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The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes) by K P O'Donnell (view source)
Revision as of 13:03, 5 November 2023
, 13:03, 5 November 2023no edit summary
The characters of the story are, for the most part, well done. VL-15 is desperate to recover the memories of her previous life, all the while being unsure of who to fully trust or who she even is. On the other hand, Craig is rather generic as far as sci-fi protagonists go. His boss, Dr Amelia Wong, the leader of a small pocket of civilisation under siege from both external enemies and internal frictions, who must increasingly choose between her principles and her desire to keep control, all of which is painfully well done. We also have Sekiya Garza, a double agent sent to bring the Hub down from within, allying with the enigmatic and menacing machine known as La Borg. Overall, I liked most of the characters in the story and I would particularly like to see how VL-15's story develops in later instalments.
The world of ''The Vital Link '' is an interesting one. While it does take place in the future, it seems to take place on either a parallel earth or another planet entirely, with entirely different countries and some extra elements/minerals that allow the setting to work. In most post-apocalyptic media featuring robots, the robots are usually the ones that caused the end of the world, but that wasn’t the case here. It seems like the robots and their human creators coexisted in harmony for the most part. No, instead it was just good old human belligerence that ended the world, which is honestly a much more refreshing take than what is present in most popular sci-fi media. Overall, I am interested in the world O’Donnell has built, and would like to see it further expanded upon in future books.
In conclusion, I think that O’Donnell has a lot of potential, with some interesting ideas, a compelling story, and some likeable characters, but the overall issues with the writing style kept me from giving this a much higher review score.