Alright Vassals and Thralls, time for the latest batch of Loser’s Thoughts on Substack Lit.
I finished KMO’s hard scifi novel – Fear and Loathing in the Kuiper Belt – and I must say, it is extremely impressive. As a preface, I was told there were a lot of Gen X Easter eggs — but alas, I am 28 and did not catch any (and I have yet to read the book which this title riff on — sorry if that lessens my reading, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. [Though, the long and goofy nickname of the ship reminded me of the ship name in the Ringworld book — don’t know if that’s anything?])
WELL WELL WELL LOOK WHAT THE STACK DRUG IN
The science aspect of this fiction is so slick and knowledgeable that I was Wow’ed over and over at the depth of knowledge. The science of this sci-fi in this book fits right in with that of Alastair Reynolds, James Corey, and Cixin Liu. There is a continuous stream of intriguing ideas and tech which I value highly in scifi books.
The characters are also a shining piece of this book which is important since it’s about their devolving and going a little stir-crazy-cabin-fever-possessed-by gods wild. The plot itself was described to me by the author as The Expanse and Event Horizon, and that is accurate. The structure of the book flows like Event Horizon but it also felt somewhat like Red Rising — blending fantasy into the mix in interesting ways. There was a lot of sexual content, which I was told of before hand, and I have two veins of thought on that. The first is that most of the explicit scenes are plot-related and/or forward the plot — it didn’t usually feel like smut for smuts sake (if that makes sense). There were moments early in the book that I think, if moved to the back end of the book, would have served better potentially.
WHOA WATCH OUT, SPOILERS BOOBAH
There are gods or god-like things inhabiting people at the end of the book, each one more or less embodying a vice or virtue. I felt that moving some of those explicit scenes to later would showcase an increase in the lust amid the crew, whereas front loading those made it seem to taper off when things should have been getting more wild by all accounts. That’s it that’s all I got — it’s a crazy story and a vivid and fleshed out world. Extremely well written.
Read original Note here.
