Review: Very interesting but seriously flawed
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 8, 2013
In this science fiction/fantasy novel the girl who hacked tomorrow is Tharcia, a troubled 19-year-old with a compelling need to talk to her dead mother.  An ancient, sympathetic being who has her own agenda assists, and Tharcia does what she needs to do to try to make that possible, with unexpected and earth-shattering results.  That's where things get complicated.Reviewing Next History I suspect I'm going to feel/sound polarized.  On the one hand, I did more highlighting than I have for any other book I've reviewed, partly because I wanted to do justice to some of the high concept and complex mythology.  The concept is one of the things I loved about the book, and it reminded me, superficially but pleasantly, of Howard Fast's The General Zapped an Angel, although Next History is a much longer work and has much more to it.  Still, at its best, Next History shares some of the same satirical edge and the same entertaining mix of science fiction and fantasy.  I also loved the sheer inventiveness of some of the events, situations, and mythic personalities, so I give Next History high marks for creativity.I also enjoyed the basic story and sometimes, some of the characters.  That should be a clue: sometimes.  There are strange inconsistencies in Tharcia's character.  Some of the inconsistencies can be explained by unresolved issues with her dead mother and by a fascinating genetic quirk that complicates her personality, but not all of them.  Sure she is only 19, but she swings between staccato street talk that suggests someone much younger and rational discussion with mythical beings that are older than the universe.  At one point Tharcia `plops down on the sand, stares at the horizon with her lower lip pushed out.'I found the writing style distracting.  Articles and subjects are dropped more often than not, and while that might work when it is used as one character's distinctive voice, it is distracting when used continuously in 3rd person.  Also, sentence fragments are frequently strung together, separated by commas, sure, but with a jump to a different subject.  Or a string of items is mentioned, with no commas.  For example: `Her altar candles chalks incense crystals stones essences pendulums are sheeted in ice.'  These stylistic quirks are distracting, as is the occasional use of texting exchanges that require extra effort to decipher.  I'm afraid I couldn't appreciate them in this work, because, frankly, I found the story so interesting I begrudged the extra effort they required to read.I enjoyed Airframe.  I mention this here because one of the criticisms I've read of that book is that Crichton delves too deeply into the technicalities of flight mechanics and safety.  I waded through and enjoyed his expositions on those subjects and thought they were crucial to the story.  However, I had problems with the proportion of much of the exposition in Next History.  At one point there is a detailed description of the science behind a weapon that is about to be used.  The mechanics of the weapon isn't that important.  There are detailed descriptions of the WhaleSong decoding methods and the mathematics of Next History (okay, both of those were kinda cool), and lengthy expositions on what seemed like New Age theories behind universal consciousness.  And others.  The point is, many of these were repetitive and overlong and distracted from the story;  I kept wishing they were in footnotes, because in its most straightforward form, I enjoyed the story very much.  And frankly, I enjoyed the subjects covered in these distracting sequences; it was the interruptions to the flow of the story, and the disproportionate mix of the two that didn't work.I recommend this book for readers who enjoy creative and unusual science fiction and fantasy.  While some of the criticisms above may seem harsh, I hope that other readers will see past the distractions that bothered me to find the story I admired.I received a gift copy of this book in exchange for an honest, non-reciprocal review.