Space Jargon
This novel is really less about an alien attack than it is about the influence of pop culture on the idea of what an alien attack might be like. The author is well-steeped in the imagery of space jargon intended to make the science of fiction seem realistic without necessarily needing it to be so:
“all Earth Defense Alliance ships were outfitted with reverse-engineered alien technology, including a Trägheitslosigkeit Field Generator, which created a small inertia-cancellation field around a spacecraft, by `harnessing the aligned spin of gyromagnetic particles to alter the curvature of space-time’ or something. I’d always assumed this was just more phlebotinum-powered pseudoscientific handwavium”
Too Much Information
The narrator is intensely self-aware of science fiction tropes almost to the point of obsessive self-consciousness. Which works fine enough for the purpose at hand. However, the narrator’s self-awareness produces some imagery which skirts along the border of being a little too aware of his own unconscious drives:
“Pamela Lightman (née Crandall) was the coolest woman I’d ever met, as well as the toughest. She reminded me a lot of Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley—sure, she might have a few issues, but she was also the kind of single mom who would strap on heavy artillery and mow down killer cyborgs, if that was what it took to protect her offspring. My mother was also ridiculously beautiful. I know people are supposed to say things like that about their mothers, but in my case it happened to be a fact. Few young men know the Oedipal torment of growing up with an insanely hot, perpetually single mom.”
Well, That’s Good News
Science fiction pop culture references dominate the text much more so than science journals. In fact, hard science takes something of a beating. That whole climate change business? You can forget all about going green because one example of imagery almost seems like it could have been written by an Exxon executive:
“Everything I’d ever been told or taught about the state of the world had been a lie. I’d grown up believing that despite our aspirations, humans were still just a bunch of bipedal apes, divided into arbitrary tribes that were constantly at war over their ruined planet’s dwindling natural resources…now I was forced to see our rampant fossil fuel consumption —and our seeming disregard for its effect on our already-changing climate—in an entirely new light. We hadn’t used up all of our oil and ravaged our planet in a mindless pursuit of consumerism, but in preparation for a dark day that most of us hadn’t even known was coming.”
The Pop Culture Trifecta
What is the worst possible scenario one can imagine relative to the concept of an attack by aliens from another galaxy? Oh, and this scenario has to include imagery drawing upon an iconic science fiction movie, television series and video game. Ready, set, go:
“What could possibly be worse?...A mission where you have to blow up a Death Star while being attacked by two Borg Cubes inside an asteroid field?”
