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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes confused but very promising, April 30, 2009
In a universe regulated by 'the machine,' murder is unlikely. Getting away with murder is so improbable the odds are impossibly small--almost as small as the chance that the Borck scientist died of natural causes. When local authorities botch the investigation, Senior Investigator Eola is called in. Eola has plenty of experience with difficult cases--but one fact has been hammered into everyone's head--that the machine is infallible. If that fact is a lie, the fabric of society may shatter. And if that happens, somebody will be the scapegoat--possibly a hard-working Senior Investigator.
While Eola investigates, Druscan lives on a gambling asteroid. He feels confused all the time, has difficulty remembering where he's from or what he's doing, yet his brain is capable of near-miraculous jumps of logic and memory. Put him in front of a game board and he can see all of the options, envision end games beyond anyone else's imagination. Is he simply an idiot-savant, or is there some deeper meaning to his existance?
Author Toni Seger creates an interesting view of a future world where the entire galaxy is civilized, where the different races live in harmony under the guidance of the machine, yet where status, legislated as 'privilege' remains crucial and where only a few races are considered among the capable or elite. Seger's creation of intriguing races makes for enjoyable reading.
I found THE TELEFAX BOX to be simultaneously intriguing and confusing. The novel lacked the kind of strong protagonist common to genre fiction (Eola came closest), and the plot was often hard to follow. The resolution, when it came, didn't quite jolt me the way I think Seger intended. Still, this is a promising first novel. Seger is an author to watch.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Galactic Mystery, April 27, 2009
"The Telefax Box" is the first book which I have read which I was sent directly by the author. It is the first book of "The Telefax Trilogy", and it is set in a society which spans galaxies with numerous alien species. While the setting and number of species can be daunting at times, Toni Seger manages to keep the story moving and entertaining without engaging in an endless amount of exposition. The reader is pulled into a mystery which then becomes several mysteries which continue to expand, and all the while satirizing our own society on issues such as race, culture, and religion. Also key to the story is the line between being and machine.
After the prologue which helps set the stage, the reader is introduced to the first mystery, which is in the person of Druscan, a Tertian from Central Command, who seems to be a bit out of place on a gambling asteroid, and when an unexpected death to someone he gambols against happens, the mystery grows, as it does as he displays rather unusual abilities. The second mystery is then introduced, and it involves a murder, something which is almost unheard of, especially at Central Command where it takes place. Not surprisingly, the mysteries are not unrelated, but the journey bringing them together, and the characters and races involved all add to the story.
There is a lot to take in with this first book of the series. What I liked best was the differentiation of types of races, as the author does an excellent job of describing the problems which the non-privileged races, such as aquatics, semi-aquatics, and the non-smoothed skin races face when trying to be successful in a society which is dominated by smooth-skinned bipedal creatures. These disadvantages are well-integrated into the characters personalities and their motivations. As an example, the aquatics are forced to swim around in troughs, the Quamat are looked down upon if they fail to walk on their weak legs instead of rolling around. Another important factor in this book is the role of machines and in particular The Machine which runs Central Command which has taken on the role of God in this society. Several times questions about whether the Machine has made a mistake or been tricked are referred to as blasphemy, and if a race doesn't value machines, such as the Sameracs, they are kept at a distance by most.
The characters in the story are very well done, and represent many different races and types of races. Llona is a Samerac a race I briefly described above and becomes involved with Druscan whom she meets when gambling. Mishta works on the gamboling asteroid and also becomes involved with Druscan, and Acacia is bureaucrat who is very high-up in Central Command. The two are both Zanton's, the most privileged race, but have little similarity outside of that. Dexter is an aquatic working at Central Command and is investigating what he believes is a murder. Toja is a Scroge, and Eola is a Tostian, both of which have scaly skin which flakes off, a significant social disadvantage, and there are minor characters which bring even more races into the story and which subsequently brings more depth and fullness to the story.
This is not a perfect book, but I found it to be an interesting and fun book to read as well as a good satire and I am interested in reading the next book in the series to see how it progresses. Ultimately, how good the series is plays a role in how one views the individual books in the series, but one can at least say that this is a good start which draws the reader into the series, and has an ending which completes this part of the story, but also sets the stage for the next book in the series. This one easily earns four stars.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Telefax Box, January 20, 2009
The Telefax Box has enough Sci Fi trappings to satisfy the most demanding aficionado of the genre: highly inventive future technology, arcane vocabulary, quotes from various intergalactic sources, and a fascinating array of highly diverse alien races. But it is no space cowboy adventure story. Billed as a "satiric deconstruction of modern life," it does raise issues about our dependence on technology. But the story is almost entirely moved forward by the dialogue and the complex relationships between the various characters. This gives equal billing to chunky issues like racial privilege and where we draw the line between life and artificial intelligence. Seger has constructed a book here in which the whole is larger than the parts of which it is composed.
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