Star Splitter - Patrick J. Kirby

 

State Book Award

With all of the possible professionalism that I can muster, I am only able to truly articulate my feelings

on this book in one way: This book f**king sucks. That may seem like an extreme reaction, but I have

not read a book in a while that sets itself up for a literary “slam-dunk,” just to drop the ball and land flat

on its face. The concept alone is enough to keep the reader’s attention through the novel, but it never

does anything truly interesting or meaningful after the initial concept is explained. The plot is

kickstarted by the idea that we have figured out how to “teleport,” but teleportation in this version of

the future involves, essentially, 3D printing another body, and having your previous body destroyed.

Then your downloaded conscience would then be uploaded to your brain so you would retain any

memories that you had, up to that point. The problem lies in the fact that the author has introduced an

insanely intriguing premise where the protagonist of the story questions the morality and practically of

printing someone’s body and their conscience being uploaded into that new body. The author hints at

the idea that the government is in control of the entire process, which hints at a very dystopian timeline

with infinite possibilities of conflict where there are people against the idea of teleportation. And, it

doesn’t take long to reach the conclusion that due to how teleportation works, humans are effectively

immortal. Then, the protagonist meets a previously printed version of herself. And with that entire

engaging premise that could develop into the ethics of immortality, and then spends the rest of the

novel focusing on teenage melodrama until the plot comes crashing back in and the entire plot is

basically reset back to the status quo. I think that this novel disappointed me more than anything

because it sets up such an interesting concept, but spends too much time focusing on needless

character drama rather than the fact that the characters are literally stranded on an alien-planet with

little chance of survival and entire chapters in this book is reserved for the protagonist literally arguing

with themselves. 

It’s hard for me to recommend this story because it was a huge disappointment. I think this would be a

great read for students who are interested in the sci-fi/dystopian genre. I think this book has a great

setup for a sci-fi or dystopian setting and reminds me a lot of the movie Alien. I also think that this

book having won multiple awards that my issues with the book may be a more personal issue. This

would be a great novel to recommend to any student who is interested in studying science fiction or

dystopian literature, especially for writing, because it has a lot of the “dos and don’ts” of creating a

good sci-fi story. I think that using this book for world building as an example would be the most

optimal option.

★☆☆☆☆
⅕ stars, did not like.