Review: Failsafe: A Novel

Failsafe: A Novel by Anela Deen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.75ish

I am bumping this rating up to 3 because of the protagonist with a disability and the unusual relationship.

Failsafe is a book with an interesting premise. Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which an artificial intelligence named the Interspace, along with her minion in terror, The Override, have become sentient and seized control by overthrowing the government. The resulting chaos has wiped out large segments of the world's population. Food shortages abound and in her small community, Soleil (Sol) has dreams in which she sees sector maps that allow her to gauge where she can find food and supplies for her community. It is on just such a run that she is saved, while being attacked by drones, by a mysterious man/augmented humanoid/android who calls himself Echo. The dynamic between Sol and Echo, who eventually depart her community together on a mission to shut down the Interspace server, is one of the best aspects of this book. Though portrayed as a dystopian sci-fi novel in its blurb, the thing that works best here is the quirky romantic angle between an unconventional pair.

One positive thing that I want to mention is that I loved the fact that Soleil is a character with a disability. She has epilepsy but is still portrayed as a character who is brave, has adventures and is successful in her goals. She's a positive example of a character with a disability and for that, Deen deserves praise.

Mildly spoilerish content below.

That said, the worldbuilding in this book is disappointing, and the writing lacks sophistication. Her descriptive/narrative writing flags significantly in comparison to her writing of dialogue and her dialogue is not always great. (Romantic resolution banter: "If you think I do not love you in return, then you're a dummy." Really?) As I worked my way through the early portions of this book, due to the lack of information, I imagined that these characters trapped in a game and that they were seeking to shut down the server and escape the boundaries. But that's my imagining. Where was Deen's? Some aspects roughly sketched out in the world Deen gives us are seriously creepy, like forced pairings (for lack of a better word) between genetically appropriate individuals in order to procreate. (How this genetic testing is accomplished in this crumbling world is undiscussed.) You can only have children with a pre-identified partner who is far enough removed from you genetically. It doesn't matter if that person is aggressive, violent or totally unsuitable. That's it. That's who you get. Sol's identified partner Mykel makes Echo look like Prince Charming. Her mother blithely informs her that after she kicks out a few offspring she can try to apply for separate housing from her prospective abuser. (Dys-Tō-Pia! Shout it with me!)

A further issue is the novel's plot, which is rather poorly defined. Sol and Echo have a goal. They go from point A to point B. There were few significant challenges and there is little character evolution other than the revelation/understanding of who Echo really is. At 200 dialogue-heavy pages, I think this novel would have been improved with better narrative writing and worldbuilding, broadening it out to a longer book. Deen has some interesting ideas for a story here but a better editor would have pushed her to develop this story more fully. Deen is not a novice author and anyone who has written more than one book obviously really wants to write. She has good ideas here that needed to be built with better craft.

I received an ARC edition of this book from a friend of the author in exchange for an honest review.

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