Book Review: Faraway Sky, Ocean Deep

Alan R. Paine’s intriguing first ever NaNoWrMo sci-fi novel project, offered as it was at the end of November 2020 when he completed it.

This was a tricky book to review. I had been meaning to pick up Faraway Sky, Ocean Deep for a long time - ever since Alan announced he had completed his first NaNoWriMo project, in fact, which is an amazing achievement all its own. Writing over fifty thousand words in a single month is mind boggling to me, and I absolutely applaud his determination and discipline in getting it done. What I mean by “tricky”, however, is that Alan makes it plain at the opening of the book that it is being offered as it was at the end of the month with only minimal editing. So essentially, what we’ve got here is a very early draft of a novel, one which marks a momentous achievement and is preserved for posterity, but very clearly and intentionally not a polished and finished product. So in reviewing it, I’ve decided I’m not going to mention anything to do with editing, because… well, obviously. Instead I’m going to focus on the ideas presented, the imagination, the worldbuilding and my overall impressions of the story.

Blurb

It would be great if when you became old and frail your mind could be recorded and downloaded into a young and energetic body. Or would it? Earth, Mars and even the far off water world of Atlantica cannot escape the human tendency to exploit any new technology and use it to harm others. Yet, in this story spanning centuries of time and light years of space there is still room for innocence, love, compassion and personal sacrifice.
Svetlana and Davin have taken a huge gamble by having their minds catapulted into the future with no knowledge of how or if they can be resurrected. Wunsev and Tooni are two young people drawn to each other but who have yet to discover physical desire. Linda is a reporter whose intense work uncovering the misuse of mind recording causes conflicts in her relationship with Greg.
Apart from minor edits and corrections this short novel of 51 thousand words was completed entirely within the month of November 2020 as a NaNoWriMo challenge.

Review

I think Alan has done a marvellous job with this book. On more than one occasion as I was reading I got the same feeling I get when I read Le Guin’s sci-fi - that of a big idea brought forth through a close anthropological examination of the characters. Without getting into spoilers, the way Alan handles the characters of Davin, Wunsev, Svetlana and Tooni was very well done given their unusual situation. They all have distinctive voices and personalities, which provides a good amount of drama. One thing that particularly put me in mind of an anthropological examination akin to Le Guin’s writing is the whole cast’s remarkable frankness regarding sexuality. There’s a lot of sex in the book, a lot of talk around sexual themes, and it’s all done in a very matter-of-fact way. However, in some ways it kind of straddled the line between openness and oversharing. For the four main characters, the reasoning as to why they would be so open about it all is implied clearly, so it’s pretty believable. The character of Dimitri confused me a bit though, I didn’t understand whether his behaviour was meant to be threatening, friendly or businesslike.

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding of this book and everything was intricately researched, from the tour of an area of Mars (great detail in the flyovers, and really cool vision of an established Mars colony), to the floating islands of Atlantica and everything in between - robotics, transferring consciousnesses and the somewhat horrifying implications of such a technology. It’s excellent stuff. I love this book’s take on uploading consciousnesses into other bodies and its exploration of the ways in which this could be abused or exploited. The concepts get pretty dark when you think about it.

Overall an enjoyable read, a pretty solid story that’s left me with food for thought.