Dave Dobson's Kenai, a Novel Worth the Trees

You can get away with a lot in a novel when the protagonist is funny. In Kenai, the winner of the third Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), author Dave Dobson introduces us to Jess Amiko, a disgraced space marine working security on a backwater planet who has lost everything but her sense of humor.

Amiko takes a job protecting an archeological dig on Kenai, a planet "at the ass-end of Council space" that hasn't been occupied by sentients for thousands of years. Sounds like easy money. Before readers discover how much trouble she's in -- which spoiler alert is a lot -- we discover her aptitude for wry observations and acronyms.

The meals here were a step up from Patrol rations. More like a few flights of steps. I had eaten something called Protein, Brown for a couple weeks straight back on Entan IV. You don't forget something like that.

My dislike of the situation added another few layers of I-don't-like-this on top of what was already a pretty big pile of this-is-skogged.

A thought occurred to me. If this was the person who left me the note in the pit, the person I was supposed to meet, it was fair to say that it had gone exceedingly poorly, and I was almost definitely MSTBFO. That was an acronym popular among grunts, particularly those who'd seen action. More screwed than before following orders.

The novel has three distinct acts. In the first, Dobson splits time between Jess dealing with a sneak attack on the dig and flashing back to how she ended up a convicted and friendless war criminal. The tone shift is effective. Meeting a tormented protagonist while reliving her torment enriches the emotional resonance.

Dobson's previous science fiction novel Daros is an absolute romp. This one's darker but leavened with amusing moments and dialogue. There's a dense mystery to unpack, an unexpected encounter with a sentient species that shouldn't exist and the jeopardy of nefarious corporate space mercs who always have Jess outgunned.

Without spoiling anything, the second act begins when Jess learns why a friendly three-legged tree man is always talking in circles. She's thrown into a mind-bending situation that did such a number on my brain I was glad to already be invested in Jess. I had to take it on faith that I would eventually understand what was going on, even if everyone in the book was getting there way before me.

For a while Jess also couldn't see the forest for the trees.

"We have to be careful communicating."

"What? Why ..." I didn't know how to finish. "Is something watching us?"

"After a fashion. You're almost there. You've almost got it." He came closer.

"I'm not sure I want it."

The novel has a small number of central characters. The first and third acts spend a lot of time in the protagonist's head, while the second is perhaps too dependent on dialogue. The planet Kenai is a playground of big ideas. The most important relationship in the book tugs the heartstrings. There are four different passages I highlighted in Kindle that I can't share here because they reveal too much, but they gave me all the feels.

Fellow SPSFC reviewer Hatboy calls the novel "clever without being caught up in its cleverness," which is an apt way of describing it. Everything develops from character and story. It is never zany.

I read Daros as a judge in the first SPSFC and thought it would go far. It was entertaining as hell, but I can understand why Kenai went further. You can see Dobson becoming more ambitious as an author.

SPSFC · SPSFC 3 · Dave Dobson · First Contact · Space Opera ·

2024/07/25 · Link

Comments

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you enjoyed Jess and her adventures. I would love to know what four passages you highlighted - feel free to drop me an email if you want.

#1 · Dave Dobson · 2024/07/25

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