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trackofwords's review
4.0
From Solaris Books comes Savant, the first full novel from Nik Abnett, who might be more familiar to some under the name Nik Vincent. A brave, adventurous book, it’s set in a recognisable but clearly different world where the Earth is protected from the rest of the galaxy by a shield generated by the minds of certain key individuals. A complex system of roles and organisation keeps minds like these around the world calm and functioning in order to safeguard the shield, but when one man begins to stray from his usual routine the entire system risks falling apart.
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/savant-nik-abnett/
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/savant-nik-abnett/
colossal's review
2.0
A bizarre science-fictional novel with compelling characters and consistent but frustratingly unexplained world building.
The Earth of this century is tightly controlled and strictly regimented to support a strange system of Colleges which host Actives. Actives are a subset of Masters who all appear to be some level of autistic savants and have Companions, Assistants and Students. All of these are regimented by brain chips and an ever-present surveillance, monitoring and scheduling system called Service which is run by various categories of Operators. The point of Actives and why so much of the world's resources are dedicated to maintaining them is far from clear, even after it's explained to us. In fact, the explanation raises more questions than it answers.
Anyway, the plot deals with a Master called Tobe who suddenly starts acting strangely and his unusual Companion-Assistant Metoo. Masters acting strangely cause alerts in Service and the situation escalates quickly, apparently putting the whole planet at risk. Metoo becomes intimately involved in the situation, but she is absolutely dedicated to Tobe and supporting him through the crisis.
This is such a strange book. It kept me reading, partly out of fascination, like watching the internals of a complex machine function without any idea of what the machine is for. There's always the hope that the reader might get some background as to how this world came about, or why the world needs the Actives. It actually feels like there are huge swathes of the book missing, and I struggle to understand if that makes the book better (ie, weirder) or not.
Regarding the conclusion and the central issue of the book, which relates to Tobe's odd behavior and brain scans, I simply don't know enough about profoundly autistic people to judge. I do know that it feels wrong to me, as in a fantastical solution to an otherwise real-world intractable problem. A bit like a novel with a magical fairy waving her wand and curing someone of stage 4 cancer would be on the nose.
The Earth of this century is tightly controlled and strictly regimented to support a strange system of Colleges which host Actives. Actives are a subset of Masters who all appear to be some level of autistic savants and have Companions, Assistants and Students. All of these are regimented by brain chips and an ever-present surveillance, monitoring and scheduling system called Service which is run by various categories of Operators. The point of Actives and why so much of the world's resources are dedicated to maintaining them is far from clear, even after it's explained to us. In fact, the explanation raises more questions than it answers.
Anyway, the plot deals with a Master called Tobe who suddenly starts acting strangely and his unusual Companion-Assistant Metoo. Masters acting strangely cause alerts in Service and the situation escalates quickly, apparently putting the whole planet at risk. Metoo becomes intimately involved in the situation, but she is absolutely dedicated to Tobe and supporting him through the crisis.
This is such a strange book. It kept me reading, partly out of fascination, like watching the internals of a complex machine function without any idea of what the machine is for. There's always the hope that the reader might get some background as to how this world came about, or why the world needs the Actives. It actually feels like there are huge swathes of the book missing, and I struggle to understand if that makes the book better (ie, weirder) or not.
Regarding the conclusion and the central issue of the book, which relates to Tobe's odd behavior and brain scans, I simply don't know enough about profoundly autistic people to judge. I do know that it feels wrong to me, as in a fantastical solution to an otherwise real-world intractable problem. A bit like a novel with a magical fairy waving her wand and curing someone of stage 4 cancer would be on the nose.
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