Review: Surface Tension

Surface Tension by Mike Mullin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A few years have gone by since Mike Mullin gave us the most recent Ashfall novel. Not the last one, I don't think - on his website, he's hinted at a potential future fourth novel, Blades of Spring, which he's been working on for a while. Well, now he's back with the first of another promising new series, this one a little less sci-fi apocalyptic, but no less action-packed.

It's almost Hitchcockian in how our main character Jake Solley (not, of course, to be confused with Avatar hero Jake Sulley - he's heard that joke before, a ton of times) winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time, witnessing a domestic terrorist attack in which the terrorists do everything they can to pass themselves off as jihadists. Though the psychological terror is even more gripping than the initial act of terror that kick-starts the whole story, because Jake winds up with a head injury that makes it so nearly everyone consistently doubts him all along. Even his mother. Really, the only people sticking in his corner absolutely 100% are his best friend Zach and his girlfriend Laurissa.

In addition to Jake's POV, we also get that of Betsy, daughter of the terrorist leader. She's tons of no fun to read most of the time, because she parrots her father's vile white-supremacist, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic alt-right views, like, a lot. (This despite the fact that, like a lot of alt-right types, he's misogynistic and highly abusive too.) She even moderates a neo-Nazi message board and freely refers to anyone who doesn't politically align with her father with a few all-too-familiar ableist and/or emasculating slurs.

I guess it's a good thing that this book kinda flies under the radar of Book Twitter, because there's a lot of people there who would have a lot to say about this book stepping into a racist POV and even finding a way to redeem said racist, on some level. But there's a lot to be said for this book condemning such unacceptable "values" too. Jake and Laurissa, as an interracial couple (white and black, respectively), have a few important conversations on race in modern America, in addition to their usual less-serious geekery (both bonded over being Trekkies and fans of YA fantasy like the works of Kristin Cashore and Tamora Pierce, and Laurissa, in particular, enjoys swearing in Lord of the Rings references.) Not to mention there's a very strong recurring theme of law enforcement being untrustworthy, if not outright villainous, which I'm sure will resonate with many as well. And like I said, Betsy does get slowly redeemed over the course of the story. While I can't speak for other readers' reactions to her arc, it's at least refreshing to see that over time, she's willing to listen to people outside her racist echo chamber and change her ways accordingly.

I was surprised to find out this book was out in the world when it got delivered to my work, which is when I immediately ordered it at the library. And now, that means I can hand-sell it - and that reminds me, I'll need to get us to stock the Ashfall series for hand-selling purposes too.

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