Metallic Realms
The autofictional element of the text is altogether fascinating. Michael Lincoln is an inversion of Lincoln Michel ... Michael’s comments on fiction and creating art deeply resonate for their authenticity ... Gut-punching honesty gives Metallic Realms its soul. That’s essential because Michael, as a narrator, is a lot to handle. He’s off-putting in the most hilarious ways ... Michael says that SF reflects our present reality, and I felt that deeply by the time I reached the novel’s end—the thin veneer of academic analysis at the beginning of Metallic Realms steadily evolves into an examination of what it means to make anything creative when life conspires against us ... While Metallic Realmsis described as an 'inventive romp through realms real and unreal,' it’s also heartbreaking: Michael’s motivation to capture The Star Rot Chronicles and the Orb 4’s is grounded in an unconditional love for his friendship with Taras, to the point that it destroys his career prospects, livelihood, and social life ... Michael is unlikeable and, in some ways, unredeemable, but he’s also loveable and tragic, which makes his eccentricities fascinating to follow on the page ... The turn at the novel’s end is sudden, albeit foreshadowed, and a part of me would have loved to have spent more time with this narrative shift to observe the person Michael becomes ... Michael occasionally feels like a caricature of himself ... The moments of realness are refreshing and grounding ... A genre-bending examination of friendship, obsession, and creativity that moves between SF, autofiction, and experimental literature with clear intent. I left this book feeling both assured of the future of storytelling and lamenting the realities of writing fiction today.
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Exciting and tragic and funny and bewildering and just plain wonderful.
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This love affair with [Orb 4] (and Taras) drips off every page, leaks from every flattering paragraph to the point where the reader is slapped in the face at how clueless and hapless Michael really is and nothing seems to bring him to reality with these facts ... There are short stories slipped between the pages that take place within the Metallic Realms, each one a loving tribute to authors such as Heinlein, Clark, Asimov, and Piper. Each story is a riveting intermission so good that the reader really doesn’t want to go back to the 'reality' of the Orbit 4 group and the main story. Not that the story of the Orb 4 and Michael’s silent love affair isn’t well written, it’s that the short story intermissions are far more enjoyable ... Lincoln Michel is an excellent writer, for sure, but no matter how well written, the narrator of this book is so inept and obviously mentally unwell that it can be off-putting to the reader. His narrative style is so full of cringy adoration that it sometimes makes the story a bit of slog. It’s rather jarring to go from a soap-opera narrated by a hapless romantic to inventive and fun sci-fi and back again. It is an excellent idea for story, but the execution here leaves much to be desired ... All in all, if the reader loves a well-written story starring some rather unsympathetic characters mixed some geeky sci-fi, then give this book a try. Otherwise, pick up an old copy of Rendezvous with Rama and have a rollicking good time.
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