Janus

by John Park

In the near future, Jon Grebbel arrives on the colony world of Janus, and finds himself mysteriously without memory of his life on Earth. It seems that the long journey has caused severe memory loss in many of Janus’s colonists. While Grebbel wants to start his new life, he also wants his memory back, and starts treatments to restore his past. But they only leave him angry and disturbed and he begins to doubt the glimpses of the past the treatments reveal.

Grebbel meets Elinda, an earlier arrival, whose lover, Barbara, vanished and then was found lying in the woods, apparently brain-damaged. Elinda has also lost her memories of Earth, but unlike him she has abandoned the effort to recover them. Now their meeting brings each of them a glimpse of an experience they shared back on Earth.

Investigating Barbara’s fate and their own, the two find their love and their search for justice turning toward bitter self-discovery and revenge, even as they begin to uncover the darkness at the heart of their world.

Genres: Science Fiction

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

An intermittent writer of science fiction, with occasional leanings towards fantasy. So far I have published one novel plus about a book's worth of short stories and poetry. I usually aim for self-contained works with impact--my idea of a trilogy is three related short stories.

Most of my published works are listed here:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1...

Reviews

[Kevin Cardoza · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story begins with a list of clichés. This includes a protagonist with amnesia, a missing woman, and the hint of a conspiracy by those in control of the community where everything takes place.

However, this narrative easily redeems itself with a slow burn of revelations regarding the nature of Janus and fully developed characters with their own desires and fallibilities. As identities are rediscovered and secrets are uncovered, everyone struggles both with their purpose and with the righteousness of their own morality.

The result is that the mystery (while compelling in it's own right) takes a back seat to reflections on how much our memories shape who we are and the ability of people to reform. In essence, this is sci-fi of the more cerebral sense within the shell of a thriller, which may explain the vastly oscillating reviews on this site.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled with this title a surprising amount — absolutely loved the premise, but couldn't break through any of the characters or get a real physical sense of the world. Park's writing is solid throughout, but I can't help but feel there was more that needed to be said about these people and Janus itself.

[Alex Binkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crime mystery set on a planet where Earth sends people whose mental state led to criminal activity. The author does an excellent job of slowing revealing clues to let the reader try to solve what's going on as the story comes to a conclusion where Jon discovers he was a surgeon and Elinda tries to find her lost lover.

[Nicolas Torino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing exceptional, but it keeps you interested.

[Darlene · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had so much potential, but fell short of all of it by the end. When I picked up the book and read the description I pictured "Dead Space" (game) and "Shutter Island" combined, or "Bioshock" (game) in space, and was super excited to get started on reading it.

I was undecided on if I liked the title, "Janus" (or the name in general). On one hand, it signifies importance because that is where the story takes place, but on another hand, the planet's name is rarely mentioned through-out the book.

The cover art was awesome and I loved the cool shine to it. The artist is a really talented person. I did come across a major flaw (to me anyway- it's one of my pet peeves), regarding the cover art and the description of Jon Grebbel. Pages 155-156 (chapter 10) describes "the way his hair straggled across the lines on his brow", and, "stroked his hair back from his eyes", which indicates his hair being a lot longer then what is shown on the cover. You 'could' say that maybe a lot of time had passed since his arrival and his hair had grown a bit, but it would have taken months for his hair to reach his brow and from reading the book, it sounded as though he was maybe there MAYBE 3 months max.

The mysteriousness of the start reminded me of the movie "Oblivion", along with the whole flashbacks and memory thing going on. To me, it had a slow start in a good way, where you can tell (or hope..) it's building up to something big.

I got caught off guard on pages 88-89 (chapter 5)horribly. I was hoping the story would continue on without a pause for "bedroom activity". At least not so soon anyway (to me there wasn't much of a build up... it was wildly thrown together)... AGAIN, page 104 (chapter 6) made me feel like I was reading some romance novel (not my sort of thing) instead of a Sci-Fi/Mystery (which is what had felt like up til this point. It would keep going back and forth until the end). Chapter 12, pages 183-184 is where my hope for a recovery in this book finally broke. If you like a romance novel where they throw themselves at each other for no apparent reason, than this is your book.

By halfway into the book I was completely lost as to what the author was aiming for. It had so much potential at the start, but it seems the author didn't know what route they wanted to take, or didn't do a rough draft first. Brain-washed crazies on an alien planet being used as free labor to build and colonize it while some were regaining "real" past memories sounded pretty EPIC, SOLID, PROMISING and fool proof... Sadly, not for this book.

The book moved very... very... slow, from the middle toward the end. The end, well.. it kind-of threw me off to be honest. It just quickly got wrapped up, rushed, after being dragged on for so horribly long.

This is all just my overly honest opinion, please don't take any offense to it.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

At least it was only 300 pages. Good premise, not great execution.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating Science Fiction read with complex characters. Beautifully written. A deceptively slow opening builds relentlessly to a page turner conclusion.

[Steve Stanton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This debut SF novel by Canadian author John Park starts slow and meanders a bit, but builds to a rousing finish.

[Karl]

This is copy 20 of 150 signed numbered copies.