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Origin Complex
Don’t let them touch you.
Crash is an analyst, an operative of the Sigurd-Lem Corporation trained to prise the secrets from the ancient, alien ruins scattered across frontier space. Her job has never been easy. The species that built these hollow cities, these eerie facilities, was annihilated in some great catastrophe, millennia ago.
Swallowed by something that still haunts these empty places.
One day, Crash receives a message. A signal that should have come another way, that should have said something different. The dreadnought Demiurge is calling home. The great vessel was sent into the deepest reaches of space—a sea of storms and chaos that many call ‘the Eye’. There, battling between shrieking storms and corporate shells, it has found something that should better have stayed buried.
Crash sets off in pursuit, retracing the vessel’s path, desperate to keep humanity from repeating a terrible mistake.
Crash is an analyst, an operative of the Sigurd-Lem Corporation trained to prise the secrets from the ancient, alien ruins scattered across frontier space. Her job has never been easy. The species that built these hollow cities, these eerie facilities, was annihilated in some great catastrophe, millennia ago.
Swallowed by something that still haunts these empty places.
One day, Crash receives a message. A signal that should have come another way, that should have said something different. The dreadnought Demiurge is calling home. The great vessel was sent into the deepest reaches of space—a sea of storms and chaos that many call ‘the Eye’. There, battling between shrieking storms and corporate shells, it has found something that should better have stayed buried.
Crash sets off in pursuit, retracing the vessel’s path, desperate to keep humanity from repeating a terrible mistake.
518 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 23, 2022
3 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Skinner
2 books16 followersAndrew grew up in South Africa's coal-mining heartland, amidst rust-orange dust and giant machinery. He now works as an archaeologist and anthropologist, interested in folklore, rain-making, and the eerie histories that live amongst us in the present.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 5, 2024
Crash Bin'Syan is one of the highest ranked analysts for the Sigurd-Lem corporation. She has a Mirror, a cybernetic twin that she shares a dual consciousness with, though they can mentally split apart and act independently. For the last decade or so she's been analyzing the quarantined alien ruins on planet Vija. Thirty years ago an alien AI was unleased there that made what humanity had built become a new layer of ruins. However, it's now believed to have been only a testing grounds to create a prison for a far worse AI. Somehow it's a second transition point to The Eye. What's happening at The Eye threatens all of human existence.
This book is significantly different from the first, of which it takes place before, during, and after. I enjoyed it less, if only because I found it to be less interesting. There's much less emphasis on Shells (mecha), combat, and thrills. It's much more investigations and travelling. The writing and the atmosphere it created remained pleasing, but that wasn't enough for me. As with the first book the relationship with the protagonist and their mechanical counterpart is a primary focus. The characters from the first book are present in this one as well, though only at the very end.
Writing about this, and rating it possibly more so, presents its own difficulties in that as of this writing it's the only review on Goodreads and one of the few anywhere else. As such, I don't want to present further challenges, but I also don't want to write or rate differently than what I feel. What I feel is that this is a 3.5 rounded down. I felt the same about the first book, though I liked it somewhat more, and even then it was a very near thing that I rounded that one up. My main problems is that it reads like a side story. The most it does to justify its existence is providing a new ending and explaining the downfall of the alien civilizations. Although Crash does a considerable amount of self-reflection with her Mirror which provides for questioning, I don't think it went far enough. The same goes for the attempt at romance, which seemed almost more like a nod to Gundam The Witch From Mercury which began the prior month than an organic relationship.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't read the first book then this one. The main problem with reading this one first is that much of scant worldbuilding isn't repeated from the first, so it may be confusing in that it doesn't explain everything all over again. I do believe that reading both of these is a worthwhile due to the different perspective it provides. The first book was traditionally published though this one was self-published, then co-published. I haven't any idea whether this is the final book in this setting. This storyline seems to have ended, though it is somewhat ambiguous.
Rating: 3.5/5 (3)
A newer edition includes a short story.
https://scarletferret.com/books/origi...
This book is significantly different from the first, of which it takes place before, during, and after. I enjoyed it less, if only because I found it to be less interesting. There's much less emphasis on Shells (mecha), combat, and thrills. It's much more investigations and travelling. The writing and the atmosphere it created remained pleasing, but that wasn't enough for me. As with the first book the relationship with the protagonist and their mechanical counterpart is a primary focus. The characters from the first book are present in this one as well, though only at the very end.
Writing about this, and rating it possibly more so, presents its own difficulties in that as of this writing it's the only review on Goodreads and one of the few anywhere else. As such, I don't want to present further challenges, but I also don't want to write or rate differently than what I feel. What I feel is that this is a 3.5 rounded down. I felt the same about the first book, though I liked it somewhat more, and even then it was a very near thing that I rounded that one up. My main problems is that it reads like a side story. The most it does to justify its existence is providing a new ending and explaining the downfall of the alien civilizations. Although Crash does a considerable amount of self-reflection with her Mirror which provides for questioning, I don't think it went far enough. The same goes for the attempt at romance, which seemed almost more like a nod to Gundam The Witch From Mercury which began the prior month than an organic relationship.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't read the first book then this one. The main problem with reading this one first is that much of scant worldbuilding isn't repeated from the first, so it may be confusing in that it doesn't explain everything all over again. I do believe that reading both of these is a worthwhile due to the different perspective it provides. The first book was traditionally published though this one was self-published, then co-published. I haven't any idea whether this is the final book in this setting. This storyline seems to have ended, though it is somewhat ambiguous.
Rating: 3.5/5 (3)
A newer edition includes a short story.
https://scarletferret.com/books/origi...
December 2, 2024
Fantastic sci-fi
I really liked Steel Frame, and Origin Complex has met my expectation of another fantastic read.
It's one of the books I remember as a movie in my head, very visual and emotive.
I wasn't paying attention to how much book was left and was definitely left wanting more at the end.
I just wish I could get a hard copy and a 3rd book please!!
I really liked Steel Frame, and Origin Complex has met my expectation of another fantastic read.
It's one of the books I remember as a movie in my head, very visual and emotive.
I wasn't paying attention to how much book was left and was definitely left wanting more at the end.
I just wish I could get a hard copy and a 3rd book please!!
February 9, 2025
Second book, just as good as the first if not moreso. More space intrigue, more feeling seen by pairing dynamics and the loss of them for me, and a really cool perspective change to keep telling the larger story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews