I am so pleased to announce that science fiction is not dead. With RESURRECTION, ARWEN ELYS DAYTON proves that it’s still possible to cobble together a modern-day space opera yarn that is fresh and entertaining -- and does not insult one’s intelligence -- despite not reaching too hard to deliver cutting-edge breakthroughs within the genre.
Look, let’s face it, this is a book that plays it safe. Here we will find absolutely nothing new in terms of science fiction innovation. All the long-ago-developed, standard “furniture pieces” of the Golden Age of science fiction are here:
* Faster-than-light spaceships
* Sub-light speed spaceships
* Sleep/stasis tanks for star travelers to hibernate within during long space journeys
* Domed cities on a planet destroyed by an all-out nuclear war
* Ray guns and stun weapons!
* Aliens who are decidedly humanoid
* Artificially intelligent computers that run space ships and talk casually to humans
* Genetic engineering
* Psychic powers
* Rival planets at war with each other …
This is all stuff the long-time science fiction reader has been living with for decades. An unkind reviewer (or maybe one who is in a foul mood) may proclaim that all of the above have become hackneyed cliché’s of the genre, and that the author did little creative work – but rather -- plucked all the standard “sci-fi modules” off the dusty shelves and assembled them together in a new way to create an original book.
But, I’m not in a foul mood today, so rather, I am going to praise Resurrection as a well-crafted, well-paced, well-plotted science fiction offering with interesting characters whom the reader will care about as the heroes struggle to triumph over the mind-boggling challenges the Fates of the Science Fiction Universe have delivered to them.
I enjoyed Resurrection from first page to last. The problems presented are extreme, the conflicts bitter, the fighting/action scenes are skillfully handled, the futuristic background is well-conceived, the landscape of ancient Egypt is reincarnated believably -- there is no part of this book that is not expertly executed and well-paced. Dayton must work extremely hard because she makes writing look easy – this is a book that flows along so smoothly it almost appears to have written itself.
Resurrection is precisely the kind of science fiction novel that needs to be regularly infused into the market to keep the genre alive and viable, and to keep those of us with an unlimited appetite for great science fiction reading, buying books and happy.
Join Ken Korczak in: THE STRANGE UNIVERSE OF DR. 58
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