It's so perfect that it almost hurts - the genetic typing has been done, mankind has evolved, friendships and loves have been established, and everyone is ready to leave Ship and descend into the glorious new world we've been traveling towards and preparing for our arrival since - well, that part's a little hazy, but we're still excited!
Except that now the glorious companionship of that arrival dream shatters, and now, all we have is just one poor befuddled Teacher, birthed either too soon or too late, in a place determined to do him in, either by design or through callous indifference to his mal-adapted self. In an even crueller twist of the knife, even the knowledge of the beautiful dream abandons him when survival depends on him learning and growing up fast. Is Teacher a quick study?
Only movement will save him, as structures irradiate, liquefy, or freeze, bulkheads can cut off at any time or place, gravity comes in crushing waves of inconvenience before vanishing again, and horrifying THINGS appear to crush and rend and destroy and kidnap - or perhaps that's only from his perspective. Just enough information can be teased from conflicting memories and sources (perhaps not all to be trusted) to determine that something is NOT RIGHT. Nothing this horrifying and off-balance could be intended to be right.
Finding out what - that may cost Teacher his life.
In a lovely example of sci-fi thriller, we're shoved into a breakneck ethical quest where love and life, memories (human and computer) your most basic emotions, and even your moral code itself aren't exactly what they should be.
As always, the rag-tag crew which assembles itself into our protagonists are kept busy trying to comprehend their mad surroundings, and to figure out just how to handle that most basic human drive - the will to survive.
My own enjoyment of this basic plotline aside, there are several dangling plot threads and niggles of irritation at premises and complications hinted at and dropped, or ideas left undeveloped, or narrative contrivances which are a touch too contrived... As I said, a bit messy.
These are minor flaws in an otherwise quite satisfying return to the author's roots in hard sci-fi.
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