So the As*trobiologists series has hit a kind of anniversary, because Cyber Vacation is already the tenth (!!!) book in the series. And the further it goes, the more Olga Gromyko focuses on characters who, in the earlier books, only flickered in the background. Though you can’t really call Roger Sakai—now a police officer, formerly a buccaneer of the space seas—a truly second-rate character.
No, Roger was practically the main antagonist at the very beginning of the whole story. And after becoming a cop (well, who can catch pirates better than an ex-pirate?), he also popped up in the adventures that followed.
The new book is, on the one hand, a collection of novellas, each with its own small story—and on the other hand, one investigation that our dashing Roger has to carry out.
In fact, he came to the planet Cassandra—populated mostly by sentient cyborgs—not for work at all. He was planning to spend a pre-wedding vacation here, but at the last moment his fiancée couldn’t make it. So Roger goes looking for something to do, so he doesn’t just sit around twiddling his thumbs out of boredom.
And everything would be fine, if there weren’t other people here who also want to play detectives—including the protagonists of the previous book in the series, Karma. Only there they were already young, but still adult fighters. And the story of Cyber Vacation throws us a few years earlier, when these two goofballs of both sexes are already very combative, but for now they cause more trouble than they’re worth. Put that energy to peaceful use, as the saying goes.
The main plot more or less revolves around a detective investigation where it isn’t immediately clear who the victim is, or which side is the injured party. And stylistically the book is closer to the novel See you on Cassandra!, which took place in the very same location just a few years earlier.
The similarity is also that once again there are a lot of active characters—another kind of ensemble show made up of the entire pantheon of the series’ characters. The only ones pushed into truly “regular” leading roles are Roger and an inseparable pair of wildly hyperactive teenagers (one human kid, one underage cyborg).
As it seems to me, this whole circus of characters backfires here, because the narrative focus gets blurred, and the main detective thread periodically slips into the background. And if it’s been a while since you read the earlier books, this abundance of characters starts to wear you out: they don’t get enough proper “screen time,” so you simply lose track of all the subtleties of their relationships and who is who. There are a lot of characters, and each one is trying to grab a piece of the book for themselves.
It’s still an easy read, but following the adventures isn’t as fun anymore. I caught myself thinking that while I couldn’t tear myself away from the first books, here I’m reading more out of inertia—just to see how it all ends. I had questions about Karma too, but there the second volume straightened things out. Here, even the main detective line isn’t that gripping, and the side adventures sometimes feel downright shoehorned into the main plot.
Still, the book lets you spend a few pleasant evenings and take your mind off all the darkness that surrounds us these days.
My rating: 3.5/5
