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Daughters of Forgotten Light
A floating prison is home to Earth's unwanted people, where they are forgotten... but not yet dead, in this wild science fiction adventure
Deep space penal colony Oubliette, population: scum.
Lena "Horror" Horowitz leads the Daughters of Forgotten Light, one of three vicious gangs fighting for survival on Oubliette. Their fragile truce is shaken when a new shipment arrives from Earth carrying a fresh batch of prisoners and supplies to squabble over. But the delivery includes two new surprises: a drone, and a baby. Earth Senator Linda Dolfuse wants evidence of the bloodthirsty gangs to justify the government finally eradicating the wasters dumped on Oubliette. There's only one problem: the baby in the drone's video may be hers.
Deep space penal colony Oubliette, population: scum.
Lena "Horror" Horowitz leads the Daughters of Forgotten Light, one of three vicious gangs fighting for survival on Oubliette. Their fragile truce is shaken when a new shipment arrives from Earth carrying a fresh batch of prisoners and supplies to squabble over. But the delivery includes two new surprises: a drone, and a baby. Earth Senator Linda Dolfuse wants evidence of the bloodthirsty gangs to justify the government finally eradicating the wasters dumped on Oubliette. There's only one problem: the baby in the drone's video may be hers.
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2018
17 people are currently reading
358 people want to read
About the author
Sean Grigsby
16 books107 followersSean Grigsby is a professional firefighter in central Arkansas, where he writes about lasers, aliens, and guitar battles with the Devil...when he’s not fighting dragons.
Find him at www.seangrigsby.com
Find him at www.seangrigsby.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
July 29, 2019
2 stars
Okay where should I start? It was not good, or at least I didn't enjoy it.
I don't usually read horror, but this one sounded very interesting so I have it a shot.
I didn't understand what was happening most of the time. Too many things were out of place.
The characters were nice, I guess. I like that it has diverse characters.
Would I read it again? - Sadly, no.
Would I recommend it? - It didn't work for me, maybe it works for you.
Okay where should I start? It was not good, or at least I didn't enjoy it.
I don't usually read horror, but this one sounded very interesting so I have it a shot.
I didn't understand what was happening most of the time. Too many things were out of place.
The characters were nice, I guess. I like that it has diverse characters.
Would I read it again? - Sadly, no.
Would I recommend it? - It didn't work for me, maybe it works for you.
August 28, 2018
Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .
This book appealed to me because it is by an author whose work I have had an interest in reading and it is about a prison city in space with gang warfare. Unfortunately I don't think I was the target audience for this one and two issues led me to abandon ship at 25%.
So this book starts with a gang on a "motorcycle" ride through the space prison. Now why would a prison have motorcycles and guns? I was hesitant at the start but decided to go with it. Angry Robot tends to have premises that are not mainstream and it is one of the things I love about them. So the gangs in the prison are on a city-wide truce. But trouble is brewing and the truce is barely hanging on.
One of the main characters, Lena "Horror" Horowitz, leads one of the three gangs in the prison called the Daughters of Forgotten Light. There are two other gangs. One is called the Amazons and is an all-white cannibalistic group. The other is an all-black group called the Onyx Coalition. A supply shipment is coming in and what is in that box will change the status quo of the prison.
So one of the things that is in the box is a baby. Aye mateys. A baby was sent to the prison. This was the first thing that I didn't like. It made absolutely no sense (motorcycles and guns aside). I didn't read the entire blurb when I requested the book worried about spoilers. Well had I read the entire blurb, the two spoilers contained in it may have stopped me from requesting this one.
But it was the second issue that led to the abandonment of the novel. The women in the prison have to be hard to survive. It is literally a prisoner-eat-prisoner kinda world if ye aren't careful. It seems that each gang has six members. In the Daughters of Forgotten Light there is the leader who is called "the head." The others are called the right arm, left arm, right leg, left left leg, and the ass respectively. The ass of course is the newest member, Sarah, who was told, "You're at the end and take all the shit."
Now I understood the gang members are harsh. But the newest member is the subject of cruel hazing pranks. Stupid stuff like being told to stand naked, having cold water thrown over her, etc. I know hazing exists in the world but personally, I think it is pointless and shouldn't exist.
But the main problem of the pecking order was a member called Hurley Girly who used to be at the bottom and has now moved up a step. Hurley Girly is sexually interested in the new girl and is a predator. She doesn't care about Sarah's preferences, physically intimidates her, leers, and makes highly inappropriate comments. The only thing really stopping Hurley Girly from outright assault is the other gang members. And I couldn't stomach watching this person abuse her new status and power. I don't care how harsh the gang is, I don't want to read about abuse and watch it happen. So that was the end of the book for me.
Side note: the first mate claimed me brief description of this book reminded him of a movie called "Escape from New York." Now I haven't seen it but if ye liked that then maybe this be the book for yer tastes!
While this book didn't end up appealing to me, I may be willing to give this author another shot. I am on the fence.
So lastly . . .
Thank you Angry Robot Books!
Check out me other reviews on https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordp...
This book appealed to me because it is by an author whose work I have had an interest in reading and it is about a prison city in space with gang warfare. Unfortunately I don't think I was the target audience for this one and two issues led me to abandon ship at 25%.
So this book starts with a gang on a "motorcycle" ride through the space prison. Now why would a prison have motorcycles and guns? I was hesitant at the start but decided to go with it. Angry Robot tends to have premises that are not mainstream and it is one of the things I love about them. So the gangs in the prison are on a city-wide truce. But trouble is brewing and the truce is barely hanging on.
One of the main characters, Lena "Horror" Horowitz, leads one of the three gangs in the prison called the Daughters of Forgotten Light. There are two other gangs. One is called the Amazons and is an all-white cannibalistic group. The other is an all-black group called the Onyx Coalition. A supply shipment is coming in and what is in that box will change the status quo of the prison.
So one of the things that is in the box is a baby. Aye mateys. A baby was sent to the prison. This was the first thing that I didn't like. It made absolutely no sense (motorcycles and guns aside). I didn't read the entire blurb when I requested the book worried about spoilers. Well had I read the entire blurb, the two spoilers contained in it may have stopped me from requesting this one.
But it was the second issue that led to the abandonment of the novel. The women in the prison have to be hard to survive. It is literally a prisoner-eat-prisoner kinda world if ye aren't careful. It seems that each gang has six members. In the Daughters of Forgotten Light there is the leader who is called "the head." The others are called the right arm, left arm, right leg, left left leg, and the ass respectively. The ass of course is the newest member, Sarah, who was told, "You're at the end and take all the shit."
Now I understood the gang members are harsh. But the newest member is the subject of cruel hazing pranks. Stupid stuff like being told to stand naked, having cold water thrown over her, etc. I know hazing exists in the world but personally, I think it is pointless and shouldn't exist.
But the main problem of the pecking order was a member called Hurley Girly who used to be at the bottom and has now moved up a step. Hurley Girly is sexually interested in the new girl and is a predator. She doesn't care about Sarah's preferences, physically intimidates her, leers, and makes highly inappropriate comments. The only thing really stopping Hurley Girly from outright assault is the other gang members. And I couldn't stomach watching this person abuse her new status and power. I don't care how harsh the gang is, I don't want to read about abuse and watch it happen. So that was the end of the book for me.
Side note: the first mate claimed me brief description of this book reminded him of a movie called "Escape from New York." Now I haven't seen it but if ye liked that then maybe this be the book for yer tastes!
While this book didn't end up appealing to me, I may be willing to give this author another shot. I am on the fence.
So lastly . . .
Thank you Angry Robot Books!
Check out me other reviews on https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordp...
May 12, 2019
Underneath the the multitudes of homages to cheesy sci-fi and 80s B-movies, beneath the corny one-liners and over the top splatter, ducking behind the totally rad Tron/Megaforce motorcycles is a seriously fun and entertaining book, and if the author was going for camp, he hit the bulls eye. Sincerely though, this book throws everything and a kitchen sink at you but is able to maintain coherency with a story that is running on many different levels. I laughed, I didn't cry, I did cheer a bit though and the ending, while a tad rushed, was fitting and exactly what I wanted and expected from its all-over-the-placedness. Government conspiracies? Check! Multiple bad guys and enemies for our heroes to overcome? Check! Cannibal biker mamas that might eat a baby? You'll have to read it to see, I'm not answering that one for ya! Great fun and the cover is a perfect representation of what's inside, check this one out, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
September 12, 2018
Do you ever read a book and feel like you might have liked the storyline better if it was written by someone else? That’s sort of what I felt about Daughters of Forgotten Light.
In a future devastated by an unexpected ice age and constant war over resources, mothers have total control over their under-eighteen children. Once the child is twelve, they can be sent to either the army or, if they’re a girl, to the floating space prison known as the Oubliette. A limited and fixed amount of food is also shipped to the Oubliette, meaning there isn’t enough for all of the new arrivals… Within the Oubliette itself, which lacks any oversight or analog to guards or wardens, biker gangs reign. Lena Horowitz leads the Daughters of Forgotten Light, one of the three principle gangs, which have an uneasy truce. That truce is disrupted when change comes to the Oubliette: the newest shipment of prisoners and supplies contains a baby.
Where to start with Daughters of the Forgotten Light? So much of the novel felt like an attempt to be “gritty” that instead led into an exploitative territory. For instance, something I was looking forward to about Daughters of a Forgotten Light was that it centered on female characters and that I’d heard many of those characters were queer. In particular, I’d heard that one of the main protagonists was an asexual girl. That was true. Sarah, the newest member of the gang, briefly mentions a couple of times that she’s not attracted to anyone, which clearly read as ace to me, even if the word was never used. But ultimately I wasn’t happy with the way her character was handled. As the newest member, she encounters a lot of “sexual harassment as hazing” by the other group members, such the other members tricking her into thinking she has to have sex with the gang head and sending Sarah to her naked. Relatedly, there’s a lesbian gang member, Hurley Girly, who I think was supposed to come off as sexy and flirty who instead came off as a sexual predator. She’s constantly trying to get into the pants of less powerful women and is relentless in her harassment, which like all the other sexual harassment in Daughters of the Forgotten Light, is treated for laughs. Read the Captain’s review for more on Hurley Girly.
But my feelings of “this is exploitative” don’t end there! There’s a couple of other things involving queer characters, and then there’s race and disability too. For instance, the novel starts with some disabled characters being murdered, largely because they are disabled (many of the children sent to the Obulette are disabled, and the gangs tend to chose the abled teens to keep alive). There is a deaf member of the Daughters of the Forgotten Light who is also a woman of color and the only trans character in the book. But here’s the real kicker (and spoiler, I suppose): she’s the first gang member to die. I can’t remember if she’s the only of the five gang members to die… but I think she might be. Her character is practically representative of what I mean when I call the book “exploitative.”
Regarding race, there wasn’t anything as obvious or outright that I noticed. It just seemed like the language around some of the characters of color was a bit… odd. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but it felt like the racial diversity was awkwardly handled. I won’t speak anymore on this, but I’d be happy to read a review by a reviewer of color if anyone has links.
I wasn’t that wowed by the world building, mostly because it felt more about the aesthetic than any sort of interior logic. The underlying economics of sending women to a space prison doesn’t make much sense, and I don’t understand why all genders weren’t being sent to the military. Oh, and in the Obulette, there’s some Australian slang that was a bit much.
So what’s Daughters of the Forgotten Light‘s strength? It does have really good pacing. I probably wouldn’t have finished otherwise, but for the most part, the story zips along. Although, there are some chapters set on Earth following a woman working in the government that just weren’t as interesting as the ones in space prison. I also do appreciate that the author tried to create a diverse cast and included an ace protagonist, even if I ultimately don’t think they were handled well.
Going back to what I said at the beginning of my review, I would have liked a story about women being sent to a space prison if it was written differently, probably by another author. It is entirely possible to write a dark story about marginalized characters that doesn’t come off as exploitative — the work of both Rivers Solomon and Kameron Hurley being excellent examples. Ultimately, I’d skip Daughters of the Forgotten Light and go grab Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion or Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts instead.
Review from The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
In a future devastated by an unexpected ice age and constant war over resources, mothers have total control over their under-eighteen children. Once the child is twelve, they can be sent to either the army or, if they’re a girl, to the floating space prison known as the Oubliette. A limited and fixed amount of food is also shipped to the Oubliette, meaning there isn’t enough for all of the new arrivals… Within the Oubliette itself, which lacks any oversight or analog to guards or wardens, biker gangs reign. Lena Horowitz leads the Daughters of Forgotten Light, one of the three principle gangs, which have an uneasy truce. That truce is disrupted when change comes to the Oubliette: the newest shipment of prisoners and supplies contains a baby.
Where to start with Daughters of the Forgotten Light? So much of the novel felt like an attempt to be “gritty” that instead led into an exploitative territory. For instance, something I was looking forward to about Daughters of a Forgotten Light was that it centered on female characters and that I’d heard many of those characters were queer. In particular, I’d heard that one of the main protagonists was an asexual girl. That was true. Sarah, the newest member of the gang, briefly mentions a couple of times that she’s not attracted to anyone, which clearly read as ace to me, even if the word was never used. But ultimately I wasn’t happy with the way her character was handled. As the newest member, she encounters a lot of “sexual harassment as hazing” by the other group members, such the other members tricking her into thinking she has to have sex with the gang head and sending Sarah to her naked. Relatedly, there’s a lesbian gang member, Hurley Girly, who I think was supposed to come off as sexy and flirty who instead came off as a sexual predator. She’s constantly trying to get into the pants of less powerful women and is relentless in her harassment, which like all the other sexual harassment in Daughters of the Forgotten Light, is treated for laughs. Read the Captain’s review for more on Hurley Girly.
But my feelings of “this is exploitative” don’t end there! There’s a couple of other things involving queer characters, and then there’s race and disability too. For instance, the novel starts with some disabled characters being murdered, largely because they are disabled (many of the children sent to the Obulette are disabled, and the gangs tend to chose the abled teens to keep alive). There is a deaf member of the Daughters of the Forgotten Light who is also a woman of color and the only trans character in the book. But here’s the real kicker (and spoiler, I suppose): she’s the first gang member to die. I can’t remember if she’s the only of the five gang members to die… but I think she might be. Her character is practically representative of what I mean when I call the book “exploitative.”
Regarding race, there wasn’t anything as obvious or outright that I noticed. It just seemed like the language around some of the characters of color was a bit… odd. I don’t know how to put it exactly, but it felt like the racial diversity was awkwardly handled. I won’t speak anymore on this, but I’d be happy to read a review by a reviewer of color if anyone has links.
I wasn’t that wowed by the world building, mostly because it felt more about the aesthetic than any sort of interior logic. The underlying economics of sending women to a space prison doesn’t make much sense, and I don’t understand why all genders weren’t being sent to the military. Oh, and in the Obulette, there’s some Australian slang that was a bit much.
So what’s Daughters of the Forgotten Light‘s strength? It does have really good pacing. I probably wouldn’t have finished otherwise, but for the most part, the story zips along. Although, there are some chapters set on Earth following a woman working in the government that just weren’t as interesting as the ones in space prison. I also do appreciate that the author tried to create a diverse cast and included an ace protagonist, even if I ultimately don’t think they were handled well.
Going back to what I said at the beginning of my review, I would have liked a story about women being sent to a space prison if it was written differently, probably by another author. It is entirely possible to write a dark story about marginalized characters that doesn’t come off as exploitative — the work of both Rivers Solomon and Kameron Hurley being excellent examples. Ultimately, I’d skip Daughters of the Forgotten Light and go grab Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion or Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts instead.
Review from The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
December 22, 2018
Sean Grigsby is a new author on the sci-fi scene, but he's made one hell of a splash over the course of 2018 with a pair of fun, highly readable, wildly different stories issued by Angry Robot Books. He debuted with Smoke Eaters in the spring, a cool bit of urban fantasy science fiction about firefighters versus dragons, and I dug it a lot. By the time Fall 18 rolled around, Grigsby was back on the scene with Daughters of Forgotten Light. And you know, for as much as I enjoyed Smoke Eaters, I liked Daughters of Forgotten Light a hell of a lot more. This book isn't just straight up my alley, it's damn near pulled right from my cerebral cortex.
Here's some reasons I dug this book: Women biker gangs. A prison planet. Cannibals. Political injustice. Issues of bodily autonomy. Diversity and representation.
Hell, just in terms of diversity alone, this book is an A+. The cast is overwhelmingly female, from top to bottom. The president and vice president are both women. The prison warden is a woman. The prisoners are all women. They're straight, gay, transgender, asexual, black, white, Asian, Arabic, etc. They come together in various ways, fight against one another in realistic ways, and rebel together. Each have their differences, and are all very, very human because of it.
The prison world of Daughters of Forgotten Light is very much a women's world, and I dug the sly ways Grigsby changed crass male-default slang to accommodate this Girls Only territory. These ladies don't dick around - literally! At one point, the Daughters' leader, Lena, demands her crew to hurry, telling them "We don't have time for you to vadge around." Instead of "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen," we get "Clean your gash and get ready to dash." I appreciated the attention Grigsby paid to reinforcing the message of this female society, upending even the gender norms we take for granted in our day to day vulgarities.
Daughters of Forgotten Light is science fiction filtered through a strict grindhouse aesthetic. This is very much a 70s exploitation film set to prose, combining some of that particular stylings more recognizable sub-genres, as outlined above but most notably the Women In Prison genre, which we get on two fronts.
Rampant poverty and perpetual war has prompted the United North American Continent to pass legislation allowing parents to sell their children. Boys are sold to the industrial military complex, while women are shipped off-world to the prison planet Oubliette. Of course, nobody knows how bad life is on Oubliette - the world is controlled by biker gangs, the various rivals constantly at each others throats, sometimes literally thanks to the Amazons, a roving band of cannibals. It's unfettered anarchy and violence, totally absent of law and order aside from the occasional truces established by the gangs. On Earth, Senator Dolfuse begins investigating what happens to the shippers, dragging her into an underworld where women and girls are imprisoned and stockpiled.
Although Oubliette is a glassine city, there's an inescapable griminess throughout the whole of Daughters of Forgotten Light. Between the take-no-prisoners internecine warfare of the gangs on Oubliette and the intonations of inescapable poverty and bred-for-profit children on Earth, and the ways those forces have altered societal norms and expectations, Grigsby has crafted a wonderfully engaging and dirty little book here.
This is very much a novel of the Haves versus the Have Nots, with more than a bit of inspired rage against those forces of control and political policies that view human beings as products rather than people. Considering what the Daughters of Forgotten Light are up against it's hard not to root for them and want to see them succeed. They may be a morally compromised band of violent bikers who'd cut your throat for an extra slice of bread, but they ain't got nothing on the world that created them.
[Note: I received an advance reading copy of this title from the publisher, Angry Robot Books, via NetGalley.]
Here's some reasons I dug this book: Women biker gangs. A prison planet. Cannibals. Political injustice. Issues of bodily autonomy. Diversity and representation.
Hell, just in terms of diversity alone, this book is an A+. The cast is overwhelmingly female, from top to bottom. The president and vice president are both women. The prison warden is a woman. The prisoners are all women. They're straight, gay, transgender, asexual, black, white, Asian, Arabic, etc. They come together in various ways, fight against one another in realistic ways, and rebel together. Each have their differences, and are all very, very human because of it.
The prison world of Daughters of Forgotten Light is very much a women's world, and I dug the sly ways Grigsby changed crass male-default slang to accommodate this Girls Only territory. These ladies don't dick around - literally! At one point, the Daughters' leader, Lena, demands her crew to hurry, telling them "We don't have time for you to vadge around." Instead of "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen," we get "Clean your gash and get ready to dash." I appreciated the attention Grigsby paid to reinforcing the message of this female society, upending even the gender norms we take for granted in our day to day vulgarities.
Daughters of Forgotten Light is science fiction filtered through a strict grindhouse aesthetic. This is very much a 70s exploitation film set to prose, combining some of that particular stylings more recognizable sub-genres, as outlined above but most notably the Women In Prison genre, which we get on two fronts.
Rampant poverty and perpetual war has prompted the United North American Continent to pass legislation allowing parents to sell their children. Boys are sold to the industrial military complex, while women are shipped off-world to the prison planet Oubliette. Of course, nobody knows how bad life is on Oubliette - the world is controlled by biker gangs, the various rivals constantly at each others throats, sometimes literally thanks to the Amazons, a roving band of cannibals. It's unfettered anarchy and violence, totally absent of law and order aside from the occasional truces established by the gangs. On Earth, Senator Dolfuse begins investigating what happens to the shippers, dragging her into an underworld where women and girls are imprisoned and stockpiled.
Although Oubliette is a glassine city, there's an inescapable griminess throughout the whole of Daughters of Forgotten Light. Between the take-no-prisoners internecine warfare of the gangs on Oubliette and the intonations of inescapable poverty and bred-for-profit children on Earth, and the ways those forces have altered societal norms and expectations, Grigsby has crafted a wonderfully engaging and dirty little book here.
This is very much a novel of the Haves versus the Have Nots, with more than a bit of inspired rage against those forces of control and political policies that view human beings as products rather than people. Considering what the Daughters of Forgotten Light are up against it's hard not to root for them and want to see them succeed. They may be a morally compromised band of violent bikers who'd cut your throat for an extra slice of bread, but they ain't got nothing on the world that created them.
[Note: I received an advance reading copy of this title from the publisher, Angry Robot Books, via NetGalley.]
November 14, 2018
The first thing that sold me on Daughters of Forgotten Light by Sean Grigsby was the cover – good goddess that's some amazing design right there. The second thing was the title. Then I read the back cover blurb, and I was all over the idea of the story. In a nutshell, it seems as if the earth is rapidly headed towards another ice age; nearly all the men are at the front fighting a war neither side can win; and to combat overpopulation, mothers are given the authority to ship their daughters to a prison known as Oubliette.
As the name suggests, this is a one-way trip. Once they arrive at this space station that initially began life as an estate for the fabulously wealthy, they're left to fend for themselves a la Lord of the Flies. The only responsibility earth takes is to send shipments of "manna" with the next batch of "shippees". Carnage ensues.
What the government didn't bargain for as these women on Oubliette forming a complex social hierarchy and functioning society (after a fashion), using what available technology exists to craft their own tools, weapons and vehicles.
The story is told primarily from the point of view of Lena "Horror" – the leader of the Daughters of Forgotten Light gang on Oubliette, and Dolfuse, a senator back on earth who suffers incredible remorse for having shipped her baby daughter. Both women are leaders, railing against an unjust system, but from opposite ends.
What I loved: The world building. I'm not a huge one for SF – as in I'm incredibly picky about what I'll read – but I really loved the setting. I admit I wasn't hundred percent on board with the way earth's social structure had shifted, but it was a refreshing change from my usual fare. Grigsby piles on the action with a vivid cast of characters. Sarah Pao with her genetically modified blue hair and attitude was one of my favourite characters. This story moves along at a cracking pace, and readers are never allowed to get too comfortable.
On the downside, I feel as if the assorted narrative threads could have been developed a bit more – I finished with the wish that there could have been further depth, that each character didn't quite get the full sense of being pushed to their limits. Perhaps there was too much emphasis placed on the fulfilment of the outer journey rather than the inner. So this was me hovering between giving four or five stars, so I'm going to settle on five, because this was still, in my opinion, a cracking read that I enjoyed thoroughly. And it's a book I'm not going to forget in a hurry. Grigsby's dystopian vision is an adrenaline-fuelled romp with more than enough speed and ultra-violence to satisfy those of you who enjoy their Tarantino with a side order of Sons of Anarchy but on fancier motorcycles.
As the name suggests, this is a one-way trip. Once they arrive at this space station that initially began life as an estate for the fabulously wealthy, they're left to fend for themselves a la Lord of the Flies. The only responsibility earth takes is to send shipments of "manna" with the next batch of "shippees". Carnage ensues.
What the government didn't bargain for as these women on Oubliette forming a complex social hierarchy and functioning society (after a fashion), using what available technology exists to craft their own tools, weapons and vehicles.
The story is told primarily from the point of view of Lena "Horror" – the leader of the Daughters of Forgotten Light gang on Oubliette, and Dolfuse, a senator back on earth who suffers incredible remorse for having shipped her baby daughter. Both women are leaders, railing against an unjust system, but from opposite ends.
What I loved: The world building. I'm not a huge one for SF – as in I'm incredibly picky about what I'll read – but I really loved the setting. I admit I wasn't hundred percent on board with the way earth's social structure had shifted, but it was a refreshing change from my usual fare. Grigsby piles on the action with a vivid cast of characters. Sarah Pao with her genetically modified blue hair and attitude was one of my favourite characters. This story moves along at a cracking pace, and readers are never allowed to get too comfortable.
On the downside, I feel as if the assorted narrative threads could have been developed a bit more – I finished with the wish that there could have been further depth, that each character didn't quite get the full sense of being pushed to their limits. Perhaps there was too much emphasis placed on the fulfilment of the outer journey rather than the inner. So this was me hovering between giving four or five stars, so I'm going to settle on five, because this was still, in my opinion, a cracking read that I enjoyed thoroughly. And it's a book I'm not going to forget in a hurry. Grigsby's dystopian vision is an adrenaline-fuelled romp with more than enough speed and ultra-violence to satisfy those of you who enjoy their Tarantino with a side order of Sons of Anarchy but on fancier motorcycles.
November 21, 2018
Oubliette, prison city, population: forgotten. Unwanted. Worthless. The women society doesn’t want. It’s been Lena Horror’s home for the past ten years. A flimsy truce keeps everyone from killing each other. Keeps the gangs mostly in line. At least, until something unexpected arrives in the quarterly supply drop. Back on Earth, Senator Linda Dolfus has been ordered to find an excuse to wipe the prisoners off of Oubliette to allow good, honest citizens of the United Continent of North America a chance at a better future away from the frozen Earth and its endless war. Seems like a smooth enough job until she sees something on the drone footage that shouldn’t be there, the baby she’d given up.
This is one of those books that I started reading ready to love it. The concept of a prison world ruled by motorcycle gangs where unwanted and misbehaving women are sent to be forgotten, that’s something that has a lot of potential. Unfortunately the writing just doesn’t stand up to the concept. Similarly, the Earth side portions, where corrupt politicians live big while their constituents are often forced to sell their children to Oubliette or the massive unending war just to survive, could have been fascinating. That concept could have carried a book on its own if it had been done well. It just doesn’t. And then, of course, we have the mess with the baby.
The baby thing bothers me, in part because it could have been done so much better, but largely because it lands the book with a bunch of hardened prisoners who all want this helpless kid for what feels like no reason. Each gang is only allowed six members and, even with the treaty keeping outright murder from happening, none of them should be willing to give up one of those slots for something that’s such a handicap against the other two gangs. Of course this means that all three gang leaders want the kid, because reasons? I keep coming back to that. I don’t want to say that they all want the baby because women, but it feels an awful lot like that. The cannibals want her, the all black gang wants her, and Horror wants her. Horror wants the kid mind, not the Daughters as a whole. It also isn’t even like the baby was a secret test and the drone was sent to see how the prisoners would react to her, the drone came way later in the book and existed just long enough to force the two stories together.
The time line is super vague. Three months pass between our introductory supply drop and the one the drone shows up on. That’s three months for both Senator Dolfus on Earth and the prisoners on Oubliette, with it being repeatedly mentioned that there is nothing to do on Oubliette except fighting or having sex. Three months where Horror and the Daughters of Forgotten Light seemingly do nothing except get their new member, Sarah, her motorcycle and her weapon. Then it’s like Horror remembers that the cannibals have that baby she wanted and she’d been itching to break the truce her mentor set up anyway, let’s go take the kid despite having not prepared for a fight at all.
The worst of this is, the three month gap was taken up with Senator Dolfus’ adventures in ill defined guilt and getting the drone on the shipment. She’s probably the single character we spend the most time with, but she feels way less important than the others. The Earth bits would have probably served better as shorter segments that attempted less with the world building, as is, they just felt like they dragged on forever without showing anything for it. It could have been great to see Dolfus checking in more actively with the Vice President, or having her interact with characters that are against shipping, showing her growing awareness and how she changes as a result. That could have been aces.
If we had seen any character development, that would have been great. Most of the women on Oubliette are terribly static, which isn’t helped by the vague timeline because there isn’t really anything for them to grow from. Horror we see being aggressive and murdery, but it feels empty because she’s just like that, either ready for violence or ignoring everything because baby. The new girl goes from being afraid of everything, including the other Daughters, to being jaded and nearly as violent as Horror in the space of something like three paragraphs. She gets what feels like way too much page space talking about how Oubliette has taught her not to trust anyone when we don’t see Oubliette teaching her not to trust. It doesn’t work, especially given that early on Sarah feels like she’s meant to be the reader’s view point into the workings of Oubliette, and we never really get that either.
Even leaving aside the character issues, the world building really isn’t there for me on this one either. There are so many things that feel like they need explanations that just get breezed by. Why are only men sent to the army? Why wasn’t an eye already being kept on Oubliette to make sure that they weren’t just dropping prisoners into an airless void? Why not provide something for the women on Oubliette to do with their lifetime of being stuck in the middle of nowhere? How can the UCNA afford to ship these women to space and fight this massive war, but then food is horribly scarce and the average citizen is in real trouble of needing to sell one of their kids to survive? It’s all very forced feeling, things need to happen so that the plot can exist, but they can’t be gone into deeply enough to feel solid because reasons. I really feels like the author was trying to fit two or three books worth of information and ideas into half a plot.
Daughters of Forgotten Light is a book that I really, really wanted to like. I was excited to start it despite the baby thing in the blurb. I mean, really, space motorcycle gangs and a plot from Earth to wipe them out, that falls right in my wheel house. It just didn’t have nearly enough substance to it, everything felt half done and under baked with a rush to the end that leaves neither a satisfying conclusion nor the possibility of a next time. There were a lot of cool ideas. But then they felt wasted when nothing came of them. I finished the book not caring if anything changed for the better, if anything changed at all. I feel like Sean Grigsby could be a really decent author with a couple more books under his belt and a better feel for character and flow. After this, I’m not likely to be there for it though. Daughters of Forgotten Light gets a one out of five.
I was provided a copy of Daughters of Forgotten Light to review by netGalley.
This is one of those books that I started reading ready to love it. The concept of a prison world ruled by motorcycle gangs where unwanted and misbehaving women are sent to be forgotten, that’s something that has a lot of potential. Unfortunately the writing just doesn’t stand up to the concept. Similarly, the Earth side portions, where corrupt politicians live big while their constituents are often forced to sell their children to Oubliette or the massive unending war just to survive, could have been fascinating. That concept could have carried a book on its own if it had been done well. It just doesn’t. And then, of course, we have the mess with the baby.
The baby thing bothers me, in part because it could have been done so much better, but largely because it lands the book with a bunch of hardened prisoners who all want this helpless kid for what feels like no reason. Each gang is only allowed six members and, even with the treaty keeping outright murder from happening, none of them should be willing to give up one of those slots for something that’s such a handicap against the other two gangs. Of course this means that all three gang leaders want the kid, because reasons? I keep coming back to that. I don’t want to say that they all want the baby because women, but it feels an awful lot like that. The cannibals want her, the all black gang wants her, and Horror wants her. Horror wants the kid mind, not the Daughters as a whole. It also isn’t even like the baby was a secret test and the drone was sent to see how the prisoners would react to her, the drone came way later in the book and existed just long enough to force the two stories together.
The time line is super vague. Three months pass between our introductory supply drop and the one the drone shows up on. That’s three months for both Senator Dolfus on Earth and the prisoners on Oubliette, with it being repeatedly mentioned that there is nothing to do on Oubliette except fighting or having sex. Three months where Horror and the Daughters of Forgotten Light seemingly do nothing except get their new member, Sarah, her motorcycle and her weapon. Then it’s like Horror remembers that the cannibals have that baby she wanted and she’d been itching to break the truce her mentor set up anyway, let’s go take the kid despite having not prepared for a fight at all.
The worst of this is, the three month gap was taken up with Senator Dolfus’ adventures in ill defined guilt and getting the drone on the shipment. She’s probably the single character we spend the most time with, but she feels way less important than the others. The Earth bits would have probably served better as shorter segments that attempted less with the world building, as is, they just felt like they dragged on forever without showing anything for it. It could have been great to see Dolfus checking in more actively with the Vice President, or having her interact with characters that are against shipping, showing her growing awareness and how she changes as a result. That could have been aces.
If we had seen any character development, that would have been great. Most of the women on Oubliette are terribly static, which isn’t helped by the vague timeline because there isn’t really anything for them to grow from. Horror we see being aggressive and murdery, but it feels empty because she’s just like that, either ready for violence or ignoring everything because baby. The new girl goes from being afraid of everything, including the other Daughters, to being jaded and nearly as violent as Horror in the space of something like three paragraphs. She gets what feels like way too much page space talking about how Oubliette has taught her not to trust anyone when we don’t see Oubliette teaching her not to trust. It doesn’t work, especially given that early on Sarah feels like she’s meant to be the reader’s view point into the workings of Oubliette, and we never really get that either.
Even leaving aside the character issues, the world building really isn’t there for me on this one either. There are so many things that feel like they need explanations that just get breezed by. Why are only men sent to the army? Why wasn’t an eye already being kept on Oubliette to make sure that they weren’t just dropping prisoners into an airless void? Why not provide something for the women on Oubliette to do with their lifetime of being stuck in the middle of nowhere? How can the UCNA afford to ship these women to space and fight this massive war, but then food is horribly scarce and the average citizen is in real trouble of needing to sell one of their kids to survive? It’s all very forced feeling, things need to happen so that the plot can exist, but they can’t be gone into deeply enough to feel solid because reasons. I really feels like the author was trying to fit two or three books worth of information and ideas into half a plot.
Daughters of Forgotten Light is a book that I really, really wanted to like. I was excited to start it despite the baby thing in the blurb. I mean, really, space motorcycle gangs and a plot from Earth to wipe them out, that falls right in my wheel house. It just didn’t have nearly enough substance to it, everything felt half done and under baked with a rush to the end that leaves neither a satisfying conclusion nor the possibility of a next time. There were a lot of cool ideas. But then they felt wasted when nothing came of them. I finished the book not caring if anything changed for the better, if anything changed at all. I feel like Sean Grigsby could be a really decent author with a couple more books under his belt and a better feel for character and flow. After this, I’m not likely to be there for it though. Daughters of Forgotten Light gets a one out of five.
I was provided a copy of Daughters of Forgotten Light to review by netGalley.
November 10, 2020
I picked this up looking for a fun distraction, and instead got a disturbing political lecture. The thinly-drawn setting and characters just got thinner as the book went on, until by the end I felt like this post-apocalyptic world and its inhabitants existed only as a metaphor, used by the author to illustrate the evils of a society that allows abortion in the name of personal choice.
Make of the politics what you will, but there's little that turns me off as much as fiction that tries to lecture the reader about reality. What's the point? And the nature of this lecture was particularly unsettling. While I can't know the author's mind, the text gave numerous indications of being guided by a very specific animus toward women who have abortions, and lawmakers who support a woman's right to choose. Given how clearly Grigsby maps his metaphor onto the real world (where, sadly, the debate over these issues still inspires real violence) the book's final scene, in which (spoiler alert) the heroes massacre America's all-female congress, was disturbing in ways that had nothing to do with fiction.
Indeed, while Grigsby's world of kickass female space bikers and women presidents at first seems feminist, by the end I wasn't so sure. After all, this is a dystopia. The female leaders Grigsby portrays preside over societies that are truly monstrous: morally repugnant, deeply corrupt, and on top of it all, barely functional. And they themselves are almost universally unpleasant: either heartless villains, emotionally damaged to the point of insanity, or both. And in this horror show, men get off scot free: they appear only as innocent victims, sent off to die in some endless, pointless, 1984-style war by the evil matriarchs. It seems at least worth asking whether this is feminism, or misogyny wrapped in girl-power.
Daughters is full of nods to other kinds of representation -- it has characters of many races and religions, gay, straight and transgender, and with various kinds of disabilities. At first, that thrilled me… but in the context of all of the above, it started to feel like tokenism… or worse, like camouflage for a poison pill.
I tend toward extreme caution when applying identity politics to fiction, but this felt like one of those edge cases that illustrate why people get upset about such things. It looked a lot like a male writer taking on the voices of female characters for the specific purpose of explaining to real women why they're wrong in their political views. That seems like the kind of thing worth getting a bit upset about … or better still, just not reading.
I don't use star ratings, but I can't recommend this book to anyone.
Make of the politics what you will, but there's little that turns me off as much as fiction that tries to lecture the reader about reality. What's the point? And the nature of this lecture was particularly unsettling. While I can't know the author's mind, the text gave numerous indications of being guided by a very specific animus toward women who have abortions, and lawmakers who support a woman's right to choose. Given how clearly Grigsby maps his metaphor onto the real world (where, sadly, the debate over these issues still inspires real violence) the book's final scene, in which (spoiler alert) the heroes massacre America's all-female congress, was disturbing in ways that had nothing to do with fiction.
Indeed, while Grigsby's world of kickass female space bikers and women presidents at first seems feminist, by the end I wasn't so sure. After all, this is a dystopia. The female leaders Grigsby portrays preside over societies that are truly monstrous: morally repugnant, deeply corrupt, and on top of it all, barely functional. And they themselves are almost universally unpleasant: either heartless villains, emotionally damaged to the point of insanity, or both. And in this horror show, men get off scot free: they appear only as innocent victims, sent off to die in some endless, pointless, 1984-style war by the evil matriarchs. It seems at least worth asking whether this is feminism, or misogyny wrapped in girl-power.
Daughters is full of nods to other kinds of representation -- it has characters of many races and religions, gay, straight and transgender, and with various kinds of disabilities. At first, that thrilled me… but in the context of all of the above, it started to feel like tokenism… or worse, like camouflage for a poison pill.
I tend toward extreme caution when applying identity politics to fiction, but this felt like one of those edge cases that illustrate why people get upset about such things. It looked a lot like a male writer taking on the voices of female characters for the specific purpose of explaining to real women why they're wrong in their political views. That seems like the kind of thing worth getting a bit upset about … or better still, just not reading.
I don't use star ratings, but I can't recommend this book to anyone.
June 24, 2018
A punky, pulpy Blade Runner-feeling, Gangs of New York-feuding, all-girl fighting, motorcycle-riding far-future Sci Fi.
Not entirely without its issues, but it's a fun enough ride that you won't mind. Excellent diversity and some really well thought out elements make this fairly short book a breeze to read.
Not entirely without its issues, but it's a fun enough ride that you won't mind. Excellent diversity and some really well thought out elements make this fairly short book a breeze to read.
January 21, 2019
This book aggravated me, but I was determined to finish it because I spent good money on it.
The author seems to think that not telling you things means we’ll be hooked on the mystery. Not so. There was no character building, everyone was simply whatever stereotype was handy. And in a 350 some odd page book, we weren’t told why or how people were getting consigned to the Oubliette until something like page 266. I guess it was kind of like reading a storyboard for a screenplay, where they will expect the actors will come up with a backstory, so why bother putting it in the script?
I don’t know, this was awful.
The author seems to think that not telling you things means we’ll be hooked on the mystery. Not so. There was no character building, everyone was simply whatever stereotype was handy. And in a 350 some odd page book, we weren’t told why or how people were getting consigned to the Oubliette until something like page 266. I guess it was kind of like reading a storyboard for a screenplay, where they will expect the actors will come up with a backstory, so why bother putting it in the script?
I don’t know, this was awful.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 14, 2018
It was bad. I really didn't find a world built on women tearing each other down and backstabbing very entertaining or worthwhile.
May 14, 2019
Laughably bad.
October 8, 2018
My friends know I'm not crazy big on sci-fi, but Sean's a cool dude and he asked me to read this so I did.
And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a different kind of futuristic sci-fi bent to it with a Grindhouse type feel.
When I first finished it I wasn't happy with the abrupt ending, but the more I thought about it the more I thought it worked perfectly.
Having read this AND Smoke Eaters, I have to say that I think Sean Grigsby's strength as a writer comes from his ability to grab you and drag you along with the story.
Once he gets going there's no getting off that ride until the story is done. As someone who reads a lot of books both for pleasure and for business, I appreciate that.
There is nothing worse than a book that drags and doesn't seem to go anywhere.
If I liked this book as much as I did as a non sci-fi person, then I would definitely recommend it to anybody who loves sci-fi.
And I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It has a different kind of futuristic sci-fi bent to it with a Grindhouse type feel.
When I first finished it I wasn't happy with the abrupt ending, but the more I thought about it the more I thought it worked perfectly.
Having read this AND Smoke Eaters, I have to say that I think Sean Grigsby's strength as a writer comes from his ability to grab you and drag you along with the story.
Once he gets going there's no getting off that ride until the story is done. As someone who reads a lot of books both for pleasure and for business, I appreciate that.
There is nothing worse than a book that drags and doesn't seem to go anywhere.
If I liked this book as much as I did as a non sci-fi person, then I would definitely recommend it to anybody who loves sci-fi.
June 27, 2018
I read a galley and blurbed it.
October 26, 2018
okay. so.
daughters of forgotten light has a pretty cool setting - it's an all-female prison in another planet called oubliette. here's how it plays into the story: earth has entered another ice age and is deep into another never-ending pointless war,and to solve the overpopulation issues the government has decreed that mothers have complete rights over their children's life until they turn eighteen, and from the moment they turn 12, said mothers can either sell their sons into the military, or ship their daughters off to oubliette.
we follow one of three biker gangs who rule over the prison world, the daughters of forgotten light. their leader, lena "horror" horowitz is a take-no-shit slightly sociopathic woman who was sent to the prison some ten years ago. as we meet them, the gangs are currently in a city-wide truce. but something happens to disrupt the """peace""" they've achieved: when a new shipment comes in with new girls and food, a baby comes along with them.
i personally didn't like this very much. there's very little personality in any of the characters, other than "they're angry" and "they're crazy" and it got old reading about basically the same person recycled after a while.
and here's something that actually pissed me off a little: this is a book with a basically all-female cast, save for two male characters who show up a couple of times, and you could clearly tell all these women were written by a dude. from the stereotypical lesbian predator, to the deaf trans lady, to the ace new girl, it just felt like the author was trying to check all of the diversity bingo cards and cramming all of them up in the smallest amount of pages, but didn't actually know what he was doing. the way most of these women expressed their sexualities and their feelings about motherhood, it was pretty obvious that a man was behind each and every single one of their words.
to top it all of, i just didn't like the pacing. basically nothing happens through 70% of the novel and every chapters feels like something completely disconnected. then in the last few chapters all shit goes to hell and everything gets solved in like, 80 pages. i was so annoyed.
it might be a it's-not-you-it's-me case (i have a shelf just for that). but honestly, i think this is just one of those times when a white man thinks that he knows what women sound/act/think like and ends up failing. i initially gave this 3 stars because, granted, i enjoyed the very last chapter. but i truly think it should be rated lower than that.
daughters of forgotten light has a pretty cool setting - it's an all-female prison in another planet called oubliette. here's how it plays into the story: earth has entered another ice age and is deep into another never-ending pointless war,and to solve the overpopulation issues the government has decreed that mothers have complete rights over their children's life until they turn eighteen, and from the moment they turn 12, said mothers can either sell their sons into the military, or ship their daughters off to oubliette.
we follow one of three biker gangs who rule over the prison world, the daughters of forgotten light. their leader, lena "horror" horowitz is a take-no-shit slightly sociopathic woman who was sent to the prison some ten years ago. as we meet them, the gangs are currently in a city-wide truce. but something happens to disrupt the """peace""" they've achieved: when a new shipment comes in with new girls and food, a baby comes along with them.
i personally didn't like this very much. there's very little personality in any of the characters, other than "they're angry" and "they're crazy" and it got old reading about basically the same person recycled after a while.
and here's something that actually pissed me off a little: this is a book with a basically all-female cast, save for two male characters who show up a couple of times, and you could clearly tell all these women were written by a dude. from the stereotypical lesbian predator, to the deaf trans lady, to the ace new girl, it just felt like the author was trying to check all of the diversity bingo cards and cramming all of them up in the smallest amount of pages, but didn't actually know what he was doing. the way most of these women expressed their sexualities and their feelings about motherhood, it was pretty obvious that a man was behind each and every single one of their words.
to top it all of, i just didn't like the pacing. basically nothing happens through 70% of the novel and every chapters feels like something completely disconnected. then in the last few chapters all shit goes to hell and everything gets solved in like, 80 pages. i was so annoyed.
it might be a it's-not-you-it's-me case (i have a shelf just for that). but honestly, i think this is just one of those times when a white man thinks that he knows what women sound/act/think like and ends up failing. i initially gave this 3 stars because, granted, i enjoyed the very last chapter. but i truly think it should be rated lower than that.
August 30, 2018
WELL DAMN I BLOODY LOVE THIS BOOK.
I mean for the cover alone is amazing but damn that story was so utterly gripping I utterly adored it. It's everything I've ever wanted in a Sci Fi book and I would love more.
I've never read such a diverse cast before
-Fearless and brutal leader with down syndrome
-Deaf transgender cutie
-Asian main character with cool modified blue hair and a conscience
-Sexually frustrated lesbians
Oh and don't forget the...
-Space cannibals
-Space prison
-Bike gang in space
-Tron bikes
-Crazy bitches
-Glorious Sci Fi world building
- Cool as fuk laser guns
Honestly to thankful for this book it helped me get out of a huge reading slump that I was having and honestly as soon as I read that first page I knew I was not going to be able to put it down. I devoured it in one sitting and damn do I want more. This book was just so freaking interesting and I utterly adored it. The characters were amazing and basically anything with bad ass women and ruthless killing is my jam so I was game from the start. Such a unique story and I don't think I will be able to stop thinking about it.
I mean for the cover alone is amazing but damn that story was so utterly gripping I utterly adored it. It's everything I've ever wanted in a Sci Fi book and I would love more.
I've never read such a diverse cast before
-Fearless and brutal leader with down syndrome
-Deaf transgender cutie
-Asian main character with cool modified blue hair and a conscience
-Sexually frustrated lesbians
Oh and don't forget the...
-Space cannibals
-Space prison
-Bike gang in space
-Tron bikes
-Crazy bitches
-Glorious Sci Fi world building
- Cool as fuk laser guns
Honestly to thankful for this book it helped me get out of a huge reading slump that I was having and honestly as soon as I read that first page I knew I was not going to be able to put it down. I devoured it in one sitting and damn do I want more. This book was just so freaking interesting and I utterly adored it. The characters were amazing and basically anything with bad ass women and ruthless killing is my jam so I was game from the start. Such a unique story and I don't think I will be able to stop thinking about it.
July 22, 2018
Take all the best bits from Mad Max Fury Road. Gender switch all the cast of Escape from New York, but keep all the 'snark', throw in the blazing neon colour (and bikes?) from Tron... set it off planet.
Persist, Resist, This Girl Can all apply. This is the book you've been waiting for.
Add more awesome. More diverse.
More action. All the pace.
Add more again.
It doesn't pander. It is violent.
Read it.
Full review to follow...
Persist, Resist, This Girl Can all apply. This is the book you've been waiting for.
Add more awesome. More diverse.
More action. All the pace.
Add more again.
It doesn't pander. It is violent.
Read it.
Full review to follow...
September 13, 2019
This was obviously written by a man who enjoys the kinds of female characters other men write. It was cliche and ridiculous instead of fun and insulting at the way each woman embodied a thin veneer of a female archetype. I don't enjoy this writer at all.
August 21, 2018
Have you ever watched one of those Exploitation movies from the 70s? I've seen a few and wow does this book give off a similar vibe--grisly deaths, prison life, gangs, violence, sticking it to the man, etc. It does avoid the worst aspects of the genre but I have some mixed feelings about it nonetheless.
Daughters of Forgotten Light centers around the lives of Lena "Horror" Horowitz and the members of her biker gang on the space prison Oubliette. Earth has finally felt the full effects of climate change and is experiencing a new ice age, leaving North America and Asia contained in separate protective domes and locked in perpetual combat over resources. In this dystopian hellscape population control is the norm and women are regularly sent to Oubliette because their parents cannot afford to keep them or they have some sort of disability as well as for run of the mill criminal activity. Things get crazy when a baby shows up in a supply shipment and a gang war starts over who gets to keep her. Alternating chapters told from the POV of a senator on earth keep the reader informed about backstory and fill in some world building, but the plot lines are less compelling than whats happening in space prison.
First of all this books gets lots of points for diversity and inclusivity. There are only 3 men in the whole book, and they appear for about 7 scenes collectively. Beyond that just about every character is diverse in some way--race/ethnicity, disability, sexuality--you name it, there's probably a character representing it. But I can't help feeling Grigsby didn't really utilize the diversity in any way and several representations are shallow at best. For example the lesbian character Hurley Girly pretty much exists just to be a lesbian, talk about being a lesbian, hit on other members of the gang, and take part in gang fights. It was basically her only defining quality which was a bummer because I would have loved to know her as a 3 dimensional character rather than a walking sexuality. The majority of the gang members were represented this way--not really a stereotype, but the diversity felt tacked on and not really part of the characters.
The world building was really cool. Oubliette was a believable place with an interesting, if brutal, culture. It's a fun place to read about if you like lawlessness and every-woman-for-herself hardscrabble existences with plenty of violence. There's cannibals! And motorcycles! And laser guns! Plenty of blood and guts and all that fun stuff. Earth, by compassion, felt a bit flat. Politicians are evil, there's an attempted coup that never feels fully articulated and the Senator character just sort of exists to move the plot along. The effects of climate change are hinted at (food quality, the war, etc) but never really explored in depth. Overall Earth could have been handled a bit better imo.
Regardless of location, all the characters lacked real emotional depth. Backstories were flat, any emotions passed within a page or two without any lasting impact, and supposedly deeply felt relationships were less than believable. For example: A major character gets chopped up into several pieces and nailed to the wall by a rival gang. Murder victim's lover is deeply traumatized--pacing, talking to herself, generally losing it--for one scene. The next time we see her she seems to have totally moved past it and it's barely mentioned again.
Sidenote: why don't women get sent to the army??? We have women in the army now, so it seems strange that that would change if we were involved in a continental war for survival. Wouldn't having all available citizens used for the war effort make more sense? In DOFL ALL the "undesirable" men go to the army and ALL the "undesirable" women go to Oubliette. But if a family is getting rid of a daughter because they can't afford her, why can't she go fight in the pointless war rather than launching her into space? Maybe I'm being nit picky in my dystopian logic, but it seemed unnecessarily black and white to me.
DOFL felt like a really "fluffy" dystopia--all style, little substance. If you're looking for an action packed blood-and-guts adventure and don't feel like thinking too much, it's probably a great pick. If you're looking for emotional heft and a deep dive into the issues facing humanity in a dystopian setting, you'll probably be disappointed.
Daughters of Forgotten Light centers around the lives of Lena "Horror" Horowitz and the members of her biker gang on the space prison Oubliette. Earth has finally felt the full effects of climate change and is experiencing a new ice age, leaving North America and Asia contained in separate protective domes and locked in perpetual combat over resources. In this dystopian hellscape population control is the norm and women are regularly sent to Oubliette because their parents cannot afford to keep them or they have some sort of disability as well as for run of the mill criminal activity. Things get crazy when a baby shows up in a supply shipment and a gang war starts over who gets to keep her. Alternating chapters told from the POV of a senator on earth keep the reader informed about backstory and fill in some world building, but the plot lines are less compelling than whats happening in space prison.
First of all this books gets lots of points for diversity and inclusivity. There are only 3 men in the whole book, and they appear for about 7 scenes collectively. Beyond that just about every character is diverse in some way--race/ethnicity, disability, sexuality--you name it, there's probably a character representing it. But I can't help feeling Grigsby didn't really utilize the diversity in any way and several representations are shallow at best. For example the lesbian character Hurley Girly pretty much exists just to be a lesbian, talk about being a lesbian, hit on other members of the gang, and take part in gang fights. It was basically her only defining quality which was a bummer because I would have loved to know her as a 3 dimensional character rather than a walking sexuality. The majority of the gang members were represented this way--not really a stereotype, but the diversity felt tacked on and not really part of the characters.
The world building was really cool. Oubliette was a believable place with an interesting, if brutal, culture. It's a fun place to read about if you like lawlessness and every-woman-for-herself hardscrabble existences with plenty of violence. There's cannibals! And motorcycles! And laser guns! Plenty of blood and guts and all that fun stuff. Earth, by compassion, felt a bit flat. Politicians are evil, there's an attempted coup that never feels fully articulated and the Senator character just sort of exists to move the plot along. The effects of climate change are hinted at (food quality, the war, etc) but never really explored in depth. Overall Earth could have been handled a bit better imo.
Regardless of location, all the characters lacked real emotional depth. Backstories were flat, any emotions passed within a page or two without any lasting impact, and supposedly deeply felt relationships were less than believable. For example: A major character gets chopped up into several pieces and nailed to the wall by a rival gang. Murder victim's lover is deeply traumatized--pacing, talking to herself, generally losing it--for one scene. The next time we see her she seems to have totally moved past it and it's barely mentioned again.
Sidenote: why don't women get sent to the army??? We have women in the army now, so it seems strange that that would change if we were involved in a continental war for survival. Wouldn't having all available citizens used for the war effort make more sense? In DOFL ALL the "undesirable" men go to the army and ALL the "undesirable" women go to Oubliette. But if a family is getting rid of a daughter because they can't afford her, why can't she go fight in the pointless war rather than launching her into space? Maybe I'm being nit picky in my dystopian logic, but it seemed unnecessarily black and white to me.
DOFL felt like a really "fluffy" dystopia--all style, little substance. If you're looking for an action packed blood-and-guts adventure and don't feel like thinking too much, it's probably a great pick. If you're looking for emotional heft and a deep dive into the issues facing humanity in a dystopian setting, you'll probably be disappointed.
October 19, 2018
See this and many more reviews on Brian's Book Blog
Extremely Poignant Cyberpunk Sci-Fi
I’ve had this one since I requested it as an ARC – unfortunately life got in the way and I wasn’t able to finish it in time (or even near pre-release). But, I’m glad that I checked this one out. It was a well thought out adventure.
I honestly picked this up synopsis-unread because of Sean’s first book Smoke Eaters. I loved that book so much that I knew I needed to read whatever else he put up. Plus, check out that sweet cover. It’s awesome, isn’t it?
Daughters of Forgotten Light tells a story of a space colony where girls are sent by mothers and families who don’t want them anymore. They are sent up to pay debts. They are sent up because the girls are considered broken or other incredibly messed up reasons.
Grigsby throws in a lot of the political turmoil that our country is currently going through into Daughters. He talks a lot about “a mothers right to choose” and then about the regrets (or not) associated with making a life-altering decision. I won’t get into the major pros and cons of this approach but know that this book was needed. And reading it around the time of the whole Kavanaugh debacle – made it even more poignant.
Daughters is part thriller, part political, part sci-fi, and a big part cyberpunk. The characters in it were real and memorable. The stories they told were unique and needed. The book itself was a blast to read – I finished it in a couple days and I’m glad I picked it up on audio.
Honestly, I can’t really talk about any of the plot because it’ll give away too much. Just know you’re in for Tron-like bike riding, girls/women who know exactly what they want, cannibals, and a corrupted political system.
Extremely Poignant Cyberpunk Sci-Fi
I’ve had this one since I requested it as an ARC – unfortunately life got in the way and I wasn’t able to finish it in time (or even near pre-release). But, I’m glad that I checked this one out. It was a well thought out adventure.
I honestly picked this up synopsis-unread because of Sean’s first book Smoke Eaters. I loved that book so much that I knew I needed to read whatever else he put up. Plus, check out that sweet cover. It’s awesome, isn’t it?
Daughters of Forgotten Light tells a story of a space colony where girls are sent by mothers and families who don’t want them anymore. They are sent up to pay debts. They are sent up because the girls are considered broken or other incredibly messed up reasons.
Grigsby throws in a lot of the political turmoil that our country is currently going through into Daughters. He talks a lot about “a mothers right to choose” and then about the regrets (or not) associated with making a life-altering decision. I won’t get into the major pros and cons of this approach but know that this book was needed. And reading it around the time of the whole Kavanaugh debacle – made it even more poignant.
Daughters is part thriller, part political, part sci-fi, and a big part cyberpunk. The characters in it were real and memorable. The stories they told were unique and needed. The book itself was a blast to read – I finished it in a couple days and I’m glad I picked it up on audio.
Honestly, I can’t really talk about any of the plot because it’ll give away too much. Just know you’re in for Tron-like bike riding, girls/women who know exactly what they want, cannibals, and a corrupted political system.
July 12, 2020
Great world building, a future society that feels all too plausible given our current climate, and a ton of bad-ass women - what's not to like?
It's violent, bloody, graphic, and vicious. This isn't a bubble-gum breezy read. It will make you consider things that are not pretty, but that feel like they could really happen in some fashion or another. Maybe not to the extreme taken here, but...maybe...
This book will stay with me, the concepts and characters will linger in my mind for a long time. And the final paragraph will make me smile and cheer for weeks.
This book probably won't be everyone's cup of tea. But, in today's world, in this moment, it certainly was mine.
It's violent, bloody, graphic, and vicious. This isn't a bubble-gum breezy read. It will make you consider things that are not pretty, but that feel like they could really happen in some fashion or another. Maybe not to the extreme taken here, but...maybe...
This book will stay with me, the concepts and characters will linger in my mind for a long time. And the final paragraph will make me smile and cheer for weeks.
This book probably won't be everyone's cup of tea. But, in today's world, in this moment, it certainly was mine.
September 6, 2018
Take Sons of Anarchy, cross over to Lord of the Flies, then stage it in Escape from New York but in space. Add in light cycles and Tron throwing disks and you're nearly there to this novel.
Earth is dying as a new ice age is making its presence known. The US continent is in a forever war with, well, basically everyone else that's still alive over environmental shielding technology that's currently keeping people alive. The war is all consuming of people and resources. This is a place where it's one child per family (unless you're filthy rich, obviously). The government has ruled that anyone under the age of 18 is essentially property of their mother. They can sell you to the government to fight in the military or if a girl be shipped off to a off-planet dumping ground. "Food" is artificial vat grown muck and that's sent to the dumping ground along with the new arrivals. So, imagine the sort of civilisation started by 10-18 year old girls abandoned by their families and dumped on a barely survivable space station with no hope of return. Don't forget they're angry, very very angry.
When you get to the last chapter you'll see that for the author this must have been every cathartic to write.
Earth is dying as a new ice age is making its presence known. The US continent is in a forever war with, well, basically everyone else that's still alive over environmental shielding technology that's currently keeping people alive. The war is all consuming of people and resources. This is a place where it's one child per family (unless you're filthy rich, obviously). The government has ruled that anyone under the age of 18 is essentially property of their mother. They can sell you to the government to fight in the military or if a girl be shipped off to a off-planet dumping ground. "Food" is artificial vat grown muck and that's sent to the dumping ground along with the new arrivals. So, imagine the sort of civilisation started by 10-18 year old girls abandoned by their families and dumped on a barely survivable space station with no hope of return. Don't forget they're angry, very very angry.
When you get to the last chapter you'll see that for the author this must have been every cathartic to write.
June 29, 2019
This book was fucking great. I don't know why it hasn't been optioned for Netflix yet, as I think they would be the perfect medium to bring Horror and the rest of the gang to life. Everything you've ever read about this book explains it. Brutal. Bloody. Brilliant. Mr. Grigsby, I should've read this earlier. And I implore anyone who is on the fence about this book to hop down and start reading.
June 26, 2018
This novel is somewhere between the Barsoom novels, the 70s movie Warriors, and the comic Bitch Planet. I really enjoyed the nonstop action, implausible technology, cursing, and general insanity. It was a nice break from my diet of "normal" Science Fiction and Fantasy.
January 14, 2020
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Good plot line and interesting characters but it felt kind of rushed towards the end. It could easily have been turned into two books if the last quarter was drawn out a bit and add a bit more detail here and there. There was a big sciency thing left unexplained which kid of bugged me but but really its totally irrelevant to the story so I'm kind of nitpicking.
June 8, 2021
I'm going to have to recommend you all skip this one. It's bad in all possible ways.
January 7, 2024
This book was solidly okay, it was so close to being good. I liked the plot and the ideas, the characters just felt rushed and there was no growth or anything.
September 7, 2018
The all female residents of a space Australia (called The Oubliette) prepare to take vengeance on the folks on Earth who sent them there after a baby arrives with the latest shipment of unwanted ypung women and girls.
Daughters of the Forgotten Light is a fast-paced science fiction whizbang of a tale. Great characters; plenty of good, clean (and not-so-clean) action and a few ideas and a touch of satire.
Well worth checking out.
Daughters of the Forgotten Light is a fast-paced science fiction whizbang of a tale. Great characters; plenty of good, clean (and not-so-clean) action and a few ideas and a touch of satire.
Well worth checking out.
August 27, 2018
Phew!
This is a mad, bad, dangerous dystopian adult scif fi that is, at times, hard to handle. What I mean by that is that as you read it, you wonder… can this happen and the frightful answer is YES. Full of violence and anger, this is a book about the darkness that sits in us all, and what is created when government gives people an “easy” way to limit population growth and get rid of criminals at the same time. By sending them (problems) away – out of sight, out of mind. And it’s all completely legal.
The women – girls – the unwilling, and sometimes innocent Forgotten Ones are sent to another planet on a one way trip to hell. Because it is hell. A hell where you fight to survive and to survive is to become Death itself. Limited, unpalatable food, no rules and no authority turns girls into monsters. And yet… they are still capable of love and are even able to form unbreakable bonds by joining, of all things, motorcycle gangs.
I had a strong taste of Mad Max- Fury Road (with a twist of Water World.) A multi POV story full of strong, remarkable, dangerous women.
This is a dark, bitter hit of reality that exposes the what if… What if we were thrown away, discarded like trash and forgotten? What would we do to survive?
A brilliantly written book by Sean Grigsby with an end you won’t see coming. A gripping tale with deadly, dangerous, powerful female characters who are impossible to forget. Pre-order it now.
This is a mad, bad, dangerous dystopian adult scif fi that is, at times, hard to handle. What I mean by that is that as you read it, you wonder… can this happen and the frightful answer is YES. Full of violence and anger, this is a book about the darkness that sits in us all, and what is created when government gives people an “easy” way to limit population growth and get rid of criminals at the same time. By sending them (problems) away – out of sight, out of mind. And it’s all completely legal.
The women – girls – the unwilling, and sometimes innocent Forgotten Ones are sent to another planet on a one way trip to hell. Because it is hell. A hell where you fight to survive and to survive is to become Death itself. Limited, unpalatable food, no rules and no authority turns girls into monsters. And yet… they are still capable of love and are even able to form unbreakable bonds by joining, of all things, motorcycle gangs.
I had a strong taste of Mad Max- Fury Road (with a twist of Water World.) A multi POV story full of strong, remarkable, dangerous women.
This is a dark, bitter hit of reality that exposes the what if… What if we were thrown away, discarded like trash and forgotten? What would we do to survive?
A brilliantly written book by Sean Grigsby with an end you won’t see coming. A gripping tale with deadly, dangerous, powerful female characters who are impossible to forget. Pre-order it now.
August 6, 2018
*Book received via NetGalley for an honest review.
Long story short, this is a book that shows multiple ways of being a bad ass woman. Each character perspective we get, Senator Linda Dolfuse, Lena "Horror" Horowitz, Sarah Pao, each of them is a bad ass in their own right. Admittedly Dofluse and Pao kinda need some time to grow into it, but when they get there, you're rooting for them. Lena is introduced as the leader of the gang Daughters of Forgotten Light, maintaining her cool when confronted by the other gangs, the Amazons and the Onyx Coalition. She's got your attention right from the start.
I'll admit, I thought the whole baby-triggering-maternal-instincts would be a worn out stereotype at play, but it really only ended up being a couple of characters triggered. Heck, for some of the women, the baby was just something new to break the monotony. The book does focus on women characters because there's an international war going on and all men, or boys sold by their parents, are shipped off to the military. That means women make up the remaining roles, government, business and other.
Oh yeah, in this world, parents legally own their children. At the age of 11 they can have their children shipped off to join the military or to Oubliette. Some parents are forced to do this to pay their debts. Others do this because they can't handle the kid. One of the first cases we see of this is in the latest shipment of girls to Oubliette. A little girl who showed symptoms of autism. It was guessed she was shipped out because her parents couldn't handle raising her. Other times it's simply if the child does something the parents disagree with. Spangler knew his parents would've sent him to the military if they found out he was gay.
I have no problems saying that the world this took place in was incredibly interesting. Not just the dystopian stuff. In Oubliette, everything is made from glass. Their motorbikes (which run silent) are completely glass. Even their leather is made from glass! It's something different that I absolutely loved. Then there were the weapons that the gangs had, called rangs (short for boomerangs because the ammunition comes back to you). It was definitely something different.
I will warn you, this is not a book for the faint of stomach. It's not grossly detailed, but there is a lot of fighting, blood and cannibalism. Don't worry, only one gang consists of cannibals and the book does actually cover some of the health problems associated with that diet. But, yeah, be prepared for blood, foul language and violence.
In case you can't tell from how long this review is, I really did enjoy this book. And the ending is quite what I wanted, but I was very happy with it. 4.5 hoots!
Long story short, this is a book that shows multiple ways of being a bad ass woman. Each character perspective we get, Senator Linda Dolfuse, Lena "Horror" Horowitz, Sarah Pao, each of them is a bad ass in their own right. Admittedly Dofluse and Pao kinda need some time to grow into it, but when they get there, you're rooting for them. Lena is introduced as the leader of the gang Daughters of Forgotten Light, maintaining her cool when confronted by the other gangs, the Amazons and the Onyx Coalition. She's got your attention right from the start.
I'll admit, I thought the whole baby-triggering-maternal-instincts would be a worn out stereotype at play, but it really only ended up being a couple of characters triggered. Heck, for some of the women, the baby was just something new to break the monotony. The book does focus on women characters because there's an international war going on and all men, or boys sold by their parents, are shipped off to the military. That means women make up the remaining roles, government, business and other.
Oh yeah, in this world, parents legally own their children. At the age of 11 they can have their children shipped off to join the military or to Oubliette. Some parents are forced to do this to pay their debts. Others do this because they can't handle the kid. One of the first cases we see of this is in the latest shipment of girls to Oubliette. A little girl who showed symptoms of autism. It was guessed she was shipped out because her parents couldn't handle raising her. Other times it's simply if the child does something the parents disagree with. Spangler knew his parents would've sent him to the military if they found out he was gay.
I have no problems saying that the world this took place in was incredibly interesting. Not just the dystopian stuff. In Oubliette, everything is made from glass. Their motorbikes (which run silent) are completely glass. Even their leather is made from glass! It's something different that I absolutely loved. Then there were the weapons that the gangs had, called rangs (short for boomerangs because the ammunition comes back to you). It was definitely something different.
I will warn you, this is not a book for the faint of stomach. It's not grossly detailed, but there is a lot of fighting, blood and cannibalism. Don't worry, only one gang consists of cannibals and the book does actually cover some of the health problems associated with that diet. But, yeah, be prepared for blood, foul language and violence.
In case you can't tell from how long this review is, I really did enjoy this book. And the ending is quite what I wanted, but I was very happy with it. 4.5 hoots!
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