Peter Hodges

I’ve been a little late to jump on the Tobias Buckell bandwagon. I’ve known that he falls into the same category of “new comprehensible” that Scalzi does, but his premise of a Caribbean-rooted culture in the far future never really resonated with me. Call it cultural bias, but I only reluctantly gave Crystal Rain a chance due to the fact that I didn’t find it that interesting. Oppose this culture with a reborn Aztec abomination, complete with blood sacrifice and flower wars, and my interest just dropped another notch or two.

The rave reviews kept coming in. I finally decided that I would snag the book and give it a fair shake. I’m glad I did.

At its core, Crystal Rain is an adventure novel. It has elements of Steampunk, a definite science fiction element, and almost an alternate history/fantasy vibe. The action is fairly fast and furious, and the plot holes are glossed over quickly with an action scene, a bit of intrigue, or a revelation of a previously (un)suspected plot thread. It is entertaining without being pretentious. It doesn’t aspire to epic status, instead relying on mostly well-crafted writing and brutal descriptions to carry the reader to the inevitable climax. It has its share of science fiction tropes, including the “amnesiac hero,” but these are handled with enough skill that the reader hardly notices.

The dialogue takes some getting used to. Buckell writes as though he is channeling the language of his childhood home. To my untrained ear, it seems mostly authentic, although I found the dialogue to be slightly jarring at first. Reading the way his characters spoke would occasionally harm the immersion that Buckell was trying diligently to create. Since a couple of characters spoke “proper” English, this would further damage my ability to slip into the book. I ultimately got used to it, but the first fifty to a hundred pages were a little difficult.

I shan’t discuss the plot much. It basically boils down to a man who has forgotten his past. He lives in a world that is barely at the eighteenth century level of technology, recovered at great expense after a planet wide EMP destroyed every electronic device in ages past. In the early days of a war between an Aztec culture and the Caribbean culture, he loses his family and manages to make his way over land and air to the capital city, evading capture and sacrifice to do so. Once there, he is given an important mission to secure a piece of alien technology that could turn the tide of battle. The rest, as they say, is history.

If you’re looking for a good plane or beach read, I would recommend his one. For a debut novel, it is outstanding. If you’re looking for something more epic, you could probably skip this one.