Gort Ashryn

by Leo Kunnas

A great number of people have praised this science fiction novel for the well-developed world, attention to detail, and the many emotional layers it contains. I will not do all that, because I am far from finished with this book, but already at 93 pages I have many impressions, and not all of them, unfortunately, are good.

First of all, though, I must admit that Kunnas has indeed probably put a lot of thought into the world depicted in the novel. The action takes place about a thousand years in the future, when people refer to our own time as the Middle Ages. Whatever we currently see as the height of innovation has either become obsolete or so integrated into the lives of people that the latter do not find them the least noteworthy. This is also the case with military technology. Certain space ship models are remote controlled, battles may only take a few minutes, antimatter is da bomb (literally), and soldiers have special battle computers that are synced with their brains. From the accounts of the protagonist we find out that whether the computer molds the person or the person molds the computer is unclear even to those using the things.

Speaking of the military, I see Gort Ashryn mainly as military science fiction, which I find quite engaging, but not all readers might – it takes a certain way of mind to read through roughly 400 pages of military jargon, detailed technical descriptions, and historical accounts. Even I can rarely put up with it, even though I take pride in feeling a sick, slightly perverted interest in everything science fiction.

Arriving at the lengthy descriptions, I can finally get to what truly bugs me about the novel. Even though everything Kunnas presents to the reader is genuinely interesting, the way he does is not. Skipping ahead about 50 pages from where I am now, I found that at least the first 160 pages of the book are spent throwing information in the reader’s face in a “as you know, Bob…” type of dialogue, the kind that one would never encounter in real life, because when talking about opening a door, people do not go on to explain how exactly the mechanics of door opening work. Everyone knows how it works. Furthermore, people do not recount every direction they moved the gearshift in when changing gears driving. It is unnatural, even silly. And yet, the two characters we are presented at the beginning of the novel do so. Surely the technology and the history constructed by the author need to be explained to us, but there are far better ways to go about it. Using dialogue to infodump (a term writers use to describe lengthy, often unnecessary blocks of background information and the including of those in a novel) makes it sound unnatural and strained, also making the reader less willing to receive the information, because it is boring.

Nevertheless, I believe this book will turn out to be quite good, despite the annoying way it starts. I am yet to get to the part where character development starts happening (which is somewhat sad, to be honest), but when that finally happens I am sure good things will come about. Kunnas has carefully constructed a complete world that stands as a whole, which I personally find to be an essential feature of a science fiction work.

And even the aliens (at least the ones I have read about so far) are not cheap purple-skinned copies of humans!

Overall, I feel a little bit deceived, because I was expecting an action filled, character-driven story flavored with innovative science, but all I have so far is a (too) long conversation laden with drily represented facts. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone, because it is an Estonian work, and it is science fiction, and despite Kunnas failing, in my eyes, to bring his world to the reader without throwing it straight in his/her face, it is fascinating.

Thank you for reading!

Triinu

P.S. This is probably my last book review for the Reading Diary contest, but I will definitely keep writing and posting reviews here, because it is immensely fun. I only wish I had more time to read anything outside the school curriculum.

P.P.S I mention this just in case: to prepare myself for a possible future in an American university, I have tried to write everything in this blog in American English, so yes, I spelled ‘flavored’ without a ‘u’ on purpose. ☺

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