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Network/Consortium #1
The Light in Exile
THE ADRAKI MENACE--
They roved the spaceways, calling no world home, though they conquered and then destroyed many a promising planet. They were the Adraki, last survivors of an alien race. Some said they were bent on bringing the rest of the universe down with them. Others claimed they sought a treasure they had foolishly lost long ages ago.
But now a man named Caragen, the most powerful individual in Network space, sought to ally with the Adraki, and he would use any means to achieve this goal--even if it meant sacrificing everyone on Siatha. For the Adraki seemed to have a sudden interest in this backward, non-tech planet, and Caragen was determined to find out why. His weapon of choice was Marrach, who though listed as Human had once been something else, and who had never failed in any mission.
But Siatha, home to the legendary Healers, was a challenge greater than any Marrach had ever faced--the challenge of a power as alien and uncontrollable as the dreaded Adraki themselves....
They roved the spaceways, calling no world home, though they conquered and then destroyed many a promising planet. They were the Adraki, last survivors of an alien race. Some said they were bent on bringing the rest of the universe down with them. Others claimed they sought a treasure they had foolishly lost long ages ago.
But now a man named Caragen, the most powerful individual in Network space, sought to ally with the Adraki, and he would use any means to achieve this goal--even if it meant sacrificing everyone on Siatha. For the Adraki seemed to have a sudden interest in this backward, non-tech planet, and Caragen was determined to find out why. His weapon of choice was Marrach, who though listed as Human had once been something else, and who had never failed in any mission.
But Siatha, home to the legendary Healers, was a challenge greater than any Marrach had ever faced--the challenge of a power as alien and uncontrollable as the dreaded Adraki themselves....
334 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 2, 1990
27 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 29, 2020
Eons ago, a pair of races of symbiotic beings went their separate ways. Ever since, one race has looked for the other, destroying any aliens in the way. Now, they're coming into human space. A mutant is out to untangle the whole thing.
It's okay, if a bit involved.
It's okay, if a bit involved.
December 3, 2019
Centuries ago, hubris cost the ancient alien race known as the adraki their most precious treasure. Wild with rage and pain, they scour the universe, jealously destroying anything that reminds them of what they lost.
Meanwhile, a group of humans inhabit the previously uninhabitable world of Siatha. They brought with them plants and animals, dedicated to creating an agricultural paradise where they can live simply, outside the intrigue and chaos of the highly technical and political world where Network and Consortium struggle for dominance. There they found what they sought—and much more.
The head of Network is strangely interested in this undeveloped Siatha and sends his most sophisticated agent to join these agrarian folks, his motives as vague as his goals…
The Light In Exile, like many of the other sci-fi novels I’ve read for ForFemFan, has a heavy dash of fantasy mixed in with its hard sci-fi core. This is in technical writing as well as tone. Both the characters and the world are valued for more than their relationship to the plot, even as chapters exist that are boiled down to nothing but hard sci-fi elements such as political posturing and technical explanations.
The technical writing is, as far as I can tell, faultless. Even with a mashup of a prologue, first-person narrative, third-person point-of-view, transcripts of books and personal logs, and quite a few POV characters, nothing feels amiss. Characterization unfurls naturally and I feel like I understand both the Siathans and the sophisticated agent simply by watching them live authentically in their worlds.
The over-arching plot doesn’t often interject itself on the day-to-day of our protagonists, but the absolutely perfect prologue clearly paints the stakes so that the adraki’s loss is never entirely out of your mind. And while the more local plot is both less dramatic and less clear than the overarching plot, it ties together all of these other elements so well that its somewhat looseness feels like an intentional choice to allow you to spend a little time feeling the weight of every other carefully crafted part of the story. At no point did I feel spoon-fed or marched forcibly along.
I’m also impressed with how well Cheryl J. Franklin wrote utterly believable characters and made me care about them so much. I’ve said it before: I’m a sucker for unrealistically charismatic and larger-than-life characters. It’s not a requirement for me to enjoy a book, but damn if it doesn’t help. The Siathans, on the other hand, couldn’t be more home-spun, and the agent’s job is to blend in. And yet the depth of their inner world made them plenty interesting without needing to resort to the sort of theatrics that normally captivate me.
If you’re good at reading between lines (I’m not), you might feel a “but” coming, and you’d be right.
The Light In Exile does employ a rather languid approach to storytelling. Even though I genuinely enjoyed it, at no point was I particularly hungry to read more. It was, in fact, the perfect before-bed novel: I’d read 10 – 30 pages, then easily set it aside, content with picking it back up again later.
Basically, The Light In Exile is an easy (in the good way) read because it never feels like “too much” or overly takes over your brain.
This is in part because of the emphasis on characterization. Unless it’s in some sort of psychological thriller, characterization is never going to be as addictive as trying to figure out what the next piece of the puzzle that is the plot is going to be. This is further compounded by a flashback that lasts for chapters that I don’t think is entirely necessary. This flashback mostly helps you understand a protagonists’ history and, thus, motivations, a feat I think Franklin accomplishes perfectly well in her non-flashback chapters. In the same vein, though, I’m thrilled to read a book that errs on the side of detailed characterization. And real characterization, too, not first-person grandstanding for the benefit of the reader.
On the flip side of this languidness is an ending that feels a touch rushed. Some aspects of it I think simply have to be rushed—anything else would feel unnatural. I mean, when shit hits the fan in real life, doesn’t it feel rushed? Other aspects of it, though, I think could be teased apart just a little bit more. And if book-length was an issue, well, I feel like a good chunk of that flashback could be reappropriated to the cause.
That said, the ending is by no means bad. Endings are haaaaard and most books are terrible at them, but The Light In Exile escapes this common fate. The ending might not be perfectly paced, but it matches the tone of the rest of the book, meets expectations given the sort of promises the book underwrites into its plot/characters, and has enough weight to feel like the ending of a novel.
This last point is especially important, given this is the first book in a series. Franklin could have easily ended The Light In Exile on some sort of catch to propel you into the next book, but she did us a solid and made the book stand alone, allowing her evident skill and well-crafted book alone tempt you into the next book in the series.
Which worked. I’ve placed an order for the remaining books in the series, and I’m quite looking forward into seeing where she continues to lead me.
[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See the rest of this review at forfemfan.com]
Meanwhile, a group of humans inhabit the previously uninhabitable world of Siatha. They brought with them plants and animals, dedicated to creating an agricultural paradise where they can live simply, outside the intrigue and chaos of the highly technical and political world where Network and Consortium struggle for dominance. There they found what they sought—and much more.
The head of Network is strangely interested in this undeveloped Siatha and sends his most sophisticated agent to join these agrarian folks, his motives as vague as his goals…
The Light In Exile, like many of the other sci-fi novels I’ve read for ForFemFan, has a heavy dash of fantasy mixed in with its hard sci-fi core. This is in technical writing as well as tone. Both the characters and the world are valued for more than their relationship to the plot, even as chapters exist that are boiled down to nothing but hard sci-fi elements such as political posturing and technical explanations.
The technical writing is, as far as I can tell, faultless. Even with a mashup of a prologue, first-person narrative, third-person point-of-view, transcripts of books and personal logs, and quite a few POV characters, nothing feels amiss. Characterization unfurls naturally and I feel like I understand both the Siathans and the sophisticated agent simply by watching them live authentically in their worlds.
The over-arching plot doesn’t often interject itself on the day-to-day of our protagonists, but the absolutely perfect prologue clearly paints the stakes so that the adraki’s loss is never entirely out of your mind. And while the more local plot is both less dramatic and less clear than the overarching plot, it ties together all of these other elements so well that its somewhat looseness feels like an intentional choice to allow you to spend a little time feeling the weight of every other carefully crafted part of the story. At no point did I feel spoon-fed or marched forcibly along.
I’m also impressed with how well Cheryl J. Franklin wrote utterly believable characters and made me care about them so much. I’ve said it before: I’m a sucker for unrealistically charismatic and larger-than-life characters. It’s not a requirement for me to enjoy a book, but damn if it doesn’t help. The Siathans, on the other hand, couldn’t be more home-spun, and the agent’s job is to blend in. And yet the depth of their inner world made them plenty interesting without needing to resort to the sort of theatrics that normally captivate me.
If you’re good at reading between lines (I’m not), you might feel a “but” coming, and you’d be right.
The Light In Exile does employ a rather languid approach to storytelling. Even though I genuinely enjoyed it, at no point was I particularly hungry to read more. It was, in fact, the perfect before-bed novel: I’d read 10 – 30 pages, then easily set it aside, content with picking it back up again later.
Basically, The Light In Exile is an easy (in the good way) read because it never feels like “too much” or overly takes over your brain.
This is in part because of the emphasis on characterization. Unless it’s in some sort of psychological thriller, characterization is never going to be as addictive as trying to figure out what the next piece of the puzzle that is the plot is going to be. This is further compounded by a flashback that lasts for chapters that I don’t think is entirely necessary. This flashback mostly helps you understand a protagonists’ history and, thus, motivations, a feat I think Franklin accomplishes perfectly well in her non-flashback chapters. In the same vein, though, I’m thrilled to read a book that errs on the side of detailed characterization. And real characterization, too, not first-person grandstanding for the benefit of the reader.
On the flip side of this languidness is an ending that feels a touch rushed. Some aspects of it I think simply have to be rushed—anything else would feel unnatural. I mean, when shit hits the fan in real life, doesn’t it feel rushed? Other aspects of it, though, I think could be teased apart just a little bit more. And if book-length was an issue, well, I feel like a good chunk of that flashback could be reappropriated to the cause.
That said, the ending is by no means bad. Endings are haaaaard and most books are terrible at them, but The Light In Exile escapes this common fate. The ending might not be perfectly paced, but it matches the tone of the rest of the book, meets expectations given the sort of promises the book underwrites into its plot/characters, and has enough weight to feel like the ending of a novel.
This last point is especially important, given this is the first book in a series. Franklin could have easily ended The Light In Exile on some sort of catch to propel you into the next book, but she did us a solid and made the book stand alone, allowing her evident skill and well-crafted book alone tempt you into the next book in the series.
Which worked. I’ve placed an order for the remaining books in the series, and I’m quite looking forward into seeing where she continues to lead me.
[I read old fantasy and sci-fi novels written by women authors in search of forgotten gems. See the rest of this review at forfemfan.com]
October 3, 2020
If you've read the synopsis, you really don't know anything about the book. Ms. Franklin has created a Deus ex Machine that functions as an alien race and as 'gods' simultaneously. I won't spoil the actual plot or the outcome, both are interesting enough that a reader needs to experience them without any further expectations.
I dropped it from 4 to 3 stars because of the length. There was a run of pages that (IMHO) merely dragged out the resolution. Perhaps other readers may not notice, but it is one of those things that really sticks out to me and even pulls me out of the story in some cases. Not here though.
Find it. Buy it. Read it!
I dropped it from 4 to 3 stars because of the length. There was a run of pages that (IMHO) merely dragged out the resolution. Perhaps other readers may not notice, but it is one of those things that really sticks out to me and even pulls me out of the story in some cases. Not here though.
Find it. Buy it. Read it!
March 23, 2021
This book defies classification in a way: a human civilization at odds with other elder civilizations, but standing toe to toe on the strength of sheer human ruthlessness and machination. And caught between the grindstones of ambition is a man who is a tool. What held me was the description of technology that was deftly described, intricate and sharp-edged. Second, was the psychological machinations of the characters themselves.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews