Dissonance, the second in the Aurora Renegades trilogy and the fifth overall novel in the Aurora Rhapsody series, follows two distinct yet intertwined storylines. We continue to follow Alex and Caleb as they explore a variety of alien universes. At the same time, we witness a deadly game of chess being played back in the Aurora (human) universe. The large cast of main characters move in a dance of politics and violence that many will not survive.
The aspect of GS Jennsen's novels that make them so enjoyable is the incredible characterization. Every point of view character is a delight to follow. One of the most common issues I find in a series with a lot of POV characters is that I will have one or two favorite characters and then every chapter with one of the other characters is just a dreadful side not that I need to get through to get back to my characters. In Dissonance, we do not even get a glimpse of the two primary characters until the 15% mark of the book. The fact that I was loving the book and felt that I was not missing anything up until that point goes to show how well developed the cast of characters is. Even the two POV characters that I detest were still fun to read. I may have spent the duration of their chapters hoping for another POV character to come in and kill them, but I still loved to hate them.
In the Aurora Universe, we get to see Miriam, Olivia, Mia, Malcolm, Richard, and so many more amazing characters continue their struggle for power and survival. As always with Aurora books, there is just the right amount of political maneuvering in this installment. As the battlefield of intergalactic powers continues to evolve and grow in complexity, we start to see the clusterfrak that is bound to happen in book three between these powers. The cultural and technological (r)evolution is really amping up and I find myself constantly trying to plot out possible routes for these plots to take.
The storyline following Alex and Caleb falls in the more philosophical, contact-with-aliens type of science fiction. We get to meet more alien races and even revisit one or two from previous novels. The best part of the expanding mythology of the series is that it does not negate or invalidate the events of the Aurora universe. Too often in novels the scope of the story zooms out to show that everything previously has just been the equivalent of a fishbowl in the real world. The issue that follows is that if the story zooms back into that fishbowl, everything that happens in the fishbowl feels wildly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Who cares if there is a mean fish killing all of the other fish in the fishbowl if there is an apocalypse out there in the real world? GS manages to keep the importance of the events in the Aurora Universe at the same level despite the widening scope of the mythology and story. The peril and triumph of the Aurora characters feels just as real as the experiences of Alex and Caleb.
A large part in my enjoyment of novels depends on the predictability of events. Dissonance scores exceptionally well in this regard. In terms of the prevos, especially Alex, I have been able to follow along with their evolution about two steps ahead of the story. This is not a bad thing because Im just drawing on past science fiction novels to see find the logical next steps in the story. 3/4 of the way through Dissonance, I narrowed the progression of the Alex/Valkyrie storyline down to two possible outcomes. I guess we will see if I got it right in the third book! As for the BIG revelation, I only manage to figure it out a paragraph before it was revealed, which is much later than Im usually able to guess reveals.
As a Sociology major and Women's Studies minor, I am always looking for representations of diversity in novels. The one area of GS Jennsen's novels that I feel a wee bit dicey on is race. Jennsen has decided to create a society where race/ethnicity is no longer a point of oppression and domination. At the same time, races have blurred over time to the point of being inconsequential. While this is a possible evolution of race, and a pretty nice sounding one, I have concern over the end result when this book is being read by people in our society. We live in a white privileged society, and we are going to read this book with all of our implicit racist socializations. When I read all of these characters that are supposed to be a mix of races and cultures, I end up defaulting them all to white in my mind and I assume I am not the only one that this will happen for. In addition, wiping away all privilege and and disadvantage without commenting on them allows these issues to continue on our own society unchecked (I suggest doing a google search on color blind racism to see where Im coming from with this point).
Despite this concern I have, Aurora Rhapsody continues to score pretty well on diversity. We never have a shortage of incredible women doing incredible things. Not only are there a lot of powerful women, they are all very different from each other. We do not get the short stick of the cookie cutter bad ass woman here. There are a lot of representations of masculinity and femininity throughout the cast. As for queer representations, we have gotten another queer power couple (wooooooo!!!). I won't spoil who gets together, but it is a pretty awesome development. There have not been any transgender characters introduced (or at least this aspect of any characters has not been acknowledged). Hopefully at some point we will see this issue touched on in some way in the future. Class divides were touched upon in earlier novels and those themes continue here. Class is especially prevalent in the short story Solatium (read that by the way. Apogee too. Before you read Dissonance. Do it now).
If you have not gotten it yet, my point is that you should read the book, it is amazing.
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2016
- Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2016
Top reviews from other countries
- Terry DReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2016
Genuine award-winning sci-fi
- Julie HawkinsReviewed in Australia on April 4, 2016
Another wonderful read that left me wanting more.
