Reviews

Fractal Noise's core premise isn't unappealing. An abandoned megastructure that incontrovertibly proves the existence of intelligent aliens? Interesting! An underprepared expedition forced to march overland to reach it? A little contrived, but fine. A slowly mounting madness that grips the surveyors one by one? Alright, I can see this be fun.

...and then it doesn't come together. For long, pointless pages, we read too many words describing how the wind-blasted landscape lacks interesting features. The core mystery is never answered to any extent. Rather, the work wants to be character-focused and use its setting as a backdrop to a highly personal narrative, but it lacks any sort of satisfying emotional payload.

Xenobiologist Alex comes across as the least interesting person in the entire book, which is unfortunate because he's our narrator and we're stuck in his head. When he's not describing his indistinguishable surroundings with an utter lack of interest, he's composing overwrought philosophy or wallowing in memories of his dead wife. "If only Layla were here" is a constant refrain, and I can't help but agree: I'd love to read this book from the perspective of literally anyone else!

Speaking of the other characters, their presence did little to improve the work. Alex's apathy to his teammates means that getting their backstory and motivations out all but forces them to turn towards the camera and state it point-blank, making for gratingly unsubtle writing. The arrogant and confrontational geologist is the only one who even slightly interested me, which is a pity because the narrative hates him and clearly wants the audience to root against him. The decision to make his intentionally-unsympathetic self an overweight man who speaks in broken English also made me a little uncomfortable at moments.

Anyway, back to Alex. Perhaps it says something about my dislike of the protagonist that the parts of the book I liked best were the ones describing how he starts to mentally and physically fall apart. Those are genuinely unsettling, convincingly written, and memorable. Unfortunately, Alex's coping mechanism of choice is, you guessed it, dwelling on his dead wife, so we're right back reading about the inconsequential pre-resolved romance subplot I didn't care for.

So what are we left with? An okay setting, a few descriptions that are good before they get repetitive, some colorful bits where Alex's joints start to shatter and his nervous system glitches out. Once or twice, things actually happened, and the book rose to the level of 'breezy adventure story' during those moments. But afterwards we're right back watching the featureless plains crawl by, slowly coming to accept that there will be no answers at the end of our journey - just a yawning void. In this respect, and no other, did I feel sympathy for the cast.