Shifting Reality

ISF-Allion Universe #1

by Patty Jansen

A few years ago, a military doctor walking the corridors of New Jakarta Station saved Melati's life. She signed up for the International Space Force to pay back her moral debt to him. But her family thinks she has betrayed her people. It was ISF who forcefully removed their grandmothers and grandfathers from the crowded slums of Jakarta to work in interstellar space stations.

It is Melati's job to teach six-year old construct soldiers, artificial humans grown in labs and activated with programmed minds. Her latest cohort has one student who claims that he is not a little boy, but a mindbase traveller whose swap partner took off with his body. It soon becomes clear that a lot of people are scouring the station for this fugitive, a scientist with dangerous knowledge.

The best place to hide in the station is amongst the many cultures and subcultures of the expat Indonesian B-sector. Looking for him brings Melati into direct conflict with her people. She does not want to be seen as one of the enemy, but if the scientist's knowledge falls in the wrong hands, war will come to the station.

Genres: Science Fiction, Military Fiction

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2012

About the author

Author of Science Fiction and fantasy and non-fiction.


Author of the Ambassador series, the Icefire Trilogy, For Queen And Country series and the Return of the Aghyrians series.

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Reviews

[Brie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard science fiction does not ever have to mean a light story peppered with dense, science-heavy prose. And this book shows you why.

The setting is an orbital, rotating space station a few hundred years in the future. It is one of several mining the orbital debris around one of our gas giants. A lot of the population is a type of artificial human called a "construct", but there is also a hefty proportion of real humans - and this is the first interesting part: they are Indonesian.

Patty Jansen has done a stellar job of creating a credible and realistic futuristic cultural group that is rare in Western fiction. The protagonist and POV character, Melati, is one of this group, but she is also one of the very, very few who is also an employee of the non-Indonesian section of the space station. This means it is constant work for her because she struggles to feel truly part of either world. But it also creates lots of unique opportunity for her character to stand out and make the story move in ways that only Melati could do. And it also means she sometimes has to make hard choices that compromise one half or the other of her life.

This is not a generic mystery set in some futuristic space station. There is technology core to how this society works, such as that of imprinting a human personality on a body, that is integral to the story. This is hard science, too: faster-than-light travel is only just possible and very time-consuming, too. Without the science there would be no story.

Meanwhile, the players are still very human with human foibles and dreams. Including Melati. In some ways, especially Melati.

[Tsana Dolichva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shifting Reality by Patty Jansen is a novel set in the same universe as several of her short stories. I have previously reviewed the short story "The Rebelliousness of Trassi Udang", which is set on the same space station as Shifting Reality.

Melati is a third generation resident of New Jakarta space station. She's one of few of her class (those of Indonesian decent) to work with the ISF (International Space Force — the successor to the UN). Her job is training cohorts of engineered soldiers who are grown as children. They grow and are trained up quickly into adult workers. The story opens when something strange happens with the new cohort batch and one of them wakes up not as the mindbase Melati had programmed, but as someone completely different. The question is who and why?

Meanwhile, the ISF and tier 1 residents have a generally low opinion of the tier 2 (from which Melati came). Similarly, Melati's family and neighbours disapprove of her working for "the man", leaving Melati stuck in the middle, somewhat outcast from both cultures. All this is emphasised when trouble starts to brew and suddenly more enforcers are checking people for ID more frequently, preventing some miners (the main workers of New Jakarta) from going to work. Between that, the troubled new cohort and the baby smugglers she suspects are zeroing in on her cousin, Melati has her hands full.

I really enjoyed this novel. There were a few slightly slow patches near the start, but by about halfway I couldn't put it down, staying up late to finish reading. Melati is a great character who stands up for what she believes in an entirely plausible way. The type of comments Grandma made about being true to her roots and Melati's reaction that she didn't understand the new world they were living in rang true. I can't comment on the authenticity of the Indonesian and other cultural elements Jansen included, but the general themes of being a third generation no-longer-quite-a-migrant-at-that-point felt similar (albeit on a larger scale) to some of my own experiences.

Jansen tied together seemingly disparate several story lines into one cohesive plot well, and by the halfway-ish point I was dying to know how the remaining plot elements were going to turn out to be related. Shifting Reality stands alone, but there is definitely room for sequels and I hope we get to read more about Melati (and the characters whose fates were unknown at the end!). There were also some references in Shifting Reality which have made me move Charlotte's Army, a novella set in the same universe but earlier, up in my virtual TBR pile.

I highly recommend Shifting Reality to anyone looking for some new science fiction, perhaps with a different cultural flavour. I've read several short stories of Jansen's in the past (including this one, which I reviewed earlier this year, and my favourite from last year) and I have noticed her writing improving with time. I definitely look forward to future stories set in this universe (especially if they're about Melati).

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.

[Dylan Hearn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book with a unique premise - people of Indonesian extraction living on a mining station - which I liked but didn't love.

What I thought worked:
The premise and cultural setting worked really well. I loved how the author fused together the Indonesian social norms with the high-tech setting, maintaining the importance of family, the role of women in the culture, as well as the importance of food and ceremony. I thought the larger universe itself was interesting, along with the segregation between the different levels on the space station itself.

What didn't work for me:
I struggled to maintain interest in the central mystery at the heart of the book. There were plenty of twists and turns but these came through the introduction of characters from the wider universe that I didn't know or understand. I believe two novellas have already been set in this universe and I may have been more engaged if I'd read these first but as it was, I didn't really bond strongly enough with any of the characters or the many factions involved.

[Gmpow · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest, I stopped reading half way through.

It started well, and really threw you into the Universe and the problem with the new set of constructs. Then we went away from that for interminable pages of her running around in circles after members of her family.

I thought the setting was promising: showing life in the future being pretty much like life now (people don't change even if technology has improved). But there were serious issues with pacing, and with tying in the familial and political issues with what is happening to her group of constructs. In the end I cracked it and stopped reading....

[BrokenMnemonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this; I'm not sure if it's an intentional starting point in the universe (I know there are at least two novels and two short stories/novellas) but I thought it was a well-paced and well-written sci-fi story. On the one hand, there's a pretty hardcore sci-fi mystery involving cloning, the movement of minds between bodies, an interstellar cold war that occasionally goes hot and conspiracies. On the other, there's a great plot involving the protagonist dealing with the issues around her being a third-generation Indonesian immigrant on a station rife with class, gender and nationalistic issues. Having elected to work as a government employee on a station that has a large contingent of illegal workers and where the population is generally divided sharply between the military, the government and the Indonesian worker population, against the wishes of her family, after a scandal brought on by poverty, Melati makes for an interesting and sympathetic protagonist - particularly when she's raging against the societal constraints put on her and the well-meaning intentions of her surviving family.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not quite a 4 but is close. I really liked the glimpses of culture we get in this book but it needed more. Our heroine is interesting and strong but she needed a bit more depth. She felt so strongly but I couldn't understand why she kept pulling her punches. I really liked the suggestion of her running for the council but I'm not sure she'll get the change with the ending. I'm a bit disappointed about that, actually. Overall, a good read with complex politics and moral difficulties.

[Teawench]

I don't remember when I decided to stop but it was about halfway. The story is all over the place. We start with the constructs and then they kind of get forgotten about while the MC runs around trying to figure out who killed her family member. And let's throw the constructs back in for a few pages just so you don't forget about them. There's a war going on. Maybe. More mystery! Oh, we can't forget about the constructs so here they are for a bit again! I finally decided I don't care what happens or about any of the characters and I needed to DNF.

[Orpha Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story

I was very caught up in this story. It was almost like a futuristic mystery or maybe exactly that. I loved that the main character was a very brave and caring woman who did what she thought was right. Very good book.

[Peter Bruyns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!!

This is an excellent book by an extremely good writer. I read it awhile ago and thought it worth reading again. If I can't find the next in the series it will be my pleasure to read it. Also, as per usual, well edited!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly plausible future with a diverse culture among neighboring stars. Quite a commentary on social and political issues. An exciting story with interesting characters.

[Az Vera · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's nice to see more scifi that doesn't also have to be an "action" book. In this case we have mystery with well-rounded out characters and a setting build on cultural tensions in tight confines. Patty Jensen does a spectacular job of creating different cultures onboard the space station, and creating tensions and battles of human rights that are perfect mirrors of conflicts we often see in our own time. Being able to present this through the lens of scifi is a powerful skill and Patty does it expertly.

[S.B. Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shifting Reality is a science fiction novel set in ISF-Allion Universe that Patty Jansen has been developing over the last couple of years. Other works in the series are Luminescence (novelette), His Name in Lights (novelette) and Charlotte’s Army (novella).

I mentioned in my review of Luminescence above that I wanted longer works set in the ISF- Allion Universe and while I don’t think Patty was specifically listening to me, she has steadily delivered, writing Charlotte’s Army and then Shifting Reality.

Shifting Reality is the tale of Melati Rudiyanto the granddaughter of expat Indonesians who form the labour force on the aging space station of New Jakarta. The space station comes under ISF(International Space Force) jurisdiction and Melati joined the an ISF training program to repay a debt to the Doctor who saved her and to give herself a chance at a better life. Her family sees her as betraying them and her people. She sees them as stuck in the same cycle of poverty, unwilling to take advantage of the opportunities on offer.

Her job is to train/teach human constructs (clones) through their accelerated growth period. The action begins when one of the clone children displays an understanding of adult concepts and language that he should not have yet developed. Melati’s concern and care for the children in her charge leads to an unravelling of a larger station threatening plot.

What I particularly like about Jansen’s science fiction (she writes hard–sf as well) is that it’s rare that the tech or the science is the reason for the story but when it does surface, it’s well thought out, realistic and logical. It makes for a quick immersive read with no oddities to drop you out of the immersion.

What I particularly like about Shifting Reality is the choice to have a person of colour and a woman as the central character and that she is a teacher. It’s refreshing to have a protagonist who is not military special forces in high tech spandex.

I don’t know enough about Indonesian culture(s) to know how well Patty has transported it to the life on board a space station but she does a convincing enough job of playing off tensions between family, work and the wider community for me.

While Shifting Reality sits somewhere within the sphere of military science fiction I like the focus on the other aspects life at New Jakarta Station : tourism, refugees, organised crime and human trafficking.

I also like the way in which Jansen slowly builds her “world” with each outing, enabling the attentive reader to pick up on actions and outcomes that occurred in earlier works.

If you are looking for something less over the top than space opera, but still with a broad scope. If you are looking for something with a solid scientific under pinning that’s different to all the “square-jawed Marines save space” narratives, then I think you should check Jansen’s Shifting Reality out. But I'd also recommend reading the entire ISF-Allion series of works to appreciate the scope of the “world” Jansen has devised.

This book was provided by the publisher.

[Mike Outten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not get into this book. The storyline just wasn't solid for me....rambling, not cohesive, seems like there was no endgame. Nothing to jar my interest or to keep me wanting to read the next chapter. Do not recommend this book. :(

[Phillip Berrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story has a brilliant setting, an excellent main character and some fascinating ideas in it.

The setting is a mixture of the contemporary exotic (as it draws on the culture of Indonesia, which is exotic for me) and the future tech of a space station orbiting Epsilon Eridani. It is also written from the point of view of a character who bridges the gap between these two very different worlds, a character whose experience ranges from ghosts in her bedroom to ghosts in the machine.

The fascinating ideas for me are mainly the ones concerning the what the main character does for a living. She is teacher on both the physical and the meta level, training cohorts of biologically engineered human 'constructs' to order. These constructs are not only created biologically, but their neural patterns are pre-programmed to speed up their development. It is this whole aspect of neural programming taken to its ultimate expression and the logical consequences of this level of brain technology that the author explores in this book that so fascinated me (I love the idea of the construct's concept of 'Before').

My only problems with this book were that some of the high-energy physics ideas used didn't make a lot of sense (but this was not a big problem because the story didn't depend on them) and the number of typos in the book. This book has been sitting on my Kindle for a while and so I can only hope that the author has fixed them because they kept interrupting the flow of my reading.

Well worth the read it you are interested in thought-provoking science fiction.

[Vanessa J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melati is a teacher within the New Jakarta space station, assigned to oversee fast-grown clone soldiers. When one of her charges makes an incredible claim, she must solve a mystery of identity theft and murder against a background of war. She's hampered by class clashes between decks and two cultures that would both like her to shut up and stop pointing out the obvious.

Melati is a brilliant protagonist. She has a sharp moral compass that won't allow her to overlook wrongdoing, but she's not standing on any soapboxes. She lives in a morally gray world and accepts it. The times she speaks up or intervenes she is completely within reason to do so, such her uncle knowingly serving human traffickers at his restaurant despite Melati being a former victim of theirs. Which makes it all the more frustrating when people tell her she's overreacting.

In a way, she's like Steve Rogers if he was female, dark-skinned and Muslim. Stripped of the privileges of Roger's gender, race and religion, Melati makes similar refusals to back down from what she knows is right, but the world isn't half as prepared to listen. And she doesn't have the option of punching anyone in the face.

The twists and turns of the story can occasionally be difficult to follow, but for the most part is clear. My only real criticism is that the antagonist/s (?) comes out of nowhere. There is some set up, but it doesn't make for a particularly satisfying pay-off. However it's implied that this will be explored further in the sequel, so I'm happy.

[Rbjumbob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting 4 star read. Or perhaps 3.5 stars. Kind of straight forward sci fi sociality edged.

[Quartknee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover looks really lame so I almost passed but the premise was really intriguing so I gave it a chance. I'm really glad I did. The first part of the book is kind of circular and a little annoying in the way that the main character just rehashes the same frustrations with what basically amounts to culture clash. It's kind of weird that she never actually uses that term and never has enough self-awareness to actually understand the forces at work. She's great at describing their effects, especially when it comes to all of the ISF jobs that go unfilled and all of the opportunities the B3's eschew.

It's clear she's trapped between two worlds and I can't wait to get the next book to find out what repercussions play out as the after effects of this book. While this book got off to a slow start, once it kicked into high gear it was an exciting and engaging read. I hope the subsequent books follow the same pacing as much of the world building is out of the way now.

[Ann Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing. I expected the writing to be good, as I have read several books by Patty Jansen, but most of the characters are Indonesian, which is really unusual. Nearly all science fiction books have quasi-American or European characters.

Patty knows her stuff and gets you into their lives and their minds without an information dump. This applies to the 'constructs' too. The plot is complex, but I followed every twist and turn, and loved it. Highly recommended.

[Lushr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. A female protagonist, who isn't white, who isn't military, who speaks up for what's right, on a space station full of culture, mystery, drama, sorrow, thrills and excitement.

This was an adventure like no other. No tacky obligatory romance stuck in the middle, just good writing, interesting characters and fascinating culture.

To be fair, I couldn't give it five because there was a lot of "thinking about politics" rather than action, or "thinking how to resolving the plot". But the tension was high and got me through this book very quickly. And TGE author clearly knew where she was headed.

[Tonguetied · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It isn't your typical Sci-Fi novel and the Indonesian influence really adds to the story. Patty has really considered 'human' or practical aspects of people being set to a station in the middle of space. I do however, think that this book could have done with another editor going over it. There are a bunch of spelling, grammar and sentence structure errors. The way she ends this, it makes you wonder if Patty plans to write a sequel. I hope she does.

[J. Mauldin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed this book and it had many original and interesting ideas, there were some tech issues that tended to make it difficult to follow later on. At times it felt the story was trying to do too much. However, if you're looking for something off the beaten path with a deep adaptation of post-modern Indonesian culture, this is your book. It was certainly worth the read.

[Lisa Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic

A strong believable central character undergoing stews and adapting to change. A believable universe and cultural conflict projected from our current world to the far future. Well worth your time.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borrowed via KOLL. Very good story, with an extremely interesting setting and cast of characters. Overall, excellent. Editing errors cause the drop in rating.

[Fiannawolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time to buy the next book. I love it when I find another series to pull me in.

[Steph Bennion · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting hard sci-fi mystery. The Indonesian angle in particular was a breath of fresh air. The concept of mindbases was intriguing, though I wasn't entirely convinced that creating tailored (and presumably expensive) clones made sense in the circumstances, unless I missed something. The coming together of the two main storylines seemed rather slow, but it's fair to say there was a lot going on in the background. Yet... this is hard sci-fi with a smart lead woman who isn't in the military (she's the polar opposite of the archetypical hard-assed white male), which is a rarity in today's sci-fi market. This indie book is also far better written than most. I look forward to seeking out more of this author's works.

[Traci Loudin]

I wanted to see more with the clones, but too many chapters went by devoted to mundane things like who inherits the family heirloom (a table) and the like. I didn't feel the need to pick it back up, unfortunately.