even if she’s never fully redeemed or repaired. Their relationship is a tenuous one, brought about entirely by circumstance, but it serves to reveal Isadora’s humanity. While the full revelation of history does a lot to explain (if not necessarily justify) her situation, it’s her connection to Iphedeiah that ultimately demands our forgiveness for what she’s done. Once she hits rock bottom, however, the story begins to turn, although it’s abundantly clear that salvation is to be hard-earned.Įventually, Isadora manages to become a sort of awkward, conflicted, flawed anti-hero. The main narrative is constantly interrupted by fragmented memories and snippets of dreams that first drag down our opinion of her even further, before building the context we need to understand the choices that brought her to her situation. While it’s not quite a stream-of-consciousness tale, the first half of the novel almost reads as if it were written by a drug-addicted young woman on the run. Part of the appeal is the compulsion to understand what brought her so low, but a larger part of it is the deft plotting and cleverly construction narrative that comprises her tale. As immediately unlikeable as she is, there’s something indefinable about her that drags you into the story, despite your better judgement. We first meet Isadora as a failed assassin, become mired in her drug addiction, and then watch helplessly as she prostitutes herself for another hit. Its central character is a broken young woman who has been reduced to the life of crime in order to support her drug habit. Isadora DayStar is grim and gritty tale, one that creatively challenges the conventions of genre storytelling. This is a redemption story that happens to be set in a science fiction world. It's science fiction, but that's probably more of a setting than an actual necessity. In spite of the scene in Isadora's memories with her commanding officer kissing her senseless, this is not a romance in any way, shape or form. But quite a bit of how that story resolved was a surprise. Of course saving the girl she's stranded with keeps her alive. When the Isadora's escape ship crashes, fate intervenes. We see her memories and know that Isadora believes she deserves her fate. The worst part is, she doesn't think there's anything left for her except complete degradation and death. She starts out at the bottom, and she knows she's hit bottom. Then her ride off-planet gets shot out from under her, and her fellow crash victim is a teenage girl with a whole lot of attitude the daughter of that cop Isadora killed.Īre they going to save each other, or kill each other? And who shot the ship?Įscape Rating B: Isadora's story is not for the faint of heart. The target, well, she thinks she got him. The contractor is a liar and a cheat, and she knows it. It's a place where too many people in too many low places remember her none too fondly. Isadora takes what she knows is a bad job on the planet Nova Cheiros. They don't get to negotiate terms, either. Assassins who don't complete their assignments don't get to pick their targets. She tells herself that she wasn't all that great of a soldier, and she's not all that great of an assassin, either. She admits that to herself in her coherent moments. And since the military taught her how to kill, Isadora Daystar has become an assassin.īut she's not terribly good at it. One who will do anything to get her next fix. ![]() Isadora Daystar has fallen from being a Sergeant-Major to being a drug addict. In her memory (and it is obvious that she is remembering something in her past) Isadora's commanding officer Renan, chews her out, expresses his disappointment, turns off the cameras in her cell, and kisses her senseless.Īnd that's the last good memory Isabella seems to have. In the very opening of Isadora Daystar, Isadora's life takes a different path. ![]() The difference was that Starbuck fulfilled hers, however strangely that turned out. Starbuck also screwed up a lot, but had incredible potential. ![]() ![]() Her commanding officer is paying her a visit, disappointed that she's messed up, again.Īt first, Isabella reminded me of Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. Isabella is a soldier, and she's in the brig for screwing up. The reader's introduction to Isadora has a familiar feel to it. Barrington, this one time, Isadora Daystar finally manages to come up aces. But being the title character of this science fiction novel by P.I. As a human being, Isadora Daystar barely managed to a half-assed job at every single thing she tried in her life.
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