Sarah Zettel's Fool's War, her second novel (after Reclamation), examines two of the classic science fiction questions: "What does it mean to be human?" and "What do we owe each other?" In doing so, she crafts a thoughtful, provacative, and eminately readable novel that deftly mixes plot, action, and character.
The story in Fool's War is witnessed through the eyes of its two main characters: Katmer Al Shei, the owner of the starship Pasadena, and Evelyn Dobbs, the ship's Fool. Katmer is a serious business woman, an engineer, a devout Muslim, and a devoted mother/wife somewhat caught between her love of home and family and her drive to be in space. Evelyn Dobbs is (outwardly) hardly serious, appears to be an agnostic, and is single and lonely. The emergence of artificialintelligence threaten Al Shei's ship, her family, and even the civilization she lives and works in. Katmer is more concerned with the first two; but her Fool, and the role that the Pasadena plays in the crisis, gives her actions defining context in the last.
Zettel is adept at exploring the book's themes without resorting to stilted polemics or long, boring discourses. Instead, the actions frame the ideas rather nicely, and we examine the questions from both the dialog (internal and external) and the actions of the characters.
But this is not a perfect book. Though action-filled, parts still drag. Some important events and characters are almost completely offstage. We are also introduced to a seemingly important subplot involving crew interactions and the introduction of new members that, despite taking up a good portion of the book's beginning, never fully develops.
Still, Fool's War is an impressive effort, and marks Zettel as an author to watch.
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