Loki's Ring by Stina Leicht

 Another space opera!  More spaceships, ship AIs (and other artificial persons) as characters, an interstellar crisis, even a ring world.

This one took me a long time to read, and I wasn't sure why.  The writing was good, the characterizations were distinct and consistent, characters were sympathetic, there was lots of action and clear stakes.  So why did I keep putting it down and not getting back to it for days?  Why did I find Doppelganger more gripping?

I think the first reason is the most important, and I'll simply make it by gesturing at the world around me.  If you're reading this in years to come, remember what the first month or two of the Trump II administration was like.  It's hard to concentrate.

The second reason didn't strike me until after I finished the book.  When I thought about the story I'd just read, I realized that at its heart, Loki's Ring is women's fiction.  The central conflict is not between the Norton Alliance and the TRW.  The struggle that drives the book is not Gita's need to rescue her AI daughter.  The mystery is not why illicit miners were trying to harvest something from the surface of Loki's Ring, and the horror is not the dastardly virus liberated by their efforts.  No, the central conflict of the book is internal to Gita:  she has to come to terms with the fact that there was no way to prevent the tragedy that she is haunted by, and she needs to reconcile with her family (including her AI daughters) and her estranged former partner. The mystery is exactly what happened (before our story begins) and how it has affected each character.  The true struggle is for personal growth.  

In other words the space opera elements are merely trappings, in the same way that Calamity by Constance Fay is a romance, even though it features spaceships and scrappy space adventurers and an interstellar villain volcano lair. 

Then it all made sense.  Loki's Ring didn't grab me because while there's nothing in the least wrong with women's fiction, it's not the kind of story that I generally read, and is not the kind of story that generally grabs me.

I have to admit that I don't really understand how all of this works from a writerly perspective.  I mean,  a space opera (or a mystery) without romantic elements or personal dilemmas or character growth would probably be dull.  So why does a romance (or woman's fiction) leave me cold? What makes a story something that I find compelling?   The stakes can't be purely personal?  Hm....maybe that's it.  While the events in Loki's Ring include dramatic escapes from wrecked spaceships, alien attacks, and at least one big spaceship fight -- that's not what *matters* to the characters. What matters is dealing with their colleague's agoraphobia.  Reconciling with their estranged friend.  Letting down their family.  Bringing themselves to say that they're sorry.  Admitting that they were wrong.  You know, the actually important stuff that everyone has to deal with in life.

Hmmm...learning by reading continues.