Customer Reviews

Remains

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Mark Tiedemann knows how to tell an exciting story, building suspense while managing large casts of characters and largescale intergalactic events, as he does in his Secantis sequence. For many writers, these skills are sufficient to produce popular and entertaining work. What is so impressive about Tiedemann's work is that he goes so far beyond the basics. Not only are his characters portrayed in psychological complexity and depth, but his plots rarely offer obvious choices between the good and the bad sides--the political and ethical conflicts are as complex as any encountered in modern literature. The political intrigue and enormous stakes of the conflicts in the Secantis sequence force the reader to think through the differing claims of our own international political and social forces.

Remains differs from the Secantis novels, in that the characters are mostly confined to a single highly evolved orbital station, though the narrative actually begins (very dramatically) on Mars. It quickly moves to Aea, where a tricky web of intrigue and spying draws several characters into a danger that is familiar in Tiedemann's work--that danger is the impossibility of being certain who is on whose side, and which side is "good," which "bad." All this is played out in the context of a world in which constant and nearly unavoidable surveillance of all aspects of the physical and psychological lives of the characters is taking place, and where the consequences of that surveillance may be exile or even death.

Remains, with its limited cast of characters and geography, is somewhat in the tradion of the noir thriller, a more personal drama, whereas the Secantis novels have more in common with the espionage thrillers of Alan Furst or Le Carre. In the Secantis sequence, we are impressed with Tiedemann's ability to portray the "good" on all sides, so that the challenge to the reader is not to choose sides, but to understand and empathize with the human dilemmas that force individuals to choose a side, in some cases, or to attempt to play as independent agents working for both (or really, all) sides. Tiedemann's large intelligence develops the reasoning and interests of all contenders, forcing the reader to recognize the worthlessness of simplistic binary we-they thinking, even though moving into the realms of complexity will lead to sometimes overwhelming anxiety and trauma.

I don't want to mess with the old canards about flat characters and contrived plots, dependence on flashy fireworks and clever technology--some science fiction gets by with those because it has other things to offer--interesting ideas, for example, or just enough excitement to distract. But what impresses and engages in Tiedemann's fiction is the utterly convincing humanity of his characters--he takes the time to portray their inner conflicts and uncertainties, their mixed loyalties and personal insecurities. While there are other science fiction writers who take the time to portray these qualities, Tiedemann takes us deeper than almost any comparable writer.

While the scale of Remains is more limited than that found in the Secantis novels, it is every bit as rewarding as they are, and worthy of the highest recommendation.

This is science fiction about adults, for adults. Everything about it is solid: the prose, the world-building, the characters. Both the central mystery and the central romance are well-paced and resolve satisfactorily. In short, it's damn good.

The prose is of the sort that gets out of the reader's way, putting the story front and center. It's written in tight third person perspective, alternating fairly regularly between Mace and Nemily. The pacing is sure, doling out information about the characters, the world, and the mystery as needed and not before. There is a rough moment early on when the story jumps forward in time several years; I wish the part before the jump had been set aside in a prologue or a Part I to give that jump more visceral impact. But that's just a quibble.

The world-building is quite compelling. It's barely 100 years into our future, when the solar system is in the process of being settled but humans have yet to make it any further out. In that 100 years there has clearly been quite a bit of political upheaval, and figuring out the details of that history is at times a more intriguing mystery than the one Mace is investigating. There are a couple of infodumps when all action comes to a screeching halt, but for the most part Tiedemann manages to show a messy, precarious balance of power that is fascinating in its own right and increasingly relevant to the main plot.

But the thing that makes this book refreshingly adult fare is the characters. There's sex too, it's true, and more of it than I was expecting; but the far more groundbreaking elements are the ways in which Mace and Nemily are not your standard noir detective and ingenue. Much though he might want to be, Mace is not a loner: he is surrounded by people who care for him. Not a fellowship determined to aid him in his quest, but friends, of varying degrees, both people he'd trust his life to and people he wouldn't, but who want to celebrate his birthday with him anyway. And though Nemily looks at first like the typical cold, desperate woman with a secret, she just gets stranger and stranger, a convincingly alien future human. And over their entire relationship hangs the spectre of Mace's dead wife, who is not some gilded idol but instead a complex and achingly real woman whose death I felt more the further into the story I got.

If this book has a weakness it is the central mystery; part of the reason I found the world more intriguing than the plot was that I had figured out much of the mystery well in advance of the characters. The villains were also a shade too hissable for my liking. But overall this is a strong entry in the science fiction mystery canon, and one with a far better romantic subplot than most (actually, two romantic subplots, one forward and one backward). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Mark Tiedemann's book, REMAINS, is a science fiction mystery set in the early twenty-second century at a time when mankind has established itself on outposts throughout the solar system. The colonies consist of corporate-sponsored settlements on Earth's moon, Mars, several small to large space stations, and a distant foothold on Ganymede. The bulk of the story transpires on the fictional space station, Aea, a space community large enough (twenty kilometers by seven) to house and employ a managed population of roughly a hundred thousand inhabitants.

Tiedemann's protagonist is one Macefield Preston, a high-tech security man whose wife turns up missing, presumably dead, in a catastrophic incident at a construction site on Mars. Mace inserts himself into the investigation amid nagging suspicions of industrial espionage and thereby becomes entangled in corporate intrigue and the politics of competing space communities.

To this humble editor, the story seems to turn on two futuristic themes: the handling of information and the management of closed societies within high-risk environments. Tiedemann approaches both of these themes with thoughtful imagination and meticulous detail. As we so often hear, information is the key to power. How information is passed and secured is central to story development. Since REMAINS' main character is a security expert well-versed in data management, we are taken on an inside tour of how off-planet communities would deal with the realities of shared, and unshared, knowledge. As a key component of this scenario, Tiedemann inserts the concept of cyberlinks, people who can accept and store digital input via artificially enhanced brains. This is certainly not a new concept to the science fiction genre, but Tiedemann's portrayal of a cyberlink's persona (Nemily Dollard, Mace's romantic interest) is accomplished with a humanistic style that adds much depth and sympathy to the character. As the tour progresses, we are reminded that the orderly progression of technological societies is apparently accompanied by restrictions to freedom, as we currently understand the term. This is illustrated via the use of constant public surveillance and by the often heavy-handed tactics of the corporate authorities. Although Tiedemann does not discuss it at length, readers cannot help but consider what it would be like to live in an environment where an individual mistake, or worse, an overt act of espionage, could wipe out an entire community in a matter of minutes.

Tiedemann has a beautiful writing style that showcases his intelligence as well as his knowledge of story-building. His characters are drawn with fine detail; their passions and motives fully exposed for the reader's consideration. Such characterization truly adds depth to Tiedemann's work and is part of why Tiedemann stands out among his contemporaries.

Mark W. Tiedemann is an American science fiction and detective fiction author. He has written novels based on Isaac Asimov's Robot universe as well as within his own original universe, tagged as the Secantis Sequence. REMAINS was published in 2005 by BenBella Publishing and was shortlisted for the prestigious James Tiptree Jr. Award in 2006. More can be learned about author Tiedemann and his other works at his web site: [...]

'Remains' is an immersive murder mystery set in the not-too-distant future. This is no space opera with far-flung worlds, weird alien races, and laser battles every other chapter. Instead, humanity is still alone in the solar system but it has splintered into independent colonies located on Mars, the moon, and on several orbital habitats. The colonies are in contact and trade with each other but they have all been cut off from Earth during an event known as 'The Exclusion'.

I enjoyed this book very much. While there is not a ton of typical action in the narrative, the 'whodunit' suspense builds nicely to a well-constructed conclusion. I liked the 'noir detective' feel of the story-telling and I found the characters to be satisfyingly complex. The distinct political and sociological, (even physiological), differences between the splintered societies in the off-Earth habitats was an interesting take on what life away from mother terra may bring to humanity.

Highly Recommended.