Skip to main content

The Coming Storm (SF) - Greg Mosse ***

It's a difficult task to write a sequel to a successful thriller and make it work as a standalone novel - sadly, this wasn't achieved well with The Coming Storm. It follows Greg Mosse's generally well received The Coming Darkness, a near future SF thriller set in a dystopian 2037 where both climate change and rampant infections have made the world a far less pleasant place and a worldwide conspiracy sets out to wreck modern civilisation.

Unfortunately, this book is way too slow to get started. Most of the first half of the book is just the three principle characters recovering from their exertions in the previous book. Admittedly there are a couple of assassination attempts, but mostly this is decidedly tedious. To make matters worse, the writing style can be a touch amateurish. In just a few pages, a characters hire car is described as a 'powerful EV saloon three times'. And some of the attempts at inner monologue are cringeworthy. For example we get the mind-numbing 'Of course, officially it was tomorrow because it was after midnight, but it was also still yesterday because she hadn't yet been to bed.'

To make matters worse, there are far too many characters introduced to keep on top of them all. As for the SF element, there are some interesting ideas, though it's hard to believe than in just 13 years climate change and new infectious diseases will have had such a severe effect on everyones' lives. There is also one big flaw in the tech - the only mobile devices seem to be next generation smartwatches, which given the limitations of both battery life and screen size seems highly unlikely. Mosse tries to get round this by giving them Star Wars-style projected holograms. But it isn't a great way to read a document... and kind of misses the reality that Star Wars is fantasy - you can't project a hologram onto empty space.

It's not all bad and I did persevere to the end. In the last few chapters we get an impressively engaging build up to a big finish. Suddenly it is tense - there is a lot at stake. And I like the way the book centres on the French secret service, rather than UK or US versions, giving it an exotic feel. Unfortunately, though,  after that build-up the book doesn't have ending. I'd go as far as saying it doesn't work as a novel at all - it's like a TV filler episode between episode 1 and episode 3.

If you've not read the first book (like me), this isn't great standalone - if you have and wanted an action-packed sequel it's a big let down. The series could recover with a powerful third entry, but this addition is disappointing.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mathematics with Love – Mary Stopes-Roe *****

Admittedly it’s early days (this review is written in January), but this, for me, is the surprise hit of the year so far! I approached this book with trepidation, but found it absolutely delightful. It is described on the cover as the “courtship correspondence of Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb”, and contains a series of letters between Wallis and his cousin and eventual wife Molly Bloxham, along with some useful annotation by their daughter, Mary. The courtship itself is not without difficulties, as Wallis was 18 years older than the 17-year-old Molly at the start of the correspondence, and her father, not surprisingly, wasn’t too pleased about the interest of such an elderly suitor, but that isn’t the only reason the letters are interesting – it’s also because of maths, and Wallis’s position in the UK as the engineering hero of the Second World War. (Incidentally, it seemed very strange to see letters addressed to “Barnes” – I had always assumed Barnes Wallis was a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Data Empire - Roopika Risam ****

The central thesis presented by Roopika Risam is that information gives us (and particularly countries) the power to organise, control and dominate others. Although I have a couple of issues with the presentation, this is a genuinely interesting trip through the history of our use of stored information from the earliest tallies to the latest information technology. I loved a quote from Lisa Gitelman that data is is always 'cooked' so 'raw data is an oxymoron'. This neatly underlines Risam's thesis that data and information are not neutral facts, but rather tools that (like everything from fire to electronics) can be used for good or evil. As we are taken through the historical context, it can sometimes be a little difficult to judge whether Risam regards a particular example as bad or good, even when the outcome is disastrous. One thing I didn't like too much is the adherence to a popular science writing approach that has got distinctly hackneyed: opening chapte...
Post a Comment
Read more

Andrew Jaffe - Five way interview

Andrew Jaffe is professor of astrophysics and cosmology at Imperial College, London and director of the Imperial Centre for Inference and Cosmology. His new book is The Random Universe. Why science? I’ve always been interested in science, in particular in  astronomy, astrophysics, and space. One of my earliest memories - back in nursery school in New Jersey, I think - was watching one of the moon launches. I wanted that excitement to be part of my life! I never got to be an astronaut, but I did get to be part of the Planck Satellite team, and was privileged to be able to travel to the ESA Spaceport in French Guiana to watch the launch.  In between, I was lucky enough to have a supportive family, get a good education, and find inspiring teachers, mentors, and collaborators. They helped me model the universe, and helped me learn how to refine those models in the face of experimental and observational evidence. That is, they taught me to be a scientist. Why this book? The Random...
Post a Comment
Read more