As of this writing, there are currently 17 installments of Space & Time, most of which are relatively small (which is perfectly fine, since the updates are so frequent). It follows life on a space station, specifically the life if Jregli, an alien slave girl who has conned her way onto the space station to make a better life for herself. She’s still a slave, mind, which is actually one of the more interesting things about her; she doesn’t mind being a slave, she just wanted a good master, which her current owner (who pretends to be her uncle since slavery is illegal off her home planet) ostensibly is.
There are a lot of really interesting concepts in Space & Time, and it’s obvious that a lot of love went into designing the societies present in the story. The Yerbrans (that’s Jregli’s race) are pretty well thought out, and there’s a lot of really interesting information given to the readers about their anatomy/physiology, their lifestyles, and their society. My favorite concept is their idea of "being defeated," which isn’t so much about pounding someone into the ground as it is outsmarting them without them knowing. Needless to say, Jregli "defeated" a few people to get where she is, and that seems to be the main cause of tension in the story for her so far.
Unfortunately, the nifty things about the story are balanced by a few flaws. One of the things that struck me is that Ms. Rose says at the very outset that she has no idea how to pronounce Yerbran names, so the reader is free to make it up as they go. That’s a little off-putting to me; if the author can’t be bothered to figure out how to pronounce her own characters’ names, why should I read about them? Not to mention how jarring it can be to read names that have some consonant-train-wrecks knowing that the author didn’t have any clear plan for how it was supposed to be read. It just seems sloppy to me, and that’s one of the sci-fi/fantasy conventions that makes me really frustrated as a reader. I understand wanting exotic names for alien races, but give your readers a break and make it something that is relatively pronounceable by a human mouth.
In my original review, I’d mentioned that the pacing was slow due to the short nature of the installments (though the installment length is just fine considering how often it updates), and I’d mentioned some formatting issues. The chapters have all been reformatted and are much more reader friendly now, and the recent chapters have gone a long way toward building a sense of tension in the story, and I am very keen to find out what is going to happen next.
Anyway, overall, Space & Time presents a lot of interesting concepts, and it’s totally worth a look for anyone who’s a fan of speculative fiction.
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