Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Gamble is a research administrator and takes his job seriously, follows the rules and gets work done. With personal matters, he's far more casual, though always careful to keep a distance between work and play. When he meets Flint, the attraction is immediate, but Flint seems inexperienced and Gamble prefers to steer clear of that.

So when he heads up a new expedition, leaving Flint behind, he thinks it's the best decision for everyone. But when he returns, it's to find Flint in dire straits and himself to blame...

 

Book Review

This is definitely one of the more unusual science fiction stories I have read. And not really because of the subject matter—lots of stories out there contain space stations and expeditions into the unknown. No, what makes this story different is the combination of the characters and the style in which it is told. Both took me by surprise, and I wasn’t sure what to think of them at first. But that strangeness pulled me in and I wanted to know what was going on to the point I couldn’t put down the book once I had passed the halfway mark.

The best way I can describe it is that ‘Outside’ is a love story without passion, set in humankind’s far future, when we have (according to this version) pretty much outgrown the need for emotions, if not the ability to have them in at least some small way. Everything is regulated, there are procedures for dealing with procedures, and the top people are not adventurers or explorers, but administrators. Bureaucracy is everything, and that even makes sense in an environment where you have to be able to rely on nobody leaving open the airlock, so to speak, if you want to survive. All of that has some curious side effects, and the author did a perfect job at making that world come alive. Even to the point that most of the book reads like a manual, descriptive but very subdued and sensible, until, as I said, it hits about the halfway mark. But even the events and emotions that come up then are somewhat muted compared to what people today would feel, and I found that as fascinating as it was frustrating. I wanted to shake them so they’d wake up to the reality of what was going on, so they would CARE. But of course, that was the whole point, they didn’t care in the same way I did, and that made them almost like aliens.

Gamble is a research administrator and very organized. He knows the system and his job is to facilitate the scientists’ jobs by getting them what they need—be that equipment, lab space, computer time, or people. He loves his life on the space station, and has no interest in going “outside” on one of the many expeditions with the purpose of getting more data. The station has the number of people he likes, the social interaction he prefers, and he keeps his personal and sex life nicely varied. Work and personal life are separated, and he likes to keep it that way even when he meets and gets involved (well, sort of) with Flint. His assignment to lead an expedition “outside” totally surprises him and he does his best to get out of it, but he can’t. And when he comes back, everything has changed. He is not happy about that!

Flint is a junior exogeologist, and loves crunching data. He wants nothing more than to “go outside” (the space station) so he can discover new worlds, and catalogue new phenomena. He applies for expedition after expedition, but is never selected. And once Gamble refuses to take him with him on the expedition he is in charge of, for fear of “personal entanglements”, Flint’s world collapses and he doesn’t even know why. The suffering he goes through is heartbreaking, and his stubborn determination to keep going despite everything was impressive. The final explanation of what happened is ridiculously bureaucratic, and fits this world Flint and Gamble live in perfectly. It made me so angry!

If you like unusual stories written in an unusual style, if exploring a potential future of humans going out into space is your thing and if you’re looking for a read that is as fascinating as it is frustrating at times, then you will probably like this novel.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Less Than Three Press for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 52000 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	01-October-2014
Price	$5.99 ebook
Buy Link	http://www.lessthanthreepress.com/books/index.php?main_page=product_bookx_info&cPath=95&products_id=