From a young age, studying to become a space cadet is all Maci Layton has known - it's all every kid has known. Society demands children do nothing but prepare for a future in space, even though a select few are actually chosen to be space cadets. Despite this, no one protests or pushes for change. Everything seems peaceful, everyone content.
But unflinching order comes with a cost.
Maci's story offers an intimate look into the mind of someone struggling to come to terms with their anxiety while facing the reality of their world. Between moments of darkness and ugliness, SPVCE celebrates hope, optimism, and the beautiful things that make us human.
From a young age, studying to become a space cadet is all Maci Layton has known - it's all every kid has known. Society demands children do nothing but prepare for a future in space, even though a select few are actually chosen to be space cadets. Despite this, no one protests or pushes for change. Everything seems peaceful, everyone content.
But unflinching order comes with a cost.
Maci's story offers an intimate look into the mind of someone struggling to come to terms with their anxiety while facing the reality of their world. Between moments of darkness and ugliness, SPVCE celebrates hope, optimism, and the beautiful things that make us human.
How sane do you have to be to make it into space?
…
Maybe there’s a secret government formula — a recipe for the perfect space cadet.
1/2 intelligence.
1/6 mental stability.
1/6 brilliant human intuition.
1/6 reasonable health.
But the numbers surely can’t be the same for all of us. There’s no way to squeeze all of humanity into a single mold.
True enough.
…
That’s why not all of us make it into space.
This novel is definitely a one-off. It starts out as standard “training school” Sci-Fi, where elite students are chosen for a secret program. But that’s as far as the normal plotline goes. This group is placed in a Pinteresque situation where they are moved through a repetitive series of environments and given endless, meaningless tasks to complete. Meanwhile the main character, Maci, is given the task of analyzing her teammates and observing their reactions to the situation.
But that’s only the external conflict. The main story takes place inside Maci’s head, as she copes with her own demons. In great detail. And it is here that the author and I part company.
The human psyche craves variety and detests monotony. Most of the job of a book reviewer is to inform the author and the readers when a certain technique, which may have worked at first, has become overused.
Here, we look deep into the mind of a teenager who has never been allowed enough control over her life and is suddenly given too much control, but over a life that seems meaningless. No wonder she has problems. However, the lack of variety in the external situation means that. Maci’s mental progress is the only element for the reader to get a grasp on. It seems the only place that progress is being made.
The main character is far more deeply analyzed than most, to the point where we wonder, despite our deep level of sympathy for her, how such a basket case could ever be considered for leadership. The rest of the characters are also fully developed. The problem is that we see them all through the prism of Maci’s analysis, breaking the “show, don’t tell” rule in an unusual way and creating an emotional distance for the reader.
At about the two-thirds point, the action begins, and the external conflict finally starts to speed up. Then we are treated to a rather standard wrap-it-up-quickly ending that confirms our suspicion that science has very little to do with the story.
This novel is creative and fascinating, half science fiction and half psychological case study. Two-thirds/one-third would have been a better balance.