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Second Skin Reviewed By Tom Pope of Bookpleasures.com
- By Tom Pope
- Published June 5, 2012
- Science Fiction
Tom Pope
Reviewer Tom Pope: Tom is a writing teacher and fiction coach who strives to spark the imagination. As a teacher, he works with tutoring services to help students organize essays and understand literary elements like the point of view. As a fiction coach, he aids authors to develop characters, brainstorm conflict pacing and design worldbuilding.
Follow Tom's BLOG that seeks to find the intersection where fiction meets reality. Through several sections, he shows the forces that surround characters in literature and the screen as the obstacles that shape us in reality.
Follow Here To Purchase Second Skin (Volume 1)
Author Peter
Darrach
ISBN-978-1470101824
Second Skin — What Cost
for Superheros?
In Peter Darrach’s SF novel, Team Commander
Max Cody could lead readers to ask about the cost of being a
superhero. When he asked “What is going on with me?”, his
flashback saw a bright whiteness and his voice heard an apology. That
questioning of an accident to the Astroid Recovery Service (ARSI)
commander whisks the reader beyond the usual story line of a conflict
between the economic interests of a mining consortium or a
protagonist who sides with an indigenous group.
Cody faced
becoming a superhero in a world rooted to more real happenings than
could be found in The Avengers. But those situations usually demand a
cost for the power. When the Greens played God in Kim Stanley
Robinson’s Mars trilogy by terraforming the planet, the cost became
the loss of support by the Red movement and the planet’s
uniqueness.
In Second Skin, Cody’s accident allows the
conflict to include how a space accident might reframe human
evolution, and how a high technological experiment might strike
across the parsecs without planning.
Yet blended within those
issues, Cody falls in love with his navigator Elaine, deals with a
surging Martian independence drive and fights an ice pirate who could
be tied to a political figure in the Martian government.
Those
various conflicts whet the appetite of an audience who constantly
sees a fast paced, multi-tasking world zoom past them.
Other
stories have dealt with part of this scope like, Ben Bova’s Astroid
War Series, or the classic movie Avatar. The exploration of the
economic downturn of the home planet Earth leads into speculation
about how the economic and political systems will follow the
characters beyond and into the stars.
However, author Darrach
could take readers deeper with Second Skin into the exploration of
the wide canvas he paints. What could be the cost to Cody or society
for the new abilities Cody displays? What costs exist to society if a
new evolution has started? What are the costs to human interaction if
Cody has tied into a special accident that changes how people can
travel or control resources?
Darrach has laid the framework
for the factors that fill Cody’s world and his world makes us think
about those issues. Some of us might even simply like the adventure
ride of seeing a new superhero.
Yet Darrach just touches the
surface. Cody’s accident could lead the way to some exploration
about how he developed some seeming supernatural powers. Yet Cody’s
attention centers more on his growing love of Elaine. When he is
threatened by the ice pirate from an attack on the Mars Orbital
Array, the dinner on the array continues without a set of security
plans to counter or discover the nature of the threat. That takes the
reader completely away from the questions about evolution or accident
prevention systems.
Darrach could have developed the man
versus self conflict with Cody’s new powers. Cody’s adjustment to
a new power must have had some play on his psyche. How did that
compare with the ways in his past where he faced and overcame an
obstacle?
While Darrach shows readers the new political and
economic obstacles in the space age, the author could travel deeper
in character development. Cody uses his new powers to thwart the
obstacles that would kill most humans. Cody has to shift gears to new
situations. But Cody never has to adapt to a limitation from his new
powers. As a contrast, the Lady Sula, from Walter Jon Williams’
Dread Empire Falls series, had to reinvent herself throughout the
story to deal with personal and Star Fleet limitations.
Darrach
sets the stage with characters who represent key agendas, but does
not round out those people by showing the impact of competing
interests. Gilberto deals with the ice pirate despite his connection
to the Martian Government. Yet what are his plans to take advantage
of the resources and who would he deal with to handle those benefits?
That’s a missing economic or political faction that could be part
of the complexity. If the new technology would help mine the
resources and place Gilberto in a position to expand his power, where
are his interactions with the scientists working of the tech?
The
ice pirate is a cunning operative to make the Jack Bauer script
people search for counter moves. But his background is a blank slate.
What turned him into a pirate and why does he think he can make a big
move by helping Gilberto?
Other opportunities could include
exploring the technology experts’ concern about how their
experiment might lead to unforeseen problems. How does the Governor
of Mars see the development of the colony without the economics of
Earth? Just how does the community of the planet respond to her
vision?
Darrach has opened the path to explore new issues, and
it’s reasonable not to expect full closure on many of the issues.
Yet once a major item like a possible new evolution or technology is
introduced, the concept should have some follow up. Such a blend
should not take away from the impact of a character driven story.
That blend should be to show how that character deals with the cost
of those concepts.