Tall Boy Sun
A man’s personal misfortunes plague him through his adventures across the cosmos in Neal Holtschulte’s intriguing space opera Tall Boy Sun.
In Neal Holtschulte’s riveting science fiction novel Tall Boy Sun, an enthusiastic gamer is thrust into galactic battles and political warfare.
In the future, Earth is marked by advanced technology, pollution, and alien refugees. Here, Sol dreams of being an interstellar pilot. Instead, he is stuck working on an insect protein farm, missing his ex-wife and children. Then a chance discovery forces him to leave his humdrum life behind, joining his sister, Trudy, aboard her starship. He carries with him a data stick holding top-secret information about a faster-than-light engine.
Long before Sol faces betrayals and space pirates aboard Trudy’s ship, his desperation is made clear. He feels that his family is slipping away and has palpable concerns about making the rent. Even once he leaves with Trudy, his desire to be with his children remains. He grows and is tested, becoming more brave and grateful for what he has. At Sol’s opposite, Trudy is developed in terms of her complicated past. She has history with a prosperous, corrupt corporate-political group, the Interests, and they fund her missions. Although she comes off as cold and callous, her emotional depth is revealed in time.
Moving at a suspenseful pace, the worldbuilding relies on the revelation of pertinent details at opportune times. Its prose is rich and informative, fleshing out Sol’s surroundings in terms of food printers and advertisements flung onto ceilings. His inner dilemmas are also well detailed: During a deadly run-in with an Interest ship, for example, Sol observes that “the shelves of his mind had been tipped, scattering memories across his brainpan.”
As the book continues, Sol and Trudy’s run-ins with the Interests become more catastrophic. And in the book’s climactic scenes, they face a notorious space pirate. But in the course of the story’s wrap-up, some of Sol’s previous traumas, including those related to his family turmoil, are mended in a too-tidy fashion. Indeed, the conclusion is quite formulaic, which is all the more jarring when it’s contrasted with the tense, dynamic interstellar plot that precedes it.
Tall Boy Sun is an absorbing science fiction novel in which a man works to turn his life around while caught in a battle between space pirates and political regimes.
Reviewed by
Jennifer Maveety
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