(Conflict of interest warning: I got this book for free from the publisher. I have to admit that I'd be tempted to say extremely favorable things just to get more free books, if I weren't already used to getting books on my own.)

I would have liked Superluminal much better had it been packaged in the same book as Metaplanetary, Tony Daniels's predecessor to this novel. Superluminal (which, by the way, is such a cool title, and relevant to boot) sustains itself on little more than the inventive energy of the first book. What I expected, by contrast, was a book that finally got down off the original's world-building high and settled into a narrative groove. Instead, Daniels leaves unsettled (and sometimes untouched) most of the important plot threads left dangling in the first book, and actually creates more plot threads that, naturally, remain unresolved at the end of Superluminal--including an absolute doozy that is presaged by the title. The most dispiriting part of Superluminal isn't anywhere in the book: it's the moment when you realize that Daniels isn't going to pull things together--again--before the last page.

Superluminal also continues Metaplanetary's problem of flitting too quickly between characters. Things get even worse here, though. While some authors like George R.R. Martin are extremely adept at knowing when to leave a viewpoint character and how long to wait before returning, Daniels's timing seems to be slightly off: we often leave a character with little interest at hearing about him more, and we are often surprised at being reminded about a character whom we had almost forgotten. This problem is compounded by the novel's weird jumps in time. Superluminal starts off many years after Metaplanetary ends, which is in itself jarring; the internal threads themselves then tend to leap inconsistently across the years. The narrative of Superluminal isn't really all that confusing, but it is disorienting.

Finally, there is a problem with the fundamental purpose behind this civil war. Now, I realize that to some extent Daniels is interested in how ordinary people fight in a war whose purpose might be obscure to them. The problem is that Daniels seems to hint that the purpose of the war is about free converts--a kind of parallel to the American civil war's focus on black slaves. Simultaneously, he wants us to believe that the war continues to be about the Thaddeus Kaye mumbo jumbo that he confusingly articulated in Metaplanetary (my review of the previous book has a longer description of this). I don't get it anymore. The purpose of the war is so obscured that it's lost all emotional resonance.

I'll be honest. I think that if Daniels had a lot of time and a great deal of outside revenue, he would have written Metaplanetary and, especially, Superluminal differently. It's clear that he's thought carefully about this world. It's also clear that he has a ton of story to tell--and that it's meant to be a grand epic, not some narrowly focused human-interest story. But it's also abundantly clear that Daniels has had to cut corners, either because of personal constraints or due to the demands of his publisher. As a result, Superluminal doesn't feel like a real novel, more like a series of excerpts from a longer (and more compelling) work of historical fiction.

Metaplanetary and Superluminal showcase all the groundwork for a classic of science fiction is present: a talented writer with great range, a densely realized future universe, and a huge cast of sympathetic characters and (mostly) interesting plotlines (I could do without the free convert romance, but that's just me). But the promise of the series isn't met in this book; nor, if corners keep getting cut, will it ever be meet. Daniels is, I think, still young and productive, and I have little doubt he'll be hugely successful relatively soon. When that happens, I hope he takes the time to sit back down with his little civil war and tell it again, from the beginning.

Copyright © 2005 Steven Wu

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