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The Flow of Power
A flywheel stores energy in a spinning cylinder. After eight years of grad school, Margo is ready to give up on making a better one. Maybe she's not smart enough. Maybe her aging advisor is stuck on his own failures and has tasked her with an unsolvable problem. She doesn't really care, until she solves it. The revolutionary Crywheel brings fame and wealth, topples global energy challenges, and drags her into scandal when it starts causing blackouts and car accidents. But, surely, cutting all dependence on fossil fuels must be worth a few dead commuters.
356 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 18, 2023
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December 10, 2024I am one of the judges of team Space Girls for the SPSFC4 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, it is still in the running for the contest, pending any official team announcements.
Status: Yes
Read: 30%
I have heard great word of mouth about the writing prowess of this author, and I do believe I own a copy of The Triangle Age. Just haven't gotten around reading it. Even though I entered this book knowing absolutely nothing about the plot (I never read book blurbs until after I finish at least part of the book), I did have expectations about the writing quality.
To me, the author writes with an eloquent dreaminess that might make readers either love the style or feel it is a tad bit too literary for their taste. Luckily for me, I enjoyed the author's 'voice' so to say and the prose felt very pleasing. I believe this story would make a good audiobook because the prose maintains your attention quite well.
Whether or not it is coincidence, The flow of power reminded me a lot of last year's semifinalist The Icebreaker. Both books feature a rotting post apocalyptic world with scant human population living in boarded up remote cities, loss of technology, a sociocultural return to the dark ages filled with superstition intertwined with socially acceptable 'lost technology', a schrewd protagonist that knows the dangers out there better than most, and a scientist trying to potentially reverse this threat that kills whoever gets too close to it.
Some elements from the book Wixon's Day also overlap with this one. Most notably, the literary prose, a corrupt river merchant guild somewhat being one of the two quasi government forces, and the use of boat ferries to haul people in between towns alongside the river. Most likely it was accidental, but the Scouts in this book that perform recon missions in the dangerous wilds by foot somewhat reminded me of the soldiers in Attack on Titan because they use a metallic wire contraption that lets them move across the dense vegetation. Mortality of Scouts tends to be very high.
Yet another worthy comp for this book was both last year's quarterfinalist and now 2nd time entrant Genefire. Despite having totally different plots, both books offer scenes featuring a doctoral student being screwed up by their mentor in flashbacks that bring added tension.
The flow of power seems to have 3 timelines: present dystopia starring a Scout named Jack, a female scientist who helped design an electricity autogenerator named Margo, and some strange short chapters featuring Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Whoa! Not sure where which role will be played by these two famous invetors, but I felt most surprised.
The most interesting timeline so far is Jake's story where a recon mission to a town upstream is a harbringer of ruining the peaceful life he now enjoys in his town. The Edison/Tesla POV was just 1 short chapter, so we don't know much else. I felt a bit confused with Margo's POV because it seems to divide itself further into 2 subsets where one is her thesis defense and the past (or future?) of her mentor Alistair. The book offers the year of the chapter events which spans over 160 years depending on the POV, but I could never quite discern how the Margo or Alistair POV chapters are organized chronologically speaking.
If there was any complaint I felt so far with the book, it might be related to confusing the timeline POV's a tad bit too much. This isn't a 100% deal breaker because the book's story is advancing nicely and the story has a set trajectory within the 30% point, but the bumps along the way in the hopes for knowing how do these 4 POV's meet at the end can confuse the reader quite a bit.
There is also a really huge recurrence of reminding the reader the popular medicinal/energy source/edible luna trees spew aquamarine/blue/green sap. We are reminded about the aquamarine this aquamarine that at least 3 times each page in Jake's POV chapters. Not a total deal breaker, but some of the text could have been cut out without issue.
In a nutshell, this is a promising book with some mystery mixed with alternate history thrown in. Unlike Icebreaker, this book doesn't have much horror in it and can be read by younger audiences. Voting it yes to continue in the competition.
Status: Yes
Read: 30%
I have heard great word of mouth about the writing prowess of this author, and I do believe I own a copy of The Triangle Age. Just haven't gotten around reading it. Even though I entered this book knowing absolutely nothing about the plot (I never read book blurbs until after I finish at least part of the book), I did have expectations about the writing quality.
To me, the author writes with an eloquent dreaminess that might make readers either love the style or feel it is a tad bit too literary for their taste. Luckily for me, I enjoyed the author's 'voice' so to say and the prose felt very pleasing. I believe this story would make a good audiobook because the prose maintains your attention quite well.
Whether or not it is coincidence, The flow of power reminded me a lot of last year's semifinalist The Icebreaker. Both books feature a rotting post apocalyptic world with scant human population living in boarded up remote cities, loss of technology, a sociocultural return to the dark ages filled with superstition intertwined with socially acceptable 'lost technology', a schrewd protagonist that knows the dangers out there better than most, and a scientist trying to potentially reverse this threat that kills whoever gets too close to it.
Some elements from the book Wixon's Day also overlap with this one. Most notably, the literary prose, a corrupt river merchant guild somewhat being one of the two quasi government forces, and the use of boat ferries to haul people in between towns alongside the river. Most likely it was accidental, but the Scouts in this book that perform recon missions in the dangerous wilds by foot somewhat reminded me of the soldiers in Attack on Titan because they use a metallic wire contraption that lets them move across the dense vegetation. Mortality of Scouts tends to be very high.
Yet another worthy comp for this book was both last year's quarterfinalist and now 2nd time entrant Genefire. Despite having totally different plots, both books offer scenes featuring a doctoral student being screwed up by their mentor in flashbacks that bring added tension.
The flow of power seems to have 3 timelines: present dystopia starring a Scout named Jack, a female scientist who helped design an electricity autogenerator named Margo, and some strange short chapters featuring Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Whoa! Not sure where which role will be played by these two famous invetors, but I felt most surprised.
The most interesting timeline so far is Jake's story where a recon mission to a town upstream is a harbringer of ruining the peaceful life he now enjoys in his town. The Edison/Tesla POV was just 1 short chapter, so we don't know much else. I felt a bit confused with Margo's POV because it seems to divide itself further into 2 subsets where one is her thesis defense and the past (or future?) of her mentor Alistair. The book offers the year of the chapter events which spans over 160 years depending on the POV, but I could never quite discern how the Margo or Alistair POV chapters are organized chronologically speaking.
If there was any complaint I felt so far with the book, it might be related to confusing the timeline POV's a tad bit too much. This isn't a 100% deal breaker because the book's story is advancing nicely and the story has a set trajectory within the 30% point, but the bumps along the way in the hopes for knowing how do these 4 POV's meet at the end can confuse the reader quite a bit.
There is also a really huge recurrence of reminding the reader the popular medicinal/energy source/edible luna trees spew aquamarine/blue/green sap. We are reminded about the aquamarine this aquamarine that at least 3 times each page in Jake's POV chapters. Not a total deal breaker, but some of the text could have been cut out without issue.
In a nutshell, this is a promising book with some mystery mixed with alternate history thrown in. Unlike Icebreaker, this book doesn't have much horror in it and can be read by younger audiences. Voting it yes to continue in the competition.
June 26, 2024
The Flow of Power is an alluring tale, and much like The Triangle Age, one that I will not forget.
The story is wrapped around an invention - The Crywheel. Margo has been working years with her academic mentor, Alistair on research surrounding the F-field. The secrets of the Crywheel can solve energy problems and potentially provide limitless energy for the world.
However...
All is not what it seems as this has unforeseen consequences no-one could have predicted. That is all I will say on the story beats, as this book deserves a reader going in without knowledge.
Like I said on Twitter, the writing is ethereal, it has a quality not matched by many other authors I have read. The highest compliment I can give, is the quality matches that of Disco Elysium (if you haven't heard of this, check it out).
It's mysterious but intriguing, as the reader we are only drip-fed information, David Aumelas makes it work where I just couldn't help myself to read on. He does it in a way which nicely ties together in later chapters, rewarding the reader.
The tale is full of Greek myth and religious undertones. Words such as Synod, Minotaur and Basilica among more meaningful names. This adds another layer to decipher, the subtext being an important part of this story.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Flow of Power, I highly recommend it if someone fancies an eccentric, wild ride of science fiction.
5*
The story is wrapped around an invention - The Crywheel. Margo has been working years with her academic mentor, Alistair on research surrounding the F-field. The secrets of the Crywheel can solve energy problems and potentially provide limitless energy for the world.
However...
All is not what it seems as this has unforeseen consequences no-one could have predicted. That is all I will say on the story beats, as this book deserves a reader going in without knowledge.
Like I said on Twitter, the writing is ethereal, it has a quality not matched by many other authors I have read. The highest compliment I can give, is the quality matches that of Disco Elysium (if you haven't heard of this, check it out).
It's mysterious but intriguing, as the reader we are only drip-fed information, David Aumelas makes it work where I just couldn't help myself to read on. He does it in a way which nicely ties together in later chapters, rewarding the reader.
The tale is full of Greek myth and religious undertones. Words such as Synod, Minotaur and Basilica among more meaningful names. This adds another layer to decipher, the subtext being an important part of this story.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Flow of Power, I highly recommend it if someone fancies an eccentric, wild ride of science fiction.
5*
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews