Book Review: The Quantum Dawn, by Derek Künsken

Are you sure we start here?

cover artist: Justin Adams

Solaris, The Quantum Dawn’s publisher, do a neat line in high concept SF. It’s the kind of SF that makes your brain work and can be colourful, slightly anarchic and definitely feel like the concepts are as important as the characters and the plot. That works brilliantly for me because I love SF that grapples with actual ideas about how the world might be – not just looking at how people might organise themselves but deeper than that.

 

The Quantum Dawn is Derek Künsken’s fourth entry into this series but don’t let you put that off. It starts with The Quantum Magician and continue from there, slated to wrap up with the fifth in the series coming next year (2027) called The Quantum Temple.

 

I really loved the first three and let this review act as a recommendation to get out there and try them if you haven’t. If you liked The Three Body Problem or better still (and another Solaris alumnus) Yoon Ha Lee’s Nine Fox Gambit, then this is going to be for you too.

 

Without spoilering the story, book three actually closed nearly all the plot threads down nicely and left us with an outcome that felt satisfying and, crucially, not really in need of more in the series.

 

So when I heard that Künsken was creating not just one but two more I was pretty excited but also wondered where this story was going to go.

 

Having read Quantum Dawn I think it’s safe to say that you could stop at the end of the opening trilogy of books and not feel the need to continue on – the story that Künsken’s telling in Quantum Dawn is, effectively, sequel/follow on but it’s also quite different both in feel and in content.

 

Because at its heart The Quantum Dawn is a time travel novel in the fashion of the 2004 movie Primer which remains the only time travel movie to get the science right (for a given category of right). It’s also why I hate time travel stories because nearly every single one I’ve ever encountered is ponk – not understanding its own nature and the questions the concept demands or using as a shorthand for resolution or roadblocked plot or, worse still, failing to lean into the weirdness that using time as an extendable axis alongside depth, breadth and length really implies.

 

There’s a lot of techno-babble in this story and that is definitely where it can fall down because alongside that babble is a lot of repetition – where terms and situations are repeatedly explained for the reader. I can understand the need to make some of the weirdness clearer for the amateur (my doctorate is in theoretical physics so I am trying to be careful when reading it, assuming others won’t bring that same background expertise to the bit). However, these repetitions absolutely break the pacing of a story that is, at its heart, a very long shaggy dog story about returning to our beginnings.

 

There are some great ideas here (and this is one of Künsken’s strengths), not least the Fermi Paradox, how time travel might be possible, how the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics sees time, the nature of consciousness and how that might or might not be essential to sentience (and vice versa) but I felt like I was wallowing too much in explaining how these worked rather than showing it. Especially as we’re four books in.

 

Having said that, this is the first time that the world Künsken’s built seriously leans into the time travel he built into earlier entries and if there’s elements in here of loops and recursion, of avoiding yourself in the past and so on this is, effectively, quite new in terms of scale and the stakes in play. It’s also interesting how he plays with identity and the nature of self in this – not so much as meeting yourself going back and coming forwards but in how different version of the same self might see the world entirely differently – an open exploration of nature vs nurture without labouring over whether an individual is one or the other.

 

As this is the first of what is essentially a sequel duology, Künsken spends a lot of time moving his pieces into place which, largely, works but at the same time it’s clear this novel got out of hand and it needs, from my perspective as a reader, a really heavy edit to remove the repetition and techno-babble. I think it probably also needs a second go that has an eye on the ‘there’s a lot going on but nothing’s actually happening,’ that I felt towards the end of the story.

 

In particular because this is a time travel road trip that road trip needs to feel like we’re moving along but a couple of times too many I felt that I’d encountered exactly this part of the conflict before and while time loops are fun, linear encounters that don’t really deliver much beyond repetition can drag.

 

It’s a personal thing but I like to feel that even in the middle of the series that when I’ve picked up a story I get a beginning and end regardless of everything else going on. Part of that’s just wanting the last book now, I guess.

Overall then, I enjoyed this and although I wasn’t as enraptured as I was expecting I’m happily waiting for the final entry in the series to see what happens to Bel, Cas, Stills, St. Matthew and the others.

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The Math

Highlights:

• Exciting time travel and hard science shenanigans
• Super weird aliens

Nerd coefficient: 5/10

Reference: Derek Künsken, The Quantum Dawn [Solaris, 2026]

STEWART HOTSTON is an author of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also a keen Larper (he owns the UK Fest system, Curious Pastimes). He's a sometime physicist and currently a banker in the City of London. A Subjective Chaos, BSFA and BFA finalist he's also Chair of the British Science Fiction Association and Treasurer for the British Fantasy Society. He is on bluesky at: @stewarthotston.com.

Anime Review: Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Cour One

Magic, vengeance, palace drama, and humor 

Sometimes life seems better on the other side. One person is showered with affection and praise while another drowns in cruelty and bitterness. But what is life really like for the person of whom you are jealous? And how do you navigate these deep thoughts while also dealing with a murder plot and lots of palace intrigue. It’s been a long wait for the return of The Apothecary Diaries. In the meantime, an anime with a very similar historical setting but much lighter tone has arrived to fill the gap. Though I Am An Inept Villainess, is based on a popular light novel series and tells the story of two women, one kind, one bitter, who are each suffering in different ways. But things get complicated when a forbidden spell causes them to switch bodies with unexpected results. The story has the familiar vibes of The Goose Girl fairy tale, but with an optimistic, humorous, and ironic take on life switching.

Though I Am An Inept Villainess, is set in a magical, ancient China-like setting where the imperial palace houses numerous consorts, concubines, and selected maidens from noble families who are there for the emperor and his family. Reirin is a beautiful and kind maiden from the Kou clan. Her beauty and sweet personality make her a favorite of the handsome young crown prince Gyoumei. Her assigned villa is lavish, her attendants fawn over her, and she is referred to as the court’s beautiful “butterfly”. Meanwhile Keigetsu is the designated maiden of the Shu clan. She is despised and mistreated because the other maidens and consorts deem her unworthy, despite the fact that she is related to the respected, polite and reserved noble consort, Shu Gabi. The bullying Keigetsu suffers in the palace fuels her anger causing her to be rude and bitter, which further ostracizes her. In frustration, Keigetsu uses illegal magic to swap bodies with the beautiful Reirin while attempting to injure her in front of a crowd of court ladies and the crown prince. Reirin’s body is saved with Keigetsu in possession of it. Meanwhile Reirin is trapped in Keigetsu’s body and sentenced to a harsh trial for attempting to hurt Reirin. Keigetsu is initially thrilled to be pampered and fawned over but she soon discovers that Reirin’s body is actually sick and frail and in constant pain, despite her sunny disposition. Reirin, on the other hand, is subjected to hatred and cruelty as a consequence of being trapped in Keigetsu’s body, and the curse prevents her from telling anyone the truth about the body swap. But instead of being despondent, Reirin is thrilled to have a healthy body and to be able to eat what she wants and to be physically active. Even when she is demoted to a run down, damaged villa, she eagerly accepts it and works hard to patch it up and dig a vegetable garden to grow her own food. In Keigetsu’s body she only has one surly attendant, Leelee, who openly despises her and even tries to hurt her due to the original Keigetsu’s mistreatment of her. But Reirin’s persistent natural cheerfulness and Keigetsu’s inevitable grouchiness eventually cause those close to them to notice that something isn’t right with the two maidens. Beyond that, a larger scheme of palace intrigue and a revenge murder plot force the two women to work together to solve the larger mystery.

While the series has many overlapping elements with The Apothecary Diaries, including court intrigue, murder mysteries, and an imperial harem setting, Though I Am An Inept Villainess has a much lighter tone. The earlier episodes are particularly humorous with Reirin’s relentless optimism leaving everyone perplexed and the audience amused. The series is almost entirely female focused with most of the intrigue happening among the women. The serious and earnest crown prince Gyumei is aided in his oversight of the palace by his sharp and cynical younger half-brother Shin-U. The two are the only men who appear regularly and a brief flashback offers some interesting insight into the power imbalance in their relationship. The girl-power vibe is ironic in such a setting. The shows does a nice job of telling parallel tales of jealousy, sisterhood, revenge, and reconciliation among different generations in the imperial household. Those themes resonate as Reirin and Keigetsu navigate their response to different types of trauma as well as the relentless pressure of societal expectations.

Overall, Though I Am An Inept Villainess delivers lighthearted storytelling with humor and just enough intrigue and personality drama to keep viewers hooked. While not as perfectly crafted as The Apothecary Diaries, the series offers solid entertainment and unexpectedly complex characters in an unexpectedly complicated world.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Highlights:

• Fantasy fairy tale vibes
• Light comedy and cuteness
• Sweet messaging

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Book Review: The Bloodright Trilogy, by Emily Skrutskie

Heavy are the heads that wear the crowns

One of the things I have come to accept about my taste in literature is that I just like space opera. I like the vastness of space and the technological feel of the twentieth century’s imagination of the far future, even if the physics in it is completely impossible. Space opera romanticizes the twentieth century in the way that much fantasy romanticizes the world before the industrial revolution, and you can tell very similar stories in each. With that all true, I admit that if it is presented in a space opera I will enjoy it more than a fantasy presentation. I can account for my taste by virtue of being a longtime Star Wars fan. And, I can say with confidence, that Emily Skrutskie’s space opera Bloodright trilogy (comprised of, in order, Bonds of Brass, Oaths of Legacy, and Vows of Empire) is one of the best space operas I’ve ever read.

Reading through this series I got this feeling that it drew a lot from fan fiction, and a lot from Young Adult literature, and to be absolutely clear I mean none of that as an insult. Skrutskie wrote a YA duology before this, and her interview with Nerds of a Feather back in 2020 (conducted by contributor emerita Andrea Johnson) notes that the series became particularly popular among a segment of the online Star Wars fandom, particularly those who ship Finn and Poe Dameron from the sequels. In the acknowledgements of the second book, she thanks the cover artist that made a cover that ended up appealing to that fandom; indeed I suspect that such a pairing inspired the central romance of the series but I cannot find direct evidence for that anywhere.

The first book starts with two leads, both young men, in a military academy on a recently conquered planet. Skrutskie knows how to start her story off with a bang; immediately you get a harrowing space battle scene (for they are in pilot training), and it was there, incidentally, that I knew I was going to love this series. You eventually learn that one of these young men is in fact the heir to the throne, the Umber Empire, which has recently conquered this world and the Archon Empire of which said world was once part, and established this academy as part of its reconstruction of the battered world. The other one is a native of this planet, Rana, who joined up to make a living. From there, the plot will twist and turn in all sorts of exhilarating, delectable ways. From this point on, however, I will have to be vague, as a major development of the first book becomes the basis for the plots of the second and third books.

There is something that felt very old-fashioned about this series, and after some thought I figured out why. One one level, this is a book about individuals. That sounds like a tautology, I know, but I realized that basically every character is someone with very close access to high political power. This is a novel about kings, about kingship, about what it means to rule, and to rule justly. There isn’t much interrogation of why the galaxy’s politics are the way they are; they are dominated by Empires, all with emperors (although one is an elective monarchy along the lines of Malaysia or the United Arab Emirates); the few scenes of crowds, tellingly, all revolve around imperial figures. This is a future that is dominated by absolute monarchy, a feudal future, a story that would feel not inappropriate on horseback and clutching a sword (indeed, one character clutches a sword and every time she does it is an amazing experience). TVTropes defined Space Opera as telling human-scale stories set among the vastness of space, and this series is a very good demonstration of that.

A large chunk of the plot is taken up by the aforementioned romance; that romance is perhaps the most quintessential human story scaled to the vastness of space. I am trying not to spoil too much, but it involves two people who are in the center of galactic politics. These are people who love each other, are infatuated with each other, but also for far too long cannot be together. This isn’t a hackneyed love-hate relationship as in the movies, but rather that they, as people, are very compatible, but they, as symbols of great powers, are completely incompatible. The trilogy is a story about how those in high politics, especially monarchies where their position is chosen by birth (it reminds me, at times, of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, which likewise talked about he was thrust into a position of great visibility at birth, and how stifling it felt). These two people yearn for each other as each other, not pawns in a great diplomatic game; they simply want to be people together. I found it very moving.

Another choice that Skrutskie made is one that I found to be very interesting: this galaxy is queernorm. Most relationships in this trilogy are same-sex, and the characters never view this as anything other than ordinary. At least some characters appear to be attracted to people regardless of gender entirely. The most plot-relevant example of this is a case of a potential arranged marriage that could change the face of galactic politics. It is a marriage proposed between two men, but the fact that it is between two men is not at all remarked upon. What is relevant is that it is an obvious imperial power play, of the type that aristocracies the world over have always done, but the actual fact of the genders involved is not considered to be relevant by anyone. It’s a striking juxtaposition, with fascinating implications for the nature of society in this setting, implying a form of kyriarchy that allowed for the dismantling of patriarchal gender norms without challenging at all the system of ‘bloodright’ (as they call it) that implies a feudal far future. A very relevant example: one of the empires is mentioned as being ruled by a nonbinary sovereign who uses they/them pronouns, and is referred to by the title ‘Emprex’ (a word that I find to have a nice crisp feel to it).

If you wanted to be overly cynical, you could call the grounding of the plot in characters who are indisputably elite to be reactionary; I would counter that this series, like Star Wars before it (and from which this series very clearly draws much from), is playing in the field of myth. The plot is, on some level, something from the dawn of time, and as George Lucas said, clichés become clichés because they work. The setting interacts with the character work to create this sensation of being larger than life. The central romance feels like an ancient pair of star-crossed lovers, and here Skrutskie makes that old saying far more literal than William Shakespeare could ever have imagined.

There’s a part of me that found bits of the worldbuilding unsatisfying, but that part of me is immediately answered by another part of me that thinks that Skrutskie left just the right gaps in the universe to get the imagination flowing. I’ve heard authors say that you have to leave those gaps if you want a community around your books, because those communities will want to produce fan fiction with those gaps. For example, I found it curious that Skrutskie never went into detail about the history, or even the justification, for the Bloodright system. On some level, this is the typical feudal future, but it also has relevance to character. You have multiple people on the high ranks of hierarchies spanning the galaxy. You get a sense of their characters, yes, but you never get a precise idea of how these people justify absolute monarchy in a galaxy with faster-than-light travel and no patriarchal structures of gender, and from there, justify themselves (I refer, once again, to K. S. Villoso’s great essay about how good worldbuilding and good characterization feed into each other). I felt that could have been cleared up a bit, even in passing, in the way that there is a throwaway line about the generation ships that spread humanity across the stars. There is a bit where characters wonder about the actual efficacy of absolute monarchy, but never how absolute monarchy is justified in this setting.

I fear that what I wrote above makes it sound like I was disappointed in this series. In some pedantic aspects, yes, but on the whole I absolutely loved it. Upon finishing this series, I immediately wanted a big-budget Hollywood adaptation (much as I did with Allen Steele’s V-S Day), whether as a film trilogy or as a big-budget TV series. It has everything! Romance! Adventure! Cool spaceships! Cool mech suits! Come on, Hollywood, you can do this! Woke is back! I also wanted to see this universe built upon, maybe with other authors (and with some look at the mass politics, too). As a space opera fan, I haven’t read something this purely fun in a long time.

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Reference: 

Skrutskie, Emily. Bonds of Brass [Del Rey, 2020]
Skrutskie, Emily, Oaths of Legacy [Del Rey, 2021]
Skrutskie, Emily, Vows of Empire [Del Rey, 2022] 

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy. 

Film Microreview: Resurrection (2025)

Not so much a film you watch as one you let happen to you

Telling you the plot of the Chinese movie Resurrection wouldn’t prepare you for what this experience involves. The events are simple: we’re told via text on screen that people in the future have given up their ability to dream in exchange for immortality, and those rare few who still dream need to be guided back to the real world. We don’t see what that future is like; the entire movie takes place in dreamland as one character tries to help another character find their way out. What’s out there? It doesn’t matter. The dream is the whole point of this story.

In order, always somewhere in China: a poppy-eating monstrosity is kept in a dungeon under an opium house; a man is accused of murdering a musician; a man arrives at a Buddhist temple with regret over mercy-killing his father; a con artist teaches a child to pretend to guess cards; a street vagabond falls in love overnight with a vampiress from a crime family. Each sequence happens after a jump in time from the previous, forming a Cloud Atlas-esque structure where the same dreamer experiences multiple lives until achieving liberation. But an enumeration of the events falls well short of encompassing the sensory whirlwind that is Resurrection.

Each dream segment happens in a different era, and the way this is signaled to the viewer is through the filmmaking style in which each dream is told. Taken together, the parts of Resurrection form an epic tour across the history of cinema, from the still camera and miniature sets of the silent period to the super-long takes of later, more experimental auteurs. The repertoire of techniques that this movie can boast would merit its own whole review; the frame is filled with sharp angles that guide the eye into the distance, or mirrors that reveal hidden angles of the same scene, or the movements of a character through multiple sets in quick succession, or background frames inside frames that add depth to the composition. The segment with the vampiress is one single take achieved with meticulous choreography across an entire neighborhood. At all times, the camera knows exactly where to point at and when to move.

As a reverent celebration of the movies of old, Resurrection is filled to the brim with both visual and narrative allusions to countless classics. I’m sure I recognized less than half of them; regrettably, I don’t know enough old cinema to fully absorb this parade of homages. Of the instances I could count, this movie references Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Rashōmon, The Elephant Man, Stalker, Before Sunrise, Interview with the Vampire, and, unsurprisingly, Inception.

From Inception we learned that experiencing a movie is like experiencing a dream. In Resurrection, the illusionist tricks of cinema are used to build both the labyrinth of the dreamworld and the route to escape it. Like in Cloud Atlas, we’re expected to keep in mind that the protagonists of each segment are all the same soul in several reincarnations. The framing narrative states that giving up dreams is the key to immortality, which parallels the Buddhist doctrine that this earthly life is an illusion and in order to transcend the cycle of reincarnations we need to stop being attached to it.

It’s entirely understandable if you feel lost while watching Resurrection. Although the plot is rather simple, the richness of meaning contained in its visual language requires an unbroken attention and prior knowledge of the greatest movies. But even if you don’t follow the story, or if you’re not accustomed to reading subtitles, Resurrection regales you with beautiful vistas that result from a confident mastery of the filmmaking craft. This is the kind of movie where you don’t need to keep track of what is literally happening; you just need to let the images work their magic on you. The question about what it all means is entrusted to your understanding. Maybe the answer will come to you the next time you dream.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Book Review: The Shadow Before the Dawn

The Shadow Before the Dawn is a historical fantasy novel by Alma Alexander

Steffan, son of the King of Ras, is, at a young age, taken hundreds of miles away from his home to be fostered in the court of the Qigai out on the steppe. There he will strike up a friendship with a mighty horse no one can ride, and start to learn the skills that he will need when he returns to Ras. But long and twisted is the path to a crown and the leadership of a nation, and Steffan is going to walk that path.

The Shadow Before the Dawn is (mostly) Steffan’s story.

There is a game to play in historical fantasy novels like this¹. It’s a puzzle, or a joy to solve, or a recognition of immersion, especially if you have not been warned or spoiled. Who or what is the location, time and place that is being represented here? Where is it following that history, and where is the author taking liberties? The Shadow Before the Dawn thwarted my ability to do so, and forced me to treat this as a purely novel secondary world fantasy, because the subject matter was unfamiliar to me. Steffan is a cognate of our world’s Stefan Uros III, a king of medieval Serbia and the forerunner and father of a great king, Stefan Dusan.

From there, once you have it, his story in the book follows Stefan Uros III’s life story with relative faithfulness. He winds up getting sent to the Altan Orda, which is our Golden Horde, to live as a hostage for a number of years. He then manages to return home, get into trouble with his father, and goes into exile again, this time to Visant (Constantinople). From there, after years of exile, he finally gets his chance to return home.

There are differences and inventions, though. A notable one is the matter of a horse that Alexander has inserted into the narrative. At the court of the Qigai, Steffan encounters a horse, untameable, unrideable, unapproachable. Steffan forms a bond with this horse, and the horse’s captivity and pride mirror Stefan’s own in the deadly court of the Qigai. He eventually wins the horse, and it is a minor but personal triumph.

Alexander does a lot of interesting things with language here. There is coine, the traditional trade language, and there is a lot of matter about understanding languages and communication between individuals, or the lack of ability to do so. As a sideline to that, there is also a matter of names and what people are called. Alexander likes to give people different names and epithets in different settings and languages. It’s something that the often monolithic Western world doesn’t do a lot with in real life, especially here in America.²

Steffan’s path to the throne, as it was in real history, gets wilder as the narrative progresses. Alexander does a great job in showing the many complicated sides of Stefan Uros III as Steffan. He gets into conflicts with his family, is married against his will (although historically we have no record of who that was, the novel invents an appropriate bride), is sentenced to be blinded and sent to Visant (Constantinople) and slowly waits for yet another opportunity to return to Ras and be the rightful king. In our world, the nature of this would-be blinding is not clear. In the world of the novel, he fakes it for years, telling few people (not even his own son) the truth.

The complicated nature of Steffan means that, while he is the protagonist throughout much of the book, sometimes he is not as sympathetic as one might expect in a central character. Although it was (as I later learned) often a beat-for-beat parallel to the real history, I did wonder about Steffan’s choices and actions time and again. It makes for an interesting character to follow, if not one that is always that easy to root for. The style of the writing and the pacing also goes with that, as there are years dismissed in less than a paragraph and then a deep microscopic look at a particular incident in Steffan’s life. The book demands close reading. I suspect that an audiobook might create difficulty for readers who let words flow over them and don’t study them with full attentiveness. This is a book that wants your attention in order for it to succeed for you.

The themes of the book are ones you might think in a king-in-making plot. Duty is definitely a big one; we see that right from the beginning, and it is a throughline for the novel. Honor, loyalty, family, and doing what one thinks is the right course of action are the guidestars for Steffan throughout the book. He doesn’t always hit his own marks; Steffan, as noted above, often has feet of clay. But he does for the most part try to his own self be true.

The last portion of the book, however, is the weakest. Even as it is taking from real history, and quite vividly, there is a point-of-view switch at the end of the novel that I don’t think works narratively. In the last chapters of the book, we shift from Steffan to his son, Dussin, and the handoff feels awkward to me. Through the entire novel, we’ve followed and gotten to know and understand Steffan. This shift to Dussin feels like abandoning that viewpoint at the end, and we see a diminished and declining man from the outside. I can intuit why the author did it that way—the son is the story she really wants to write in a successor novel³, and this is a way to achieve that passing of the torch. But in so doing, it diminishes the strength of this novel—Steffan’s story. We’ve followed him since he was shipped off to the Atlan Orda, but pulling the narrative away from him and following his son at the end feels like it is a transgression of the promise to the reader that we are going to follow Steffan’s story, not jump into his son’s story before its end.

Aside from this complaint, however, I was well and truly satisfied and sated with The Shadow Before the Dawn. It’s a rich secondary world fantasy with strong historical roots that brings to light a time, place and characters who don’t get a lot of attention in Western European fantasy. I’ve talked about “The Great Wall of Europe” for a decade and a half. That Wall has never included all of Europe; the story of the Balkans in the Middle Ages is a complicated and wild one that historical fantasy has often neglected. The Shadow before the Dawn is a valuable move towards giving the Balkans their due.

Highlights:

• Immersive historical fantasy in an underrepresented time and place
• (Mostly) a deep dive into the life and times of an interesting character
• Strong themes of loyalty, family, duty, and honor

Reference: Alexander, Alma. The Shadow Before the Dawn [Crossroad Press, 2026].

¹ See my review of The Court of Venus about secondary world fantasy that derives from history with names changed. I argued that for me, this is not historical fantasy, but acknowledge the minority position.

² Usernames on the internet, when they were more common, seemed to fill this a bit. As witness myself, “Princejvstin”. But I am more reminded of the phenomenon of East Asian people coming to the Western World and taking a Western name.

³ In the acknowledgements, Alexander admits that going into this project, she intended to write Dussan’s story and really wanted to, but in the process of research, decided that she “should” begin with the father. There is a tension there between what one wants to write and what one feels like they should write. I think this novel doesn’t always navigate that as well as it might. It’s a tricky balance.

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Video Game Review: Prey by Arkane Studios

An overlooked gem

What would have happened if JFK had never been assassinated? He would have supported a cooperative space station launch with Russia called Talos 1 to help research a mysterious alien threat and discover wild new sciences, of course! The year is 2035 (maybe 2036?) and humans can install neuromods directly into their brains. These mods take the brain patterns of people with immense skill, copy them, then allow almost anyone to install them, instantly learning new skills. Want to learn how to play Beethoven flawlessly without having to practice? Want to become an Olympian? Eat more hotdogs than Joey Chestnut? Well, stick this needle in your eye! But what happens if you need your neuromod removed? What happens when the company that gave them to you as a perk rescinds their offer when you find new employment? An apto-regressive neurotomy will take care of that, and with the removal of your neuromod, so too go all the memories you’ve made since installation.

The question is, what happens when you become stuck in a loop of living the same day repeatedly because someone continues to remove your neuromods day in and day out after some experiments? Is it okay to continue because the old you with all the mods consented, or does the current you have the right to object? Even better, what if a neuromod-installed version of yourself made a backup of your personality to tell you what might happen, to free you from a potential prison if the alien threat breaks free? What if multiple backups show up, and they have contradicting missions? Which older version of yourself do you trust? What if other people around you are making more sense than the older version of you is? What then? Whose plans do you follow? What path do you take? This is the dilemma in Prey.

Let’s cut to the chase here. Prey is Bioshock meets Dead Space. The gameplay has elements of both. The zero-g moments are heavily inspired by Dead Space, and the first-person gameplay with abilities feels exactly like Bioshock. In one hand, a power; in the other, a weapon; with a wheel to select everything from. Though I must admit, the more powers and weapons you unlock, the more unwieldy the weapon wheel becomes. Best to keep it simple and only focus on a few things per playthrough. The game is nine years old now, but it feels like it could have launched when Bioshock did (which is twenty years ago, yikes!). In a year when Overwatch and Uncharted came out with smooth, action-packed gunplay, Prey’s gameplay was dated on release. That’s not to say it does not play well. It just feels a bit clunky. Things feel heavier than they need to, and considering the speed of some enemies, the fights can become frustrating. The mix of different abilities and weapons creates fun combinations, however, and situational combat can become intense; just don’t expect the game to be as smooth as Apex Legends.

The Talos 1 space station is a massive man-made triumph will many different people aboard. Throughout the station, you’ll find many transcribes (voice recordings) of the old crew. From relationships to work orders to competitive machismo, the story of Talos 1 is in huge part brought to life by the people that once lived there (and some still do). With the typhon threat (alien lifeform) roaming free, most crew are dead and only live on through the transcribes. One of my favorite things that Prey does well is environmental storytelling. Bloodstains leading to the rafters, things left behind in a rush, and an old D&D campaign established by the old crew. Nice touches like these make the massive space station feel like a place people were inhabiting before all the insanity went down.

The music accompanies the semi-horror sci-fi vibe of the game, adapting to the moment. The horror level of the typhon sits between Bioshock and Dead Space in fright factor, not feeling like a full-on horror game, but definitely giving a few jump scares throughout its twenty-plus-hour playtime. While I do wish there was more enemy variety (most of the enemies are just different versions of phantoms; even the largest enemy looks like a massive version of a phantom), the mix of mimics and other enemies creates some intense fights. The game created a successful air of making me second-guess myself, as mimics can take on the appearance of other objects. Sometimes I would see something out of the corner of my eye, only to find that a mimic had taken over a coffee cup. It’s a fun, creepy addition that never wears out it welcome.

Exploration on Talos 1 is a good time, except for the loading screens. They are not too much of a problem until the endgame, when you have to do multiple things in multiple areas of the ship in quick succession. Otherwise, the space is massive, and there are a bunch of different things to discover and multiple ways in which to do most of them. Considering I played this game multiple times in a row, I found it fun to unlock rooms I hadn’t in my first playthrough. Having different skills gives you access to different rooms, or ways to get into an area that you couldn’t before. I always love a maxed-out hacking/lock-picking skill. No door is ever safe from me.

The game looks decent still after nine years, though I have to say the character models are hideous. I think that it’s just Arkane’s style, but I don’t think the models are pleasant to look at, especially when it contrasts with the detail of everything else around them. That said, the enemy models that are there look good, as do the guns and the environment. There is a cohesive feel to it all that makes stepping out of the Neuromod Division for the first time a pleasant delight.

Prey gives you choices. Not presented in front of you like the little sisters in Bioshock, but in a more natural way. Do you save every human you discover or do you kill them? Do you kill any of them, even if they harmed you? You are fighting off an alien threat after all, and every living human is an asset. Right? But also, as you progress, you can scan typhon enemy types and learn what they can do. You can then install their abilities into your character. Do you remain fully human? Do you install only a few typhon neuromods? Or do you let the typhon take you over and install everything you can? Making these choices has an effect on the multiple endings you can select from, and it makes for stronger roleplay when going back through the game.

As the credits rolled for the first time, I decided to immediately get back into the game. I wanted to test all the powers I hadn’t before, as well as see the other endings. The game definitely feels like Bioshock meets Dead Space, as I’ve mentioned; it’s not as memorable as either, but that’s always the case with those that come after. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time. If you like Bioshock, if you like Dead Space, if you like an interesting sci-fi story wrapped up in a multi-billion-dollar family drama, then taking a chance with Prey can do you no wrong. Don’t expect the heights of its inspirations, and you won’t be let down, but you’ll find yourself wondering why you didn’t check out this underrated gem when it came out nine years ago.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 7.5/10.

Bonuses: +1 for fun exploration/cohesive atmosphere. +1 for player choice. +0.5 for pacing.

Penalties: −1 for dated gunplay. −1 for lack of enemy variety.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

TV Review: Avatar: Seven Havens

To heal the world, you need to heal your soul first

Avatar Korra’s time has passed. The newest reincarnation of the spirit of light is a pair of twin girls, Pavi and Nisha. This is an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Avatar Cycle, and it has naturally given rise to all sorts of speculations, including the most obvious possibility: that one of the twins may secretly be the next Dark Avatar, which was first created during Korra’s life. As tantalizing as this theory sounds, it raises questions about the nature of the Avatar’s mission and what the weight of such responsibility can do to a child. The new Seven Havens show is about restoring a broken world, but its plot also has an opportunity to restore a broken cosmic system.

First, to bring you up to date: by the start of Seven Havens, it has been a little over two centuries since Korra’s time as the Avatar. In circumstances that have been forgotten over several generations, the world suffered a natural disaster of catastrophic proportions that left humankind confined to just seven city-states, living in terror of the raging weather outside. We spend the first season of the show in the haven of Ellora, where any children found to be benders are forcibly recruited to serve as city guards, and where everyone blames the Avatar for breaking the world. In this climate of isolationism and paranoia, it’s understandable that little Pavi, a homeless orphan with a missing leg who happens to bend the four elements, keeps herself out of sight. But after accidentally revealing herself to one of the city guards, she’s brought under the care of the White Lotus, and soon after meets her lost twin Nisha, who has already been training as the Avatar.

From this point on, the rest of the season has our twin Avatars continue their training while they gather clues about their missing parents and stay hidden from the Elloran government. Their main enemy for the season is a strange spiritual force that appears suddenly, both feeding on fear and intensifying people’s fear. So, in a refreshing change for a franchise heavily focused on martial arts, what the heroes must solve this time isn’t the schemes of a specific villain, but a spiritual wound in their community.

Since the first series, The Last Airbender, the importance of the Avatar’s role has been in tension with the fact that an Avatar is usually identified at a rather young age. In Aang’s case, this was an unbearable revelation that had lasting consequences for the war that had just begun. For Korra, the lurking threat of the Red Lotus meant a secluded childhood and thus almost no experience of the wider world. Now, in a world that hates the Avatar, Pavi and Nisha are under multiple sources of stress: they feel abandoned by their parents, overprotected and underestimated by the White Lotus, and unable to live openly in their own city because of the people’s attitude toward what they represent. They have the vague intuition that one day it will fall upon their shoulders to heal the world from whatever it was that actually happened in Korra’s time, but with no historical records to explain the nature of the crisis, no realistic expectation of support from the general public, and no link with the past Avatars, they don’t know where to start.

The early announcement of the episode titles gave a big clue about what the solution would involve. The season’s last episode is called “The Root Chakra,” which alludes to one of the seven nodes where spiritual energy concentrates in the body and that need to flow unimpeded for an Avatar to access their full power. As was explained many years ago to Avatar Aang, the Root Chakra is the first that needs to be opened. It’s associated with survival (the stated theme of this season) and is blocked by fear, which is the problem faced by both the city of Ellora and the twins. From these clues it’s easy to anticipate that each of the titular Seven Havens represents one negative emotion that the Avatars will need to address, as if the planet itself needed a chakra cleanse. This plot structure has the risk of getting too linear, like a succession of videogame level-ups, but it’s still early to complain. This first season is about freeing Ellora and the twins from fear, and both quests are compelling to watch.

First, the city. Ellora is located in the middle of a vast desert with frequent sandstorms, so it’s a constant duty of the recruited benders to maintain the outer walls and prevent the violent weather from hurting the locals. This is a dangerous job, which has caused resentment in certain sectors of Elloran society. The Elloran government has turned inward, rejecting contact with the world and focusing obsessively on self-sufficiency. It holds survival as its highest value, but this is a distorted view of survival, that views any external presence as an enemy to avoid. The lesson for the city at the end of the season is that you can’t do everything alone, and you shouldn’t fear asking for help.

As for the girls, their fears have to do with their cosmic destiny. The clearer of the two is Pavi, who has grown accustomed to her lonely life in the streets and feels overwhelmed by the prospect of becoming a world-famous spiritual leader. Nisha’s inner jorney is more complicated: she begins the season thrilled to be the Avatar and eager to be of service, but she’s eventually confronted with her unpolished bending skills, her lack of political astuteness, and the devastating discovery of her role in her parents’ deaths and her sister’s injury. Whereas Pavi is scared of society, Nisha is scared of herself. The final episodes play as a tragedy where Nisha’s choice to hide the truth from Pavi inevitably results in Pavi’s choice to leave Nisha behind and complete her Avatar mission alone. This opens up much potential for further drama in future seasons.

However, the (so far highly hypothetical) possibility of one of the girls being the Dark Avatar highlights the problems already inherent to being the regular Avatar. Since the time of Aang we’ve known how fundamentally unfair it is to tell a child that they are the fated savior of the world and they’ll never get to have a normal life. This weight is multiplied after Avatar Korra, who lost the link to the past Avatars and can no longer resort to their centuries of accumulated wisdom. But if the Dark Avatar has reincarnated, we get the much more problematic scenario of accusing a child of evils they haven’t yet committed. In a way, this is already what the twins are going through: Dark or not, the Avatar is already a figure of contempt across the Seven Havens. Dark or not, no child deserves to grow up under such expectations. This is heavy material that the show needs to handle honestly and carefully.

With three more seasons already confirmed, there’s space for the show to continue exploring the ways this system can be fixed. It’s a big task: our heroes will have to stabilize the planet’s chaotic climate, earn back humankind’s trust, help rebuild civilization, and maybe, if they still have the time and the will, repair their relationship as sisters. Will they also rewrite the rules of the Avatar Cycle? It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe this story will end up changing the underlying dynamic that has put its world through so much trouble: no society should be so unlucky as to have to rely on a cosmic savior, and no child should be so unlucky as to have to become one.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.