Nucleation by Kimberly Unger
Overall Thoughts: For a science fiction tale, this book not only impressed me with its use of physics, specifically entanglement of particles, but blew me away with its scope of imagination. The characters leapt off the page with such personality, and the book kept twisting and turning with surprises every step of the way.
Plot Overview: The story follows the tale of an operator who works for a corporation exploring the far reaches of space. Helen plugs herself into the company’s quantum entanglement system and sends her consciousness to a “waldo,” where she operates robot machinery in a far away solar system. Her work is fairly mundane at first – eject the payload, which is the necessary ingredients for the nano technology (called “eenies”) to collect matter around that system’s star until enough is reached to build the jumpgate. Except Helen discovers that the spacecraft housing the payload is covered in a weird dust that shouldn’t exist (all their eenies recycle all non-used stuff, so no dust or other matter should exist) but then a feedback signal fries her navigator’s brains. This horrifying incident catapults Helen into a dangerous and wild mystery full of corporate espionage, possible aliens, quantum weirdness, and rivals trying to silence her attempts to find answers.
Thoughts on Characters: Helen, Keller, Ivester, Hofstaeder, and the rest of the cast all felt unique and superbly drawn. Each held motivations that overlapped or conflicted with others to create delightful tension. Also, PTSD and trauma were covered and dealt with in humane ways that made sense to the world and to the reality of how trauma actually affects humans, which was incredibly refreshing to see in a novel.
Plot Impressions: What a wild ride this was!! The plot followed a loose three act structure, and had me guessing and wondering where we’d go next, and just when I thought I figured out the mystery, a surprise unleashed which had me reexamining my theories. I felt that the ending was a bit abrupt, and I do wish it could have been neatly tied up, but then the ending does leave room for any sequels if the author wishes to explore this world and its unique technology again.
Recommend? Yes. Definitely worth the read!
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