I just got back from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Club at my local Borders. This month we've been reading Dark Space by Marianne de Pierres. Of the five of us there this month, we were unanimous. This exchange opened the discussion:

"Not got a lot to say about this"
"Is it four letters and start with 'c'?"
"No, starts with 's' and has 4 letters"

From there we launched into a bitchfest about why this was not just a bad book but a truly awful atrocity on literature.

Be warned, here be spoilers.

For me, it started on page one with the quote that adorns this post - "Gluttoned with knowingness." 'Gluttoned' I could let past if it wasn't for that god-awful travesty of 'knowingness'.

So, where do you go from page one? Well, we can continue with the awful language theme. She litters supposedly Italian words all over the book (some sound more Spanish than Italian) which she hopes illustrate the culture she's wanting to portray. Errr.... not so much. The most common Italian word she uses is "familia" which has, in the English language, got connotations of the Mafia. Is the culture she presents based on the Mafia? Errr... not so much - it's aristocrats and nobles vs commoners.

Part way through the book I described it to a friend as trying to do political intrigue but have one major disadvantage - it isn't Dune. But oh, how she tried - the desert planet which is the only place a particular desirable mineral can be found is called 'Arakis'... wait... no... 'ARALDIS'.

And then there was the parallel stories. which part way through the book she reveals aren't actually parallel - they're consecutive. The "twist" had no real purpose. It wasn't needed. The only thing it added was a bitter feeling. That's not something I want when reading a book.

Then there was the world building.

Oh, and how can I forget the characters. From the guy who gets hard at the idea of a desert planet (and everything else) to the other guy who gets hard from carrying an injured alien (which he is incredibly predjudiced against) and later rapes someone else despite professing a love for the alien. Then there are the women who seemingly only exist to show the world.

And what an unbelieveable world it is. It's got aspects of Handmaid's Tale (women are pretty much completely subservient - so much so that the men decide when the woman will be fertilised. The only role that women have is childcare. Even when the Baronessa is leading the women it's all about protecting the baby she rescued from her sister's semi-illicit orphanage.

This is a society which has uprooted itself to this newly bought desert planet within the last few generations. They relied on one of the lesser noble familia to pilot their biggest, partly sentient/organic ships which they have now completely sidelined and downsized to the point where there are only two left.

Then we can look at the logic. When planning an invasion of planet by guerilla tactics and I was looking at unleashing a load of violent creatures onto a desert planet, my first thought would not be to look for a creature that normally lives in the sea and has to be modified into something which sounds like a beetle/scorpion cross breed.

EDIT: How could I have forgotten the two moons? These two moons which only briefly share the same sky space (and manage to create almost daylight conditions between them). One of them is called Semantic (which means "meaning") which grated a little bit - not sure why. But the science of two moons in that set up seems unlikely - same speed orbits, directly opposite each other. Just... bah...

I struggled to find the enthusiasm to read this book. I just didn't care about the characters. I couldn't believe the world building. The logic was completely devoid of... logic. There were just too many co-incidences in Mira surviving and the characters meeting. It was just awful.

Alex
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I don't want to mention the book we've chosen for next month in the same post as this - Google may get confused...