Solstice / Ulises Silva

Lord save me from self-published books!

This is the second on my reading list from the Feminist SF Top 10 Obscure Speculative Fiction Books. However, in this case, this is one book that should probably stay obscure. Ulises Silva, the author, repeatedly asked his friends/readers to vote up his book. It’s the only generous explanation I have for it winning top spot.

The book has a lot of promise. The premise is that certain people are born with the ability to change reality by writing about it. These Scribes can pen a story, and the story comes true. The other piece of the puzzle is that a shadowy organization consisting of Editors and Researchers exists to check the Scribes and make sure their power doesn’t go to their heads. That’s the set-up. Our plot concerns someone systematically killing Scribes. The Editor organization sends in their best, Io, to figure out who and rid the world of the menace.

One Scribe has really gotten out of control, sending a message to the entire world predicting the apocalypse in one week’s time.

Or I assume that one Scribe has done this. I quit reading before finding out.

Why? The execution of the good idea annoyed me.

The writing is overly florid for one.

Io startled and immediately made up her mind to ignore the call. But her cell phone, nestled in its slot on her center console, continued to blare out. Loudly. Her cabin seemed to amplify its electronic shriek beyond her closed windows, echoing it as a schizophrenic, disharmonic chorus.

Also, the author tends to write in a peculiar passive voice (not technically passive, but might as well be). People don’t do things. They find their legs carrying them places. Hot casings spit themelves out rather than Io emptied the gun into the object of her wrath.

The characters are all over the top clichés with no subtlety to their actions whatsoever. Io lashes out at everything, usually murdering someone in the process. She’s the quintessential angry 16 year old, except she’s not supposed to be 16. Yuniko… pauses… between… every.. phrase she… utters. She’s afraid… to talk… to… anyone. All of Io’s colleagues hate her because she supposedly thinks she’s worthy to judge others. I’d hate her just because she’s a bitch. Their reasons don’t make sense given they do exactly what she does. Not one of the characters made me want to care what happened to them. X-Pac heat.

So in the part I read before giving up, we learn nothing. A couple of things happen with the message about the end of the world. But nothing happens to move the story along.

And as soon as that message gets out, pretty much everyone immediately turns into a bad parody of Lord of the Flies. The world ends in a week, so everyone feels the need to murder their neighbors and set fire to the airport. This is me rolling my eyes.

Thing is, despite the many problems with the book, it could be something with a good editor and a large re-write. Add a little nuance to the characters. Cut the floridness from an 11 to a 10. Move up some of the storyline into the first 100 pages. Do that and this would be a decent book. But in this form it’s unreadable, and I stopped at page 93.

Edit: Read Ulises Silva’s reaction to this review.

Title: Solstice
Author: Ulises Silva
Cover creator: Nicholas DeWolf (artist) / Leda DeWolf (designer)
Imprint / publisher: Tragical Mirth Publishing
Format: Paperback
Length: 342 p. (I stopped at 93)
Publication date: 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-9794513-0-0