{"id":25,"date":"2012-04-01T01:44:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T01:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/a-review-of-mary-sissons-novel-trang\/"},"modified":"2012-04-01T01:44:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-01T01:44:00","slug":"a-review-of-mary-sissons-novel-trang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/a-review-of-mary-sissons-novel-trang\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review of Mary Sisson’s Novel Trang"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Trang<\/i>
Mary Sisson<\/a>
$2.99 ebook Kindle<\/a> Nook<\/a> Smashwords<\/a>
Print $11.99 trade paper<\/a> $18.99 large print<\/a><\/p>\n

Although it’s been years since I read them, I was reminded a little bit of Keith Laumer’s Retief stories while reading Trang<\/i>.\u00a0 But only a little bit.\u00a0 Phillipe Trang is also a diplomat, but he’s cut from an entirely different cloth that Retief.\u00a0 For one thing, he’s more idealistic.\u00a0 For another, mankind is just entering what passes for galactic society in Trang<\/i>.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Most of the novel takes place five years after the discovery of a portal in the Saturn system (that’s the moon system of the planet Saturn, in our solar system, in case you were wondering).\u00a0 Phillipe Trang is a rising young diplomat who has been selected to be the first ambassador to the alien station on the other side of the portal.
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From the beginning things begin to go wrong.\u00a0 First of all, instead of having United Police as his security detail, Trang is horrified to discover he’s been assigned a squadron of Special Forces.\u00a0 United Police are less inclined to use deadly force than Special Forces.\u00a0 Also, SF members tend to say what they think, whereas the UP keep their mouths shut.\u00a0 And the SF talk like you would imagine hardened killers, as Phillipe thinks of them, to talk.\u00a0 If you’re offended by hard profanity, this might not be the book for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There’s immediate friction between Phillipe and the leader of the SF over his security arrangements.\u00a0 Before things are over, he’ll be glad they’re there. And that’s before the alien messiah shows up proclaiming him to be the Chosen One.<\/p>\n

Of course, all is not peace and love among the aliens, either.\u00a0 There are factions among them, and the crustacean-like Hosts, who built the station, refuse to change anything about how they run things.\u00a0 Who built the portals is a mystery.<\/p>\n

This book is essentially anthropological science fiction.\u00a0 Much of the conflict comes from the politics, although there are some combat scenes.\u00a0 Sisson presents a number of different aliens races.\u00a0 We don’t learn a great deal about all of them, but she does give us some insights into the Hosts.\u00a0 While I would have liked there to have been more detail about them as well as some of the other aliens, there were distinct differences between the cultures that were more than just physiology and appearance.<\/p>\n

The novel wasn’t without what I would consider a few minor flaws.\u00a0 Several characters are introduced in the early chapters, given names and backgrounds, then disappear never to be seen again.\u00a0 I don’t know if they will be making an appearance in future installments or not.\u00a0 With the exception of the astrophysicist on the shuttle to Titan, I tend to doubt it.\u00a0 I’m fairly certain we’ll be seeing her again.\u00a0 Anthropological science fiction can be a little slow.\u00a0 For the most part this wasn’t, especially once the machinations among the aliens picked up speed about halfway through, the second chapter tended to slow things down a bit. Trang attends a reception in his honor just before he departs to Titan, and this was where most of the characters we don’t see again are introduced.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As interested as I was in the aliens, it was Trang’s interactions with his security team that I found most intriguing.\u00a0 (The game of laser tag with the Swimmer drone and one of the team members was a great touch.)\u00a0 The members of the team came off as individuals, not cardboard cutouts.\u00a0 Trang had to do as much to understand their culture as he did the cultures of the aliens.\u00a0 And there were hints at one point of a possible future romantic relationship between him and the head of his security team.<\/p>\n

This is the first novel in a projected four volume series, with the second currently due in either May or June.\u00a0 Based on the blurb on her website (the books don’t have their own pages), we’re going to see more of a group of aliens called the Cyclopes.\u00a0 If you enjoy anthropological sf, and you aren’t put off by the language, this one might be for you.\u00a0 While most of the major plotlines were resolved, there is enough left hanging for a natural sequel.<\/p>\n

Now, production values.\u00a0 Once again, an indie author has put together a book that is essentially error free.\u00a0 I only noticed one typo (although I don’t remember what page now).\u00a0 There was an interactive table of contents.\u00a0 The formatting was good, and the cover told you this was a novel set in space.\u00a0 Somehow New York can’t seem to figure this out.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In summation.\u00a0 While anthropological science fiction is not my first choice of subgenre (that would be space opera or hard science), I enjoyed this book.\u00a0 It held my interest, made me care about what happened to the characters, and kept me reading.\u00a0 Which is what I want from a book.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TrangMary Sisson$2.99 ebook Kindle Nook SmashwordsPrint $11.99 trade paper $18.99 large print Although it’s been years since I read them, I was reminded a little bit of Keith Laumer’s Retief stories while reading Trang.\u00a0 But only a little bit.\u00a0 Phillipe Trang is also a diplomat, but he’s cut from an entirely different cloth that Retief.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropological-sf","category-mary-sisson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-p","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}