Let me start out by saying that there are a lot of great things about this book, and if you are thinking about getting it, do so. It is definitely worth the price. even though I give the book a 3 star rating, I think it really has the workings of being a 4 or 5 star book in a fully finished form. However, there are several issues that I think really do hold the book back. I think the best way to do this review is to break it down into 3 parts.
1. The Good
Brockway knows the world he has created. It may sound like odd praise to say that an author knows his world, but it is surprising how many authors actually don't. Brockway clearly knows what is going on in his world, and that lets him write it in such a way that it may not be clear at all times what is going on, but the pieces are there so that when the reader is explicitly told what is going on, it actually fits with everything that has come before it. A great example of this is the Gas. It is never explained early on what the Gas is. Instead, characters discuss the business of the Gas, black market deals, withdrawal, mixing it, and so on. When it is actually revealed explicitly what the Gas does, the reader has already been told what it is in more indirect and subtle ways. The world of Rx, like any good sci-fi story, isn't about the futuristic technology. It is about the ways that people's relationships and interactions compare to our own. Brockway understands what his world is, and the fact that the world isn't the Gas, though much of the story surrounds this. Sci-fi can easily fall prey to privileging the tech over the story, and that is when the author no longer knows what is going on in the world they created, because it is secondary at that point.
Brockway also is very good at subtly telling the reader about the world. Most monologues that inform us about the world are done in very believable, unobtrusive ways. For example, a privileged character who does not often venture into the lower levels of this world meets finds himself going through the black market in search of a drug fix. We learn a) how the main drug in this world is used b) the reasons a black market exists c) the differences between the upper and lower class d) the role of another main character. Because it is all done in a very believable situation, the actual exposition is much better than a straight "the world is like this, and then this happened, and these people are like this because of this".
Finally, Brockway's character description are great. He introduces some monstrous and unsettling people later in episode 1 which are both frightening and simple at the same time. The nuances he gives some characters in their unique clothes, speech, prosthetic legs, etc. are really nice touches and also tell us a lot about them in little bits.
2. The Bad
Brockway needs a better editor. I say this as someone who also needs an editor. Unfortunately, with writing as engaging as his, having a clear punctuation issue can really break the flow of the book and ruin the tone. There are instances where an adjectival form of a word is used instead of the noun form, a word is used which does not make sense given the context (e.g. "one side acute and sparse"), punctuation is used incorrectly for effect but just ends up being awkward (don't start sentences with conjunctions), etc. Honestly, this issues are one of the most distracting things about the book, but would be, relatively, easily remedied.
Though Brockway is a very good prose author, he sometimes will go for a metaphor or simile which seems to only be there for an artsy flair, and more often than not just feels kind of cheap compared to other sections of the book. For every "screen-burnt images twisted behind his eyelids", there is a "whispering by in technological silence". Well, that is unfair. For every 4 or 5 good abstract descriptions, there is one bad one.
Though this is certainly the weakest issue, especially given how well he describes most of the world, Brockway does sometimes seem unsure of how to describe things in the world of Rx. He will, not often, rely on using things in our world to describe things in Rx, which clearly are outside the knowledge of anyone in the book.
3. The Ugly
Not really much to put here. I'm just a sucker for spaghetti westerns.
As I said above, this book is most definitely worth a buy. I'm looking forward to seeing what Brockway can improve for episode 2, and hopefully will give that one 4 or 5 stars.
