Review of Pathic The Time Stain
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[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Pathic The Time Stain" by Larry Jordan.]
The eight-year-old, who has just tossed the fishermen's catch into the sea, runs from the pier at Isik Asik with two fish in his pockets. At thirty, that boy, Webo, still hides the way he did then, in the Seen-Yet-Unseen that Pathics use. Under the name Wee, he rides on the Hussar Hawk with Pasquale's mercenaries. Asked what people call him, he responds, "Usually it's just 'Hey you.'" Basque Avidin and Offer Dione follow him on the planet Wada Barada, watch him vanish, seemingly right through a vault door, and confirm that he is a Pathic. Livia, his mother, has the Healing Sickness. The scientists Ezz and Heard have already cloned their own minds into little bluish blobs of Healing Life gel on a medical frigate.
The first few pages set on Isik Asik, in Chapter 2, are the best, because they show how Livia has raised Webo in a palm cottage and sheltered him from the knowledge of the Pathics. She keeps telling him, "All life has its time," and he answers that he doesn't like it. I re-read the scene in the frigate lab where, wearing gloves, he lays her gel clone on a memory crystal from Lato Gallos. The gel glows blue, and then pink strands form, "crisscrossing like a snake twisting around an arm." He uses a fork tool to pick up the fused crystal.
Most of the book's history is embedded in the visions that it calls time stains. Even Basque and Qlee fall prey to them. Galia and her sisters, a young Basque, the Ends and the Jaalil all come to Webo this way, "in no certain order," according to Basque. The closing sentence of a vision varies through Chapters 4 to 6 before settling, from Chapter 11, into the final form "In a second it came; in a second it was gone." I have no idea whether that early drift is intended or not.
Part II brings a fresh batch of Pathics. It introduces Ian and Qlee in its first chapter, along with Eridani and Tuari; Karin and Fosse Beau don't appear in person until the last chapter, where Ortho-Than, Basque's old teacher from Part I, returns as well. Bok, Mash, Darcy and two additional Diones are added in the chapters between, though Mash and Darcy aren't Pathics. I had to flip back to make sure Ariel Dione and Des Dione are two different men. The Cast of Characters does not help, since it assigns the same line to both of them, as well as to Offer Dione, Vance Tel and Basque Avidin: "One of the mystical Empaths and a mother of the Pathics."
The Time Stain needed another editing pass. The worst quotation-mark damage is in speech that is missing its opening or closing mark, so that dialogue and narration merge on the page. Names change, too: Heran turns up as Heron, Adora as A Dora and Ariel as Aerial. Webo's tale gets 3 stars out of 5. It's above two stars thanks to the living crystal and the scenes on Isik Asik. One star is lost to the editing, and one to the cramped Part II and a history passed on in snippets, many of which are said to have lasted a second.
I'd give this to an adult reader of space opera who enjoys a roster of named ship classes (the Hussar, the Harriet, the Dragoon and the Raven), not to mention all the pike duels. It is the second book in a trilogy that began with Pathic, and I read it without the first. The pikes and pulse pistols never rest. If you would like Webo on every page, you should know that most of Part II is dedicated to Ian and Qlee.
******
Pathic The Time Stain
View: on Bookshelves
The eight-year-old, who has just tossed the fishermen's catch into the sea, runs from the pier at Isik Asik with two fish in his pockets. At thirty, that boy, Webo, still hides the way he did then, in the Seen-Yet-Unseen that Pathics use. Under the name Wee, he rides on the Hussar Hawk with Pasquale's mercenaries. Asked what people call him, he responds, "Usually it's just 'Hey you.'" Basque Avidin and Offer Dione follow him on the planet Wada Barada, watch him vanish, seemingly right through a vault door, and confirm that he is a Pathic. Livia, his mother, has the Healing Sickness. The scientists Ezz and Heard have already cloned their own minds into little bluish blobs of Healing Life gel on a medical frigate.
The first few pages set on Isik Asik, in Chapter 2, are the best, because they show how Livia has raised Webo in a palm cottage and sheltered him from the knowledge of the Pathics. She keeps telling him, "All life has its time," and he answers that he doesn't like it. I re-read the scene in the frigate lab where, wearing gloves, he lays her gel clone on a memory crystal from Lato Gallos. The gel glows blue, and then pink strands form, "crisscrossing like a snake twisting around an arm." He uses a fork tool to pick up the fused crystal.
Most of the book's history is embedded in the visions that it calls time stains. Even Basque and Qlee fall prey to them. Galia and her sisters, a young Basque, the Ends and the Jaalil all come to Webo this way, "in no certain order," according to Basque. The closing sentence of a vision varies through Chapters 4 to 6 before settling, from Chapter 11, into the final form "In a second it came; in a second it was gone." I have no idea whether that early drift is intended or not.
Part II brings a fresh batch of Pathics. It introduces Ian and Qlee in its first chapter, along with Eridani and Tuari; Karin and Fosse Beau don't appear in person until the last chapter, where Ortho-Than, Basque's old teacher from Part I, returns as well. Bok, Mash, Darcy and two additional Diones are added in the chapters between, though Mash and Darcy aren't Pathics. I had to flip back to make sure Ariel Dione and Des Dione are two different men. The Cast of Characters does not help, since it assigns the same line to both of them, as well as to Offer Dione, Vance Tel and Basque Avidin: "One of the mystical Empaths and a mother of the Pathics."
The Time Stain needed another editing pass. The worst quotation-mark damage is in speech that is missing its opening or closing mark, so that dialogue and narration merge on the page. Names change, too: Heran turns up as Heron, Adora as A Dora and Ariel as Aerial. Webo's tale gets 3 stars out of 5. It's above two stars thanks to the living crystal and the scenes on Isik Asik. One star is lost to the editing, and one to the cramped Part II and a history passed on in snippets, many of which are said to have lasted a second.
I'd give this to an adult reader of space opera who enjoys a roster of named ship classes (the Hussar, the Harriet, the Dragoon and the Raven), not to mention all the pike duels. It is the second book in a trilogy that began with Pathic, and I read it without the first. The pikes and pulse pistols never rest. If you would like Webo on every page, you should know that most of Part II is dedicated to Ian and Qlee.
******
Pathic The Time Stain
View: on Bookshelves
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