Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Tor Books (2011), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 416 pages
Description
Managing utilities on a future asteroid colony, bureaucrat-engineer Jane discovers that a water crisis may have been orchestrated by the Martian mafia and that the colony is also being threatened by a rogue artificial intelligence and a transhumanist cult.
Media reviews
(Starred review) Locke has created a believable ecosystem of struggling, competing, sometimes uncomfortably interacting components, where trust is betrayed painfully, but allies appear unexpectedly. Most of all, this smart, satisfying hard SF adventure celebrates human resilience.
Locke's precariously wild frontier is inventive and intensely realized; her characters do dirty-hands jobs and aren't afraid of making difficult decisions.
Gripping, well-rounded hard sci-fi, satisfyingly concluded while nicely poised for sequels.
(Top pick) Locke has created a nuanced, interesting world and a spectacular heroine.
User reviews
LibraryThing member sylviawrigley
I'm not often one for hard science fiction because ...well partially because my science isn't that strong... but also because so much hard science-fiction focuses on the detail with the result that the scientific explanations and world-building overshadow the story. Too often, a brilliantly
Up Against It is a brilliant counter-example: characterisation and plot shine against a futuristic backdrop beyond my wildest imaginations. It is set in an Phocaea, a low-gee asteroid outpost filled with awesome special effects and deep world-building - all the hallmarks of a real future. The inhabitants are used to this, even if I as a reader wasn't, and tumble through the buildings, grabbing handholds and using their weight in ways that downsiders like us can barely envisage.
I fell in love with Geoff the moment we met him and his friends: a teenager overshadowed by his brother, trying desperately to prove himself to his father and the world. A boy both vulnerable and incorrigible who gets thrown into events and doesn't falter.
Jane is a sympathetic bureaucrat trying to do the best that she can for the asteroid which she calls home, taking tough decisions on a personal and professional level. She has a short temper when it comes to politics and a healthy dislike for the constant broadcast of their colony as Earthside entertainment.
On top of this, the adventure packed plot involving the Martian mafia and you've got a rip-roaring story that had me turning pages deep into the night.
I highly recommend this book.
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imagined world is inhabited by lacklustre protagonists who have low-level conflicts against one-dimensional enemies.Up Against It is a brilliant counter-example: characterisation and plot shine against a futuristic backdrop beyond my wildest imaginations. It is set in an Phocaea, a low-gee asteroid outpost filled with awesome special effects and deep world-building - all the hallmarks of a real future. The inhabitants are used to this, even if I as a reader wasn't, and tumble through the buildings, grabbing handholds and using their weight in ways that downsiders like us can barely envisage.
I fell in love with Geoff the moment we met him and his friends: a teenager overshadowed by his brother, trying desperately to prove himself to his father and the world. A boy both vulnerable and incorrigible who gets thrown into events and doesn't falter.
Jane is a sympathetic bureaucrat trying to do the best that she can for the asteroid which she calls home, taking tough decisions on a personal and professional level. She has a short temper when it comes to politics and a healthy dislike for the constant broadcast of their colony as Earthside entertainment.
On top of this, the adventure packed plot involving the Martian mafia and you've got a rip-roaring story that had me turning pages deep into the night.
I highly recommend this book.
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LibraryThing member klh
This is a really good HardSF urban adventure. The urban locale is a colony of 200,000 inside and around an asteroid in the Sol system. It starts out with teens on 'rocketbikes' and seems like it might be a young-adult coming-of-age story, but it is much more. Shifting points of view between the
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first character(s) and seasoned adults ranging from bureaucrats to scientists to criminals to mutants and even a newly-born Sentient keep it interesting. City management, underworld maneuvers, chases, explosions, and nanotech keep it moving. This story of managing a critical resource crisis in a colony in the asteroid belt while also battling enemies within and without is full of surprises and an engaging, entertaining read. An excellent debut novel. I look forward to more from author M. J. Locke. Show Less
LibraryThing member BobVTReader
A good old fashion hard SF tale with a little bit of punk. Good character development interessting plot and for the most part well written.
LibraryThing member chaosmogony
Not a bad book, but something here just didn't click. There were bright spots, but they were inconsistent and unevenly placed between plenty of stretches which I found myself glossing over. Neither the story nor the characters really resonated with me in the way I expect out of a five-star read.
There were some authorial quirks in the way of telling, rather than showing, and not in that long info-dump way you expect from SF books, but more to the effect of blurting out things that should have been more subtly woven into the background. The setting didn't feel very "real", almost too much focus on Things Happening rather than building a place or people I could care about.
Fans of "idea" or plot-driven fiction will probably enjoy this as a good fun story.
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I've read plenty worse, certainly, but I found myself ready to be done with it. There were some authorial quirks in the way of telling, rather than showing, and not in that long info-dump way you expect from SF books, but more to the effect of blurting out things that should have been more subtly woven into the background. The setting didn't feel very "real", almost too much focus on Things Happening rather than building a place or people I could care about.
Fans of "idea" or plot-driven fiction will probably enjoy this as a good fun story.
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
There was a lot of potential here, and there were parts of the book that I definitely enjoyed, but overall this was a huge disappointment.
The book takes place on an asteroid in our solar system. A bunch of bad stuff happens taht endangers the lives of everyone on the asteroid, and the people
So why didn't I like it? For one thing, the book was about twice as long as it should have been. Huge portions of the book follow Jane Navio, the asteroid's Resource Commissioner, as she does her job. These scenes are boring: she goes to meetings, she does research, she gives orders, she thinks about her family. Her character isn't very interesting. The scenes with her were really tedious.
Locke has come up with a very complicated world, and has clearly created the world in great detail. However, I found the technical explanations to be very confusing, and I never did manage to picture a lot of the technology in the book. For instance, although it was described in great detail, I never really understood how the city inside the asteroid is put together. Some things are described in great detail, but some other things aren't described at all. For instance, some of the main characters ride bikes through space. These bikes are never really described, so I just pictured motorcycles. In space. Yeah.... Also, there are lots of bots, which play a really pivotal role in the climax, but these bots are never described at all. We don't know their size, shape, color, anything about them. So I pictured Wall-E. Actually, scale was a big problem for me throughout the book - everything seemed to be the wrong size.
Four of the main characters are teenagers. These teenagers just so happen to be in the right place at the right time every time something major happens, and they just so happen to save the day 3 times in the book. So in the middle of this very serious space opera, we suddenly have the Hardy Boys. It is just so implausible that these teenagers would be involved in all of the major events, and save the day every time.
So all in all, not the best use of my time.
The book takes place on an asteroid in our solar system. A bunch of bad stuff happens taht endangers the lives of everyone on the asteroid, and the people
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investigating it find out that it is all a conspiracy by a mob from Mars. Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence in the computers that run the asteroid becomes self-aware. That's a terrible summary of the plot, but the plot is ridiculously complicated.So why didn't I like it? For one thing, the book was about twice as long as it should have been. Huge portions of the book follow Jane Navio, the asteroid's Resource Commissioner, as she does her job. These scenes are boring: she goes to meetings, she does research, she gives orders, she thinks about her family. Her character isn't very interesting. The scenes with her were really tedious.
Locke has come up with a very complicated world, and has clearly created the world in great detail. However, I found the technical explanations to be very confusing, and I never did manage to picture a lot of the technology in the book. For instance, although it was described in great detail, I never really understood how the city inside the asteroid is put together. Some things are described in great detail, but some other things aren't described at all. For instance, some of the main characters ride bikes through space. These bikes are never really described, so I just pictured motorcycles. In space. Yeah.... Also, there are lots of bots, which play a really pivotal role in the climax, but these bots are never described at all. We don't know their size, shape, color, anything about them. So I pictured Wall-E. Actually, scale was a big problem for me throughout the book - everything seemed to be the wrong size.
Four of the main characters are teenagers. These teenagers just so happen to be in the right place at the right time every time something major happens, and they just so happen to save the day 3 times in the book. So in the middle of this very serious space opera, we suddenly have the Hardy Boys. It is just so implausible that these teenagers would be involved in all of the major events, and save the day every time.
So all in all, not the best use of my time.
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LibraryThing member DLMorrese
This is a good old fashioned science fiction story. One of the plot threads is about four spunky teenagers, which reminded me of stories like the Hardy Boys or Tom Corbett Space Cadet. Other parts are like the pulp sci-fi stories from the 1940s-1960s — except with several female characters in
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starring roles. I admit, 'Up Against It' did not grab me at first. I started reading it last year and put it aside unfinished after about 60 pages. I picked it up again this week and found I gave up about 20 pages too soon. It's not great science fiction that offers much new in the way of insightful speculation about the future of humanity, but it is a serviceable story about a society on an asteroid trying to remain independent from powerful and corrupt outside forces that dominate Earth and Mars. There's some politics, interplanetary mobsters, and am emerging AI. I liked it. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisCarey
Geoff and his friends on the asteroid Phocaea, just graduated from school, pull of an epic technical hack. They successfully dodge the omnipresent camera remotes of "Stroiders, a reality show broadcasting the lives of the Phocaeans to the entire system. It's a triumph.
It's quickly followed by
And even that is just the start.
The sabotage that kills Carl starts a meltdown of a delivery of much-needed water and methane ice, vital not just to the colony's economy but its survival.
Jane, the colony's resource director, has a major disaster on her hands.
It's also a political crisis. The sabotage might be part of a plot by that Martian mafia to engineer a takeover of Phocaea. Jane has to juggle resources, technical issues, and politics to attempt to avert either mass death, or political takeover by the mob.
The worldbuilding is well thought out, and the characters are interestingly complex. The plot moves along, and is nicely intricate.
But what really hooked me on this one is that it has the feel of The Good Old Stuff, without the 1950s social dynamics. Gender equality and racial/ethnic equality are taken for granted. (Well, standard human ethnic/racial equality. This future sill has its issues. What Locke has done with the Viridians is really interesting.)
It's a great read or listen, and I look forward to more from Locke.
Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
It's quickly followed by
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someone's shocking act of sabotage that kills Geoff's brother, wtih Geoff and his friends, as well as Carl's boss, arriving too late to save him.And even that is just the start.
The sabotage that kills Carl starts a meltdown of a delivery of much-needed water and methane ice, vital not just to the colony's economy but its survival.
Jane, the colony's resource director, has a major disaster on her hands.
It's also a political crisis. The sabotage might be part of a plot by that Martian mafia to engineer a takeover of Phocaea. Jane has to juggle resources, technical issues, and politics to attempt to avert either mass death, or political takeover by the mob.
The worldbuilding is well thought out, and the characters are interestingly complex. The plot moves along, and is nicely intricate.
But what really hooked me on this one is that it has the feel of The Good Old Stuff, without the 1950s social dynamics. Gender equality and racial/ethnic equality are taken for granted. (Well, standard human ethnic/racial equality. This future sill has its issues. What Locke has done with the Viridians is really interesting.)
It's a great read or listen, and I look forward to more from Locke.
Recommended.
I bought this audiobook.
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LibraryThing member capewood
A society of people living in the asteroid belt has managed to mostly free themselves from control by earth. Earth is a dying planet which needs the materials the Belt can provide. The story concerns a growing artificial intelligence in the Belt's computer systems. The AI is aware but doesn't know
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that it is controlling the environment of a society of humans. In fact, it doesn't know anything outside of itself at first. The humans, threatened by the AI, seek to destroy it. Based on the ending, I strongly suspect a sequel. Show Less
Awards
Otherwise Award (Honor List — 2012)
Original publication date
2011-03
Physical description
416 p.; 9.3 inches
ISBN
0765315157 / 9780765315151