One Giant Leap
Nov. 15th, 2018 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraOne Giant Leap, Heather Kaczynski, sequel to Dare Mighty Things, discussed here. Unfortunately I didn't get very much out of this; the situation and conflicts I found so compelling in the first one were gone in favor of telling a very different kind of story. Obviously I have no idea what the author considered the juice of her story, which scenes or beats she built the thing around, but I didn't feel like there ended up being a very coherent throughline at all, either in this book or between the two. I don't want to say I could have written a better sequel but I could certainly plot a sequel much more to my personal interest. Also the copy editing was not great, which did not put the best foot forward, and I dislike the sequel strategy of rewinding and recapitulating big reveals from the first installment (Incredibles 2 drove me nuts with this). It's just the first couple chapters here but it's *not a strong opening*, argh.
My more interesting sequel plot outline behind a cut, for my own amusement: End the previous book on her going into the hibernation box - there is no revelation about Luka. Start this one with her waking up out of it. They're approaching the exoplanet. Cass is awake on schedule. Nobody else is. (Bam, there's the theme of isolation vs community back.) Our initial arc is just "holy shit I'm so fucking alone" plus trying to work with the computer to figure out why nobody else is waking up (computer keeps saying everything is normal) plus frantically flipping through the protocol binders to do everything that the entire crew was supposed to be doing (getting the ship into orbit, setting up whatever communications protocols they were going to try to use to broadcast information back). Eventually Cass comes up with a medically dubious plan to try to wake someone up by manually draining the box and injecting them with epinephrine or something, and has to pick which one she'll try this on. (Now she is the chooser, inversion of first book.) She successfully wakes up her chosen astronaut, probably just in time to do some crucial two-person task from the binders, everything is looking good, and then they have a sudden seizure and die. OH SHIT.
Arc 2. Now terrified to try waking anyone else up, Cass tries to figure out how much of their mission plan she can complete on her own. She begins the scans of the planet/tries to start analyzing the data already collected. Concludes that the planet is dead but is able to see evidence of ruins/large scale engineering works. Some geekery here about what Earth astronauts can see from low orbit, what's visible from the moon, etc. She considers trying to land the ship but she doesn't trust the autopilot without an experienced pilot as backup. Then she picks up a signal! coming from one of the moons! With the computer's help, she's able to figure out a trajectory from the planet to the moon. Orbiting the moon, she receives instructions of how to access a tunnel to a hidden base, encoded the same way as the original blueprints for the ship. She records and sends a last message in case this is a one-way trip. She flies the ship down into the tunnel and lands in an enormous landing bay. There's another ship here, badly damaged. (Probably a whole chapter of investigating this ship and trying to imagine what kind of beings built it.) Let's say they have some kind of drones or rovers with them - she sends one through The Mysterious Airlock but the signal cuts out. Decides to go herself. Records another last message and begs the computer to wake up another astronaut if she isn't back in some period of time. (Computer is still like "yes I'm trying".)
Arc 3. HOLY SHIT, ALIENS. There are three of them (mirroring Cass, Mitsuko, and Emilio) and not all that humanoid, but they're able to set up a communications protocol based on the blueprint encoding. Cass eventually realizes that they are juveniles like she is or even younger (inversion of her being the youngest) and they eventually show her the bodies of many more of their kind lying in state in a cave or something - they're the last survivors of a terrible catastrophe, and the blueprint broadcast was a desperate attempt to get humans (who they were aware of) to come rescue them. These three were born there in the base and never knew their homeworld but they have, like, massive archives and gene banks and shit - basically every reason to think they could plausibly keep their species alive, in an enclosed artificial environment on Earth. But then - another astronaut is awake! And they want to steal the data but leave the alien kids behind, but they're willing to bring Cass home if she'll side with them! Basically it turns out there were factions and various double-crossing (that explain all the loose ends from book one, you can tell I'm not very interested in this part) and Luka was supposed to be in Cass's role but either he set it up somehow so that she would go instead, or he knew that she was going to wake up and be in this position of being so alone, and that's what he was being so weird about. He's not an alien in disguise because that's just dumb. Anyways, Cass faces the question of whether she's more loyal to a fellow human or to the common curiosity about the universe she shares with the alien kids, and obviously it's the alien kids, so by trusting them and working together (independence vs community! drink!) they're able to shut the bad astronaut in with the dead aliens to die or something.
Arc 4. At this point, there are three empty slots in the hibernation boxes and four people (brief engineering montage to kludge a box into something an alien can use). (Also let's say there was a touching funeral for the dead astronaut somewhere in arc 3, maybe they're also laid to rest with the alien dead, that's a good beat.) WHAT TO DO. It's unclear whether the remaining two astronauts could be woken up safely on Earth or whether they're brain damaged or what. Cass considers whether they would be willing to give their lives to save the last survivors of this alien race if they knew - she could wake one up the way she woke up the first one and see if they agree, although if not, she'd be a murderer. But they probably would put her life ahead of theirs because she's young! But when she joined the crew she agreed to take the same risk they did! Ultimately she decides to try to survive the trip home without a box and give the three boxes to the aliens - with salvaged and scavenged alien tech, she thinks she can manage to make the ship's life support systems last just long enough to get her home, if nothing goes wrong, if she can survive the drive activation without the box. But just like the big decision at the end of the last book, she decides this is what she has to do. Montage chapter to finish the book: she's managed to start translating some of the alien archive data while alone in the ship for the six months home, and she gets to *hear their music*, and it's all worthwhile, and she's, like, *not doing well* physically, but the ship announces they're approaching Earth, and she hopes to at least see her family again even if she's never able to walk/see/whatever again, and to be there when the alien kids wake up and see Earth.
... I really enjoyed that book I just imagined reading, damn.
My more interesting sequel plot outline behind a cut, for my own amusement: End the previous book on her going into the hibernation box - there is no revelation about Luka. Start this one with her waking up out of it. They're approaching the exoplanet. Cass is awake on schedule. Nobody else is. (Bam, there's the theme of isolation vs community back.) Our initial arc is just "holy shit I'm so fucking alone" plus trying to work with the computer to figure out why nobody else is waking up (computer keeps saying everything is normal) plus frantically flipping through the protocol binders to do everything that the entire crew was supposed to be doing (getting the ship into orbit, setting up whatever communications protocols they were going to try to use to broadcast information back). Eventually Cass comes up with a medically dubious plan to try to wake someone up by manually draining the box and injecting them with epinephrine or something, and has to pick which one she'll try this on. (Now she is the chooser, inversion of first book.) She successfully wakes up her chosen astronaut, probably just in time to do some crucial two-person task from the binders, everything is looking good, and then they have a sudden seizure and die. OH SHIT.
Arc 2. Now terrified to try waking anyone else up, Cass tries to figure out how much of their mission plan she can complete on her own. She begins the scans of the planet/tries to start analyzing the data already collected. Concludes that the planet is dead but is able to see evidence of ruins/large scale engineering works. Some geekery here about what Earth astronauts can see from low orbit, what's visible from the moon, etc. She considers trying to land the ship but she doesn't trust the autopilot without an experienced pilot as backup. Then she picks up a signal! coming from one of the moons! With the computer's help, she's able to figure out a trajectory from the planet to the moon. Orbiting the moon, she receives instructions of how to access a tunnel to a hidden base, encoded the same way as the original blueprints for the ship. She records and sends a last message in case this is a one-way trip. She flies the ship down into the tunnel and lands in an enormous landing bay. There's another ship here, badly damaged. (Probably a whole chapter of investigating this ship and trying to imagine what kind of beings built it.) Let's say they have some kind of drones or rovers with them - she sends one through The Mysterious Airlock but the signal cuts out. Decides to go herself. Records another last message and begs the computer to wake up another astronaut if she isn't back in some period of time. (Computer is still like "yes I'm trying".)
Arc 3. HOLY SHIT, ALIENS. There are three of them (mirroring Cass, Mitsuko, and Emilio) and not all that humanoid, but they're able to set up a communications protocol based on the blueprint encoding. Cass eventually realizes that they are juveniles like she is or even younger (inversion of her being the youngest) and they eventually show her the bodies of many more of their kind lying in state in a cave or something - they're the last survivors of a terrible catastrophe, and the blueprint broadcast was a desperate attempt to get humans (who they were aware of) to come rescue them. These three were born there in the base and never knew their homeworld but they have, like, massive archives and gene banks and shit - basically every reason to think they could plausibly keep their species alive, in an enclosed artificial environment on Earth. But then - another astronaut is awake! And they want to steal the data but leave the alien kids behind, but they're willing to bring Cass home if she'll side with them! Basically it turns out there were factions and various double-crossing (that explain all the loose ends from book one, you can tell I'm not very interested in this part) and Luka was supposed to be in Cass's role but either he set it up somehow so that she would go instead, or he knew that she was going to wake up and be in this position of being so alone, and that's what he was being so weird about. He's not an alien in disguise because that's just dumb. Anyways, Cass faces the question of whether she's more loyal to a fellow human or to the common curiosity about the universe she shares with the alien kids, and obviously it's the alien kids, so by trusting them and working together (independence vs community! drink!) they're able to shut the bad astronaut in with the dead aliens to die or something.
Arc 4. At this point, there are three empty slots in the hibernation boxes and four people (brief engineering montage to kludge a box into something an alien can use). (Also let's say there was a touching funeral for the dead astronaut somewhere in arc 3, maybe they're also laid to rest with the alien dead, that's a good beat.) WHAT TO DO. It's unclear whether the remaining two astronauts could be woken up safely on Earth or whether they're brain damaged or what. Cass considers whether they would be willing to give their lives to save the last survivors of this alien race if they knew - she could wake one up the way she woke up the first one and see if they agree, although if not, she'd be a murderer. But they probably would put her life ahead of theirs because she's young! But when she joined the crew she agreed to take the same risk they did! Ultimately she decides to try to survive the trip home without a box and give the three boxes to the aliens - with salvaged and scavenged alien tech, she thinks she can manage to make the ship's life support systems last just long enough to get her home, if nothing goes wrong, if she can survive the drive activation without the box. But just like the big decision at the end of the last book, she decides this is what she has to do. Montage chapter to finish the book: she's managed to start translating some of the alien archive data while alone in the ship for the six months home, and she gets to *hear their music*, and it's all worthwhile, and she's, like, *not doing well* physically, but the ship announces they're approaching Earth, and she hopes to at least see her family again even if she's never able to walk/see/whatever again, and to be there when the alien kids wake up and see Earth.
... I really enjoyed that book I just imagined reading, damn.
