Morehouse, Lyda - Archangel Protocol

[oyceter]

I got Lyda Morehouse's books at WisCon because she was so cool when I saw her on the Feminist Romance panel.

It's a somewhat cyberpunky thing (I'm probably defining cyberpunk wrong and will get a multitude of comments telling me that, but that's ok) that reminds me a little of Elizabeth Bear's Hammered (because I read it first, even though it was published after Morehouse's book) and Sean Stewart's Passion Play. The entire world is being run by religious governments after a furious backlash against science and the secular humanists due to the explosion of Medusa bombs some decades ago. Also, membership in a religion is a prerequisite for LINK access, which is basically the internet times a zillion. Without the LINK, it's difficult to make monetary transactions and get any sort of information. Recently, LINK-angels have begun appearing, which are taken as a miracle.

I love the first chapter of the book, which describes the protagonist's fall from grace and excommunication, leading to a bitter career in private investigation. Then, of course, a stunner walks into the office and proposes an investigation into the LINK-angels, in return for LINK access.

The best part is, the steely private eye is Deidre McManus, and the femme fatale is actually a homme fatale (if you can say that). There was intense, intense love for that scene along, which was pitch-perfect, down to Dee describing Michael's every physical feature and him perching on the side of her desk to tempt her into some scheme.

I don't actually know, because I haven't read/seen much noir at all, but I don't think the rest of the book follows the noir gender role inversions, as it becomes more sf-y and less noir. Also, the rest of the book focuses much more on religion, which isn't too surprising, given the angels. I liked that Morehouse didn't do a straight "religion is evil!" thing; while she portrays the secular as persecuted, I liked that Deidre is Catholic and is still Catholic at heart, despite her excommunication. Her characters feel like they live in a world in which being religious is necessary, and there's no jarring PC-ness to take me out of the characterization.

All in all, I liked it, though I guessed some of the plot twists. But the book felt a little fluffy, for reasons that I can't quite pin down. I think I wanted something larger and more epic to suit the religious theme (ok, actually, I am just a sucker for Giant Heaven and Hell Battle Epics of DOOM), but I don't think that was the book's fault.

ETA:
oursin's review

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Alas, fatale is the feminine form of the adjective. The masculine is just fatal, pronounced differently from English but looking exactly the same. Homme fatal- dunno, I think of aftershave.

[oyceter]

Ahh, gotcha, thanks!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think I'd enjoy this-- who published it? Was it a genre romance, or genre sf?

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Added fun tidbit: the hard-bitten private eye heroine reads romance novels to relax, IIRC. The first book got good reviews from the sf _and_ romanc comms, which I think is pretty rare: http://www.mninter.net/~sprounds/Reviews1.htm. I personally think they're more sf than romance genre, altho friends of mine who've read romance say they see a lot of similarities and tropes.

Sadly the books are ALL out of print now, despite being enthusiastically praised by most people I know who've read them. Archangel Protocol, Fallen Host, Messiah Node _and_ Apocalypse Array have all been remaindered. I recommend all four books highly and think it's a shame there apparently wasn't a big market for them or they weren't marketed right. Her treatment of religion in a hard sf context is especially interesting. She has a spiffy website at http://www.lydamorehouse.com/ which includes lots of fun extras for the novels, some on the home page, some at http://www.mninter.net/~sprounds/mouseltrs.htm, but you shouldn't look at them til you read the novels, if you intend to, because there're some spoilers. If you haven't seen it, her LJ is at http://lyda222.livejournal.com/ and she has some pretty interesting recent posts about switching author names and genres after, as she put it, "a mere five years after I started and all my books are gone."

[oyceter]

I think you'd like it too! It's published by Roc, but it's already OOP =(. I can bring my copies down in July. It's published as genre sf, and honestly, there isn't that much romance, though it does play a part.

I'm halfway through the second book now, which I'm liking much better because it focuses on Morningstar. Whoo!

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Cool! I love both hard-boiled detectives & sf, so I'll put them on the list.

[oyceter]

It does stop being hard-boiled pretty soon into the book and starts being more on the religion bits and the stuff about the LINK, just to warn you...