When I found Gareth L. Powell a few years ago, I was excited. More space opera, just as I was starting to bend back towards the subgenre! Yet the two books I read by him, while they have become fonder memories in my mind, didn’t stay with me the way I thought they might. Future’s Edge seems doomed to repeat this fate, for it has all the makings of an excellent space opera without any of the heat or edge that would make it truly great. Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for the eARC.

Ursula Morrow is an archaeologist. However, a mishap with a dormant device from an alien species ships her back to Earth. Altered at a genetic level, Ursula endures prodding and poking before finally being released on her own recognizance—only for mysterious, implacable aliens to destroy Earth that very day. Bad luck! Now living on a backwater refugee planet, Ursula tends bar and ponders what the future might hold. Then a man from her past arrives in town claiming she holds the key to humanity’s—nay, sentient life in this arm of the galaxy’s—salvation.

Future’s Edge feels like it’s riffing, intentionally or otherwise, on so many other science-fiction stories. Titan A.E.: Earth being destroyed, humanity scattered, ragtag band of misfits looking for a weapon that can turn the tide against a mysterious alien enemy. Revelation Space: the Cutters are basically the Inhibitors. Andromeda, Wayfarers, or any number of ship AI-embodied-as-gynoids stories: Crissy. And yes, fundamentally, most science fiction is a remix of old tropes because nothing is original … yet Future’s Edge feels like that, even more so. Powell even has Ursula hang a lampshade on being the namesake of Ursula K. Le Guin!

 Whether this annoys or delights you (or, frustratingly, both in my case) is up to your sensibilities. I found this book charming, if somewhat predictable and unsatisfying in the neat and tidy way everything gets wrapped up. There was precisely one moment of devastating emotional attachment me for me (if you read the book, I think it’ll be obvious what I am referring to, but basically it involves one character sacrificing themself for another)—yet I honestly don’t enjoy how the final act alters that sacrifice.

If I had to pinpoint a particular highlight of the story, it’s a sequence where Ursula gets to hang out with Crissy’s avatar and they bond. She’s Jack’s ex; Crissy is Jack’s wife, and Powell plays everything exactly the way you would expect—delightful, yet also part of the book’s problem.

Put simply, this book is too safe. Powell doesn’t take any risks here with his storytelling. From the Cutters to the mysterious alien weapon at the heart of the book’s climax (the Crucible from Mass Effect anyone?) to Ursula’s own ambivalence about her alien alterations, this is a story steeped in science-fictional tropes yet unmoored from any particularly compelling logic of its own design. It’s paint by numbers.

Now, paint by numbers can be satisfying! I really don’t want to damn this book with faint praise, because I think it’s good and well worth your attention if you like space opera with a hint of melodrama. At the same time, I struggle to string together any superlatives about this book. It’s fine, good even. But it’s safe, unassuming, and doesn’t ask you to think too hard about anything. Comfort food? I guess. A tasty snack, yet one that has me looking around for a more substantial meal.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.