Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsScience fiction is KIA
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 29, 2021
Once upon a time, the “kill the commies” military literature, naïve and unsophisticated as it may have been, had a place and a context, especially with the relentless Marxist propaganda hammering the beauty, wisdom and moral superiority of the coming Homo Socialistus.
Homo Socialistus never came, and how could he, having to face 2 relentless enemies: on the one hand human nature, always yearning for freedom and always motivated by material wealth and on the other the laws of Economics, as hard and inviolable as the Laws of Space.
So, “kill the commies” was killed, until it was miraculously and inexplicably resurrected in Wayward Galaxy Part 1. And if you could still give a passing nod to Chinese passing for communists, to think that the Russians would regress back to being tovaritch is absurd - actually USA today is rather closer to USSR than Russia.
So, strangely enough, the whole novel feels like it was written circa 1952, during the climax of the Korean War. The American Rangers are a “males only” team and the, thankfully, few romantic scenes feel anachronistic. Moreover, the plague of today’s science fiction is also present here: nothing new, original, mind-boggling, really pushing the envelope.
Science fiction is KIA to use the military acronyms the writers seem to love.
But there must be a couple of redeeming elements, right? Yes, there are, and interestingly enough, they both have to do with the two AIs one will encounter in the novel. The ship’s, and then planet’s AI has a subtle, omnipotent approach and capacity and the second one is the most hilarious AI this reviewer has ever met.
Finally, there is a fast, fast pace and interesting plot twists and mysteries. You will not be thrilled by novelties in Wayward Galaxy Part 1, but you will definitely turn page after page, until the last one, to see how it all unfolds.
