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Empires: Extraction by Gavin Deas (view source)
Revision as of 14:55, 12 November 2014
, 14:55, 12 November 2014no edit summary
''Empires: Extraction'' and ''Empires: Infiltration'' tell the story of a duo of alien races as they fight over Earth. The two books can be read separately, but if read together they paint a narrative from both sides. However, before you can read both books, you have to finish one of them first. In my case this was ''Extraction'', a book that follows the alien race The Weft and SAS member Rees. The Weft stumble across Earth when they discover strange readings coming from the backwards planet. Meanwhile, Rees finds himself part of a task force investigating strange 'Scary Clown' like creatures that seem to be able to vanish into thin air and have incredibly powerful weapons.
It is hard to pinpoint what type of science fiction 'Extraction' is. The book is separately separated quite cleanly between the cerebral science fiction of the Weft and the military science fiction of Rees and company. The perspective the Weft is told almost exclusively from the minds of sentient spaceships. They observe Earth from Space and discuss events happening on the surface. It is up to Rees to actually partake of events and for large portions of the book he does not even know what he is fighting.
It is an inherent problem in invasion fiction that the hero rarely knows what on Earth is happening off Earth. However, more than in most cases ''InfiltrationExtraction'' also does not inform the reader. We learn that there are alien races other than the Weft, but only capture glimpses of them. It is a deliberate ploy by co-authors Smith and Deas to make both books in the series synchronous, therefore you are never going to know what is truly happening until you have read both.
This is all well and good, but for the first half of ''Extraction'' you are left as confused as the human characters. What is going on? It is not helped that the two types of genre are so opposed; intelligence one minute, mindless the next. I also found the liberal use of extreme adult language a little much at times. If I am meant to believe that sentient beings are floating in space, I am perfectly capable of suspending my disbelief when it comes to the vocabulary of soldiers.
Although, I had issues with ''Extraction'' there is one major scene in the book that is excellent. Once the action kicks in there is some brilliantly realised military science fiction on offer. I fear that many people may struggle to reach this far into the book. The Weft themselves are not that easy to relate to; they lack similar emotions to humans. This artificial intelligence way of acting makes more sense after reading ''Infiltration'' as The Pleasure are a far more Man-like race.