Book Review

By Derryll White

Murphy, John P. (2020).  Red Noise.

This novel starts very slow with a bionically-enhanced female ex-soldier out in space mining asteroids.  There is no definite reason for her to be there.  She has clearly been excluded from her former life, is broke and has resorted to her warrior ways at an abandoned military space port, Station 35.

The author never fills out his characters. He creates them, has them do foolish things resulting in mayhem and death, but to no real apparent end.  A lot of pages are devoted to space station architecture but the structure never takes real form except that it is tied to an asteroid and has endless hallways and levels.

The writing does not take the reader anywhere or offer any insights. After 426 pages nothing has really been revealed or achieved. This work is not recommended ever to the most devoted science fiction reader.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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