgs and AI powered ships? Do vampires show up on security cameras? What horrors happen if you limit an artificial mind to an organic body? The concept is intriguing.
But in this book? I find the execution to be lacking. It’s broadly fun and engaging, but not incredibly well-thought out. There are some glaring plot holes: why do these fae mysterious things only happen on our Demeter? Nothing else similar (glitches in the cameras, mysterious deaths) happened else where? Drakuyla literally said he’d done this on other ships, but our Demeter just happens to become the ‘ghost ship’? And none of the other ships (who we know talk to each other) mention that they’ve experienced something similar? It does not make sense or sit well with me. I almost wonder if the author threw in this ostracization to make the “found family” aspect of the story more meaningful to the reader. I don’t appreciate these forced tropes leading to poor writing.
Everything with Steve was also very outrageously out-of-character for the universe: Agnus is all of the sudden fine with him after he killed an innocent guard and then tried to kill her? Also, the guards on Demeter catch him so quickly but he’s able to commit such an outrageous crime on Earth without getting caught? Meh. Again, it feels like the author just really wanted to have a “morally grey” and mysterious fun character, even if it doesn’t fit well with the story.
The timeskipping did not work - it seems like this was used to gloss over some tricky plot points. The most egregious case being, of course, the ending. We simply turn off Demeter and the Doctor so we don’t have to explain how Agnus got arrested, Frank evaded police, Steve made a bunch of money, and Anus and Mina fell in love? We miss the real meat of the characters: facing consequences, learning to love each other, new bonds forming. The tricky plot points are where the readers get a sense of who the characters are. It was like the author simply threw a bunch of tropes/fun topics into one story without tying them together: found family, lesbians, science fiction, mystery, folklore! The pacing was way off - we never get to actually watch the characters become found family, they just BOOM are all of the sudden. We spend the first entire half of the book just getting different stories about crazy monsters in space (which is cool! and fun! but also not super impactful to narrative overall). These could have worked better as an anthology of short stories set in the same universe instead, a funny and upbeat version of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us by Yiming Ma.
One thing I did like: the callback to the importance of the Cthulu worshippers augmenting the starmaps! That was legitimately funny to me. I also liked the way the author described the AIs interacting with each other, but didn’t love their relationship dynamic. Demeter and the Doctor were very toxic and mean to each other; I don’t find this kind of dynamic compelling at all. Ugh there was actually a lot I didn’t like. Isaac growing up to be fame hungry & take advantage of his sister? Bummer and unsatisfying. We spent so much time with him loving the AIs as a child, just for him to not give a fuck about Demeter when he was an adult? Blegh.
The ideas here were novel and interesting, but the execution unsuccessful. I am not motivated to pick up anything else Truelove wrote.
Also have to say - I saw a lot of reviews online that said “this book was so good I read it in a day!”. I also read this within 24 hours. That is not always an indication of a good book!! I read it within like 4 or so hours because it was a fast read - uncomplicated and simple wording. Other books I’ve read in a day have taken like 12 hours, but I simply could not put them down (Bury Your Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab for one). Guys…. we gotta be sure that we use good metrics to measure how good a book is. Not to get too data-scientist in my book review.
This book made me lose faith in the place I find my book reviews.
