Science Fiction & Fantasy Award Winning Book Group discussion

Hi all, this is for discussion of October's group book:
Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland

Unless it’s a very general comment make sure you use spoiler code.
< spoiler>Comment< /spoiler> Without the spaces.

Introduction

Described as a fun, vivid space opera set in our own solar system, this supposedly helped revive space opera in the UK. I was thinking this might be like The Expanse.

Part One - Encounters at the Moebius Strip

(view spoiler)[ We meet Tabitha Jute, the captain of a small space freighter named Alice Lidell. She is down on her luck and has just landed on Mars (I'm pretty sure) looking for a job to pay for some repairs for her ship. It's carnival time and sure enough trouble finds her almost immediately.

The first few pages felt like the opening scenes of a movie in the way all the people, aliens and landscapes were described. I tried to keep track of everything but there was too much. Not really sure what's going on at this point. The story changes it's structure and jumps time at points. You experience the story through her eyes and then a new chapter starts and time has passed and she's telling her AI what just happened to her and also recounting stories of her past. Anyway a lot happens to her in a short amount of time and then she's taking off with someone who appears to me to be a conman with a talking alien parrot. This is going to be a weird one. (hide spoiler)]

Part One - Redux

(view spoiler)[ Forgot to mention that the scene where Tabitha and Marco Metz go back to his apartment seemed skeevy to me. It bugged me. (hide spoiler)]

Part Two - Lost in the Caverns of Plenty

(view spoiler)[ Tabitha and Marco head to Plenty where they are to meet Marco's boss and the rest of his group. They immediately have a run-in with another group of Perks. We're slowly learning some of Tabitha's history, the history of when and how the aliens showed up and a little bit of the current political climate. It looks like this is going to be a bit of a comedy as Tabitha gets bounced from one situation to the next with little or no control. It's starting to make a little bit more sense as the alien names become more familiar. Every once in a while there's another narrator that pops in for maybe a few sentences or a paragraph who refers to Tabitha in the past tense and as someone very famous. Not sure what that's all about. (hide spoiler)]

Part Three - The Many Faces of Truth

(view spoiler)[ Tabitha, Marco and the rest escape from Plenty and the police and head for their next port of call where they need to refuel and are hoping to fix the axis lock crystal. Unfortunately they are recognized straight away and have to make another run for it. Once they reach hyperspace there's a get-together where Marco admits that he and his people robbed a bank on Plenty (this is a heist novel?) and the gold is on the ship and that's why the cops are chasing them. Tabitha smells a rat.
Quite a bit of history in this section, both from Tabitha's point of view and from that of Marco's group. Not sure what I think of this one. I enjoy it when I'm reading it but when I put it down I don't have much of an urge to pick it back up. I am enjoying the different types of aliens. The twins are weird and the mustache bit is funny. (hide spoiler)]

Part One - Redux

(view spoiler)[
Not much to say about this opening section yet. I agree with the scene with Tabitha going back to Marco’s place. It just seemed a little off.
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Part Two - Lost In The Caverns Of Plenty

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So the group’s boss happens to be dead, or close to it, and in a form of cryonic suspension. Interesting development but not a new idea to me. Learning about Tabitha’s past is good but so far it’s not illuminating as much as I’d hope for. I greatly dislike Marco as he seems extremely unpleasant and manipulative; frankly hoping something happens to him to get him to wake up and realise what’s he acting like.
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Part Four - Captives of the Goddess of Love

(view spoiler)[ Life is going from bad to worse for Tabitha when the Alice Liddell crash lands on Venus. I think the author is bringing back some of the early 20th century science fiction (or planetary romance) with the canals on mars and now the flora and fauna on Venus. At least that was my thought when Venus was being described at the beginning of this section. The Frasque gets loose and raises hell and just when we think things are starting to look a little better that pesky pirate shows back up. Tabitha learns more about the con that Marco is trying to pull and characters seem to be dropping so fast it's like I'm reading a G.R.R. Martin novel. (hide spoiler)]

Part Three - The Many Faces Of Truth

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The artist troupe is a front for a bank robbing gang whose claim of having a cache of gold they can’t open is untrue as it’s really the body of their other member. That’s a rather interesting and different premise, which was really fun to read. It was good to see the history of both Tabitha and the group. I really liked the part with Captain Frank; it was more amusing than I’d expected.

Jon, I had that same feeling of enjoying it whilst reading and then not feeling like picking it back up at first but at this point that’s faded away heavily.
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Part Four - Captives Of The Goddess Of Love

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The ship has escaped, crashed, taken off and now been captured finally. Like Jon, I couldn’t help but think of the older idea of planetary romance. The action level has certainly increased rather dramatically with several possible deaths, though Marco is unknown for now.
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Part Five - At Luncheon With Brother Felix

(view spoiler)[ Well that ended with a bang. A bunch of tiny Perks fighting 3 meter tall humans with huge heads being controlled by caterpillars like some alien out of Men in Black. This was a fun book at times but I'm a little disappointed with the characters and the plot has some holes in it. Tal could have been a lot more fun but in the end I don't think he added much to the story. Mogul died and I still don't know what they were (other than some kind of genetically modified humans) and neither he nor Saskia had much of a personality. Marco was left on Venus and depending on who you believe was either dead within minutes or will be found alive and happy as a castaway. And by the end the whole Frasque, Sanczau, temple, Cherub, stardrive plot was incomprehensible to me. I don't know who made deals with who and what everyone hoped to achieve. I think the Frasque just wanted to eat everyone so why would anyone make a deal with them? I assume some of my problems will get hashed out in the sequel but who knows? In the end this was a fun, comical caper that just didn't quite work for me.

Joe, I definitely enjoyed The Sea and Summer more this month although when I looked at them at the beginning of the month I expected the reverse to be true. I picked up The Sea and Summer first so that I could get it over with and then enjoy this one. Hahaha. (hide spoiler)]

Part Five - At Luncheon With Brother Felix

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I liked the twists and turns the plot took here. For some reason I expected it to be more straightforward after everything else that had happened, no idea why, but glad I was wrong about that. Everything was being wrapped up rather fast I thought and several areas didn’t get much focus on what the motivation of the alien races were.
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Overall I enjoyed this but there were some noticeable flaws. I was a little unsure at the start, mainly due to how annoying Marco was, but it worked out really well in the end.
Jon, I’m like with and enjoyed The Sea And Summer more. That developed things more and the ending was stronger.