All that Glitters is not Gold: Reviews by jonbrain

New Elysium, by Red_Leasia

So. New Elysium.

Take a journey with me into a far distant future, a future so distant that not only has the human race escaped the boundaries of Earth's solar system, but they have abandoned it entirely. It's a world in which humanity has tread upon dozens of worlds beyond Earth and beyond even the nearby Centauri cluster. The entire galaxy has become mankind's playground, and hyperdrive the source of his reach.

It's a world controlled by the Elites, the ultra-wealthy Neo-Tokyans, who not only command the vast majority of industry, but the military. Neo-Tokyo is the Galactic Empire of the New Elysium universe, but with a catch; there is no rebel alliance. And you know what, it's not so bad living under Neo-Tokyo; unless you become a criminal or rebel group, you're mostly left alone. Mostly. Until the great purge.

In the future, humans learn not just how to shuffle off the limits of their home on planet Earth; they shuffle off the limits of the human body. Cybernetics and prosthetics combined together have amazing potential. You want a weapon system mounted in your arm that shoots electric shocks out of your hands? You can have it. You want dance around in cyberspace for a while? There's an implant for that. You want to scan every imaginable EM spectra? Go for it. There's only one problem; if you decide to do such a thing, that makes you an augment. And being an augment is painting a big target on your back. Well, Neo-Tokyo has all the guns.

Red is an augment. He's one of the lucky ones though; he's neither been killed nor stripped of his cybernetic enhancements. Instead, he's been dumped on the prison planet Helion 7 for the past seven years with most of his military augmentations intact. The poor guy used to be a captain in Neo-Tokyo's navy, but when Neo-Tokyo realized that augments could potentially be reprogrammed and forced to do things against their will, they outlawed all of them, and threw many in jail, even if they posed minor risk. You see, they also decided to be a bit fanatical about the project; suddenly augments were sub-human (or even more sub-human than the non-elite masses) and allowed no quarter. Only jail and eventually death.

Red and his friend Dag are among those poor unfortunates. They wake and live every day in their prison, trying their very best to remain sane. Waiting for death. But that all changes when a new prisoner comes. It's a girl; her name is Ember, and she's a Vesper. That means she's highly advanced and powerful, even beyond Red's own military grade augments. She's the ultimate pilot, and equipped with advanced transmitters. And she might just be their ticket out of this hell-hole.

New Elysium is a well-constructed, well  written space opera in the vein of Star Wars itself. It's an adventure with a latent epic quality that the author seems to have noticed, though more on that later. I enjoyed it a whole lot and before I say anything else, I'd recommend that you go check it out, especially if space opera/adventure is your thing. It's well written, it's well paced, and overall, it's well thought out.

The characters were probably the best part in my opinion. I was immediately swept away by Red and Dag and Ember, not just because they're vibrant characters, but for another reason; they had a starting point. Let me put it this way. I've mentioned Tony Stark before in this thing, but I think that he's one of the better characters that the rapidly expanding Marvel Empire has created, not in terms of sheer charisma, but in depth and weight. When we first see Stark, he doesn't have much going for him. He's arrogant, egotistical, amoral, and definitely not to be trusted. But that's not why I like him; I like him as a character because he's immediately given a reason to change, to put his selfishness aside for another person. He's given a trajectory and he follows it. Compare Tony Stark in Iron Man to Tony Stark in Infinity Wars. It's an amazing shift. And Red is the same. At the start, he's lost hope. He's lost his will to uphold his own humanity and the humanity of others. Seven years of being treated as filth has made him consider himself filth. Then, when Ember walks into the prison on Helion 7, he's given a reason to change, to act, to take his life into his hands. And he takes that chance. Red is a hero that drives the story. If you've been reading these little things, you'll know that that is something that I consider to be very important to a story. The world he inhabits is one he has the power to change, and he does so.