What do you think?
Rate this book
Memory's Exile
SPECIAL PRE-ORDER PRICING! THE PRICE WILL INCREASE TO $5.99 ON DECEMBER 12, 2017.
Long after a plague decimates the population of Earth, leaving the survivors and their descendants vulnerable to disease of every kind, humanity still seeks a cure. One brilliant researcher, Jake Jeong, takes a desperate chance that goes terribly wrong . . .
Exiled far from Earth on Selas Station, condemned to relive his crime and see his victims in his dreams, unable to entirely trust his own memories, Jake builds a new life with new companions. Only now, he is expecting a visit from an old friend – or lover? He can’t quite recall.
And suddenly, people are getting sick, Jake is seeing ghosts when he isn't dreaming, and safety is an illusion. He can trust no one – not even himself – as he struggles to save his friends, the station, and possibly all of humanity.
Long after a plague decimates the population of Earth, leaving the survivors and their descendants vulnerable to disease of every kind, humanity still seeks a cure. One brilliant researcher, Jake Jeong, takes a desperate chance that goes terribly wrong . . .
Exiled far from Earth on Selas Station, condemned to relive his crime and see his victims in his dreams, unable to entirely trust his own memories, Jake builds a new life with new companions. Only now, he is expecting a visit from an old friend – or lover? He can’t quite recall.
And suddenly, people are getting sick, Jake is seeing ghosts when he isn't dreaming, and safety is an illusion. He can trust no one – not even himself – as he struggles to save his friends, the station, and possibly all of humanity.
439 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 12, 2017
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 30, 2018
This is space mystery/adventure in the classic sense, like Star Trek, and I enjoyed it thoroughly from the beginning to the wonderfully clever end. The story pulled me in right from the opening sentence, with its mention of Jake's "court-ordered nightmare," and when we almost immediately find out Jake is not only a felon but Head of Science on a space station (say what now?!?) I was totally hooked.
The key to a good mystery is to give out neither too much nor too little information, and the author's done this pretty well. About halfway through I was kind of worried; I kept thinking, "There are far too many loose ends here, no way she's going to be able to pull it all together..." But she does it, and in a way that made me go "Aha, now I get it!! Wow, is that cool..." For me, the various pieces fell into place just before each connection was actually revealed, which is the mark of a well-structured mystery: the author doesn't suddenly introduce new stuff to make the ending work so the reader feels cheated and misled, instead all the pieces are there, the necessary information has been given to the reader throughout the story, and then key events make the connections light up in the reader's head and it all makes sense.
The pacing is good -- there was never any point where I got bored, or was tempted to skim ahead. The author does a good job doling out information without falling into the info-dump trap, and does it in ways that convey more than is explicitly stated, which is great. For example, somewhere early on there is mention of the "cross-sickle-star of the Combined Belief system" -- this tells me a whole bunch of things in just eight words: (a) that religion is still around but that (b) it's rather different than the versions we know and (c) has gotten somewhat merged with politics (calling it a sickle vs a crescent evokes Russian communism rather than Islam). Also "Saturmithmas" (which BTW I want to start celebrating).
Most importantly, I liked Jake a lot. He's cynical but not entirely so, smart, curious; he's internally consistent, doesn't do things without reason...I was rooting for him the whole way. His relationship with Con was a lovely bonus :)
And as an archivist, of course, I loved the Historical Society, the pamphlets on folklore, "Earth History Notes," and the coup by "a group of radical librarians and historians" to preserve knowledge on The Interwebz :D
The key to a good mystery is to give out neither too much nor too little information, and the author's done this pretty well. About halfway through I was kind of worried; I kept thinking, "There are far too many loose ends here, no way she's going to be able to pull it all together..." But she does it, and in a way that made me go "Aha, now I get it!! Wow, is that cool..." For me, the various pieces fell into place just before each connection was actually revealed, which is the mark of a well-structured mystery: the author doesn't suddenly introduce new stuff to make the ending work so the reader feels cheated and misled, instead all the pieces are there, the necessary information has been given to the reader throughout the story, and then key events make the connections light up in the reader's head and it all makes sense.
The pacing is good -- there was never any point where I got bored, or was tempted to skim ahead. The author does a good job doling out information without falling into the info-dump trap, and does it in ways that convey more than is explicitly stated, which is great. For example, somewhere early on there is mention of the "cross-sickle-star of the Combined Belief system" -- this tells me a whole bunch of things in just eight words: (a) that religion is still around but that (b) it's rather different than the versions we know and (c) has gotten somewhat merged with politics (calling it a sickle vs a crescent evokes Russian communism rather than Islam). Also "Saturmithmas" (which BTW I want to start celebrating).
Most importantly, I liked Jake a lot. He's cynical but not entirely so, smart, curious; he's internally consistent, doesn't do things without reason...I was rooting for him the whole way. His relationship with Con was a lovely bonus :)
And as an archivist, of course, I loved the Historical Society, the pamphlets on folklore, "Earth History Notes," and the coup by "a group of radical librarians and historians" to preserve knowledge on The Interwebz :D
Displaying 1 of 1 review